by Russo, Jessa
“Cameron!” But he was gone. I searched Mick’s face. “Please. Don’t let him get hurt.”
“I’ll go,” Rosemarie said. As she turned to follow my brother, Mick grabbed her arm. “Stay. I’ll go after Cam in a moment. He can take care of himself.” He turned to the witch. “Let her go.” He took a few steps forward.
“She’s not restrained, Mick. She can leave at any time.”
I looked down as the ropes that once held me here disappeared before my eyes, first unraveling from my hands and disappearing, then my ankles.
I gasped. Even though I’d known about the magic she used, the curse, her eye color changing from green to brown at will, the way she’d transformed into Mr. Greenburg…I didn’t think I’d ever get used to actually witnessing something so impossible.
Mick narrowed his piercing gaze at the witch, gauging the truth in her words, I assumed, then turned his attention back to me. “Can you walk?”
“I think so,” I said through chattering teeth.
“Okay. Get up slowly and come to me.”
I did as I was told, surprised that I could walk, even though my body was in so much pain from the glacial temperatures and from being tied into a fairly cramped position for so long. The witch giggled, and I ignored her, though something nagged at the back of my mind. This was much too easy. Why was she just letting me go without a fight?
I reached down on my way past the fire, then scooped up an exposed log, one end aflame with a healthy glow. I didn’t have to look at the witch to know she scrutinized my movements, and I hoped she flinched at the sight of something she so clearly feared within my grasp.
I didn’t know what I’d do with the torch—set her on fire?—but I knew I wanted it on my side.
Approaching Mick on shaky legs, I almost fell into his arms. He pulled me into a fierce embrace, then wasted no time tugging off his jacket, revealing another one beneath it. He’d come prepared. I pulled on the jacket as he took the torch, then I basked briefly in the body heat remaining on the interior lining.
I turned back to face the witch. The fire danced off her features, making her red-orange hair glow as if it, too, was ablaze.
I pictured flames lapping at her skin. In my mind, her skirts caught fire first, the flames crawling quickly up the velvet dress. For a moment, I was back at the beach house, flames licking the side of the bungalow I’d once loved—and once forgotten torching. I shook my head, then brought my focus back to the imminent danger before me.
Some memories were meant to stay hidden.
Her eyes were even wilder than before. Did she follow my thoughts?
“What’s the catch?” I dared to ask. “Why are you letting us go?”
“No catch. I said you were free to go, and you are.”
As the meaning of her words sank in, I realized too late what she meant. The fire roared, and Mick was thrown across the cave, iron shackles appearing out of nowhere—as quickly as my own restraints had just moments ago vanished—and strapping him against the cold, rocky wall. The torch he’d held fell to the cavern floor with a soft thud.
“No!” I turned back to the witch, my fists clenched in anger. “Let him go.”
“Oh, no, dear. That wasn’t part of my deal. I said you could go. Not him. I want to keep him for myself. He’s much better than any of his pathetic incarnations, and I’ve grown tired of living alone. Maybe this time the curse ends with your statue in our yard.”
Rosemarie ran to Mick’s side, tugging at the restraints holding him to the wall, but I remained where I stood. Locked in a silent battle with the witch, I held her hardened stare—and my ground.
She smiled a menacing smile. “It’s been ages since I’ve had any fun. Do you even know what it was like for me all those years? Living in a nursing home and pretending to be an eighty-five-year-old man?” She shuddered dramatically. “No. I think it’s time for me to have a little fun. And judging by the way you look at him when you think no one’s watching, I imagine he’s quite good in the fun department.”
Pain spread quickly from my heart to my hands. I took a deep breath, knowing what was coming, and knowing I couldn’t stop it on my own. Not without—
Donovan.
Panic gripped my heart, icy fingers latching on to my biggest fear: losing Cameron. Where was Donovan? Where was Cam?
“You,” I growled at her. “How did Donovan stop the change? How did his touch…?” I swallowed hard, a sour taste building in the back of my throat.
“Donovan had magic fingers, didn’t he, love?” She waggled her fingers at me, speaking with Donovan’s heavy accent. The answer was in the question. Magic. She’d made him the only one with the ability to pull me from the edge of the change. It had all been part of her plan.
But why? Why do this to her son? The only companion she’s had all these years? Didn’t they see?
As my hands fisted at my sides and my skin felt pulled taut against my trembling muscles, I longed for his help. I remembered the way I felt when he’d touched me, as if I couldn’t live without that connection to him. And though I wished he’d stop the change now, I knew he wouldn’t, and the thought made me angrier still. The way he’d—she’d—made my body react, tricked me with magic…the thirst, the desire…
“Holland, stay calm. I’m fine. I’ll get out of this. But you need to focus.”
Mick was right. But the change was taking over. The beast unfurled slowly within me. Restless, burning to come out. How long did I have? Would I be a monster for long, or become a statue immediately? Should I tell them to run? Was I a danger to the people I loved?
Yes.
“Magic lips, as well, hmm, Holland?”
Mick’s eyes widened. I turned back to the witch. “How dare you.”
She laughed, then walked over to Mick. She slowly opened the jacket and flannel shirt he had on, exposing the tight thermal underneath. Rosemarie still struggled with the restraints, pulling on them and slamming rocks against the manacles to try to bust Mick loose.
The witch laughed at her efforts, clearly confident in whatever black magic held the iron shackles to the wall.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears and my breath came in and out in quick, loud gusts. I wanted to go to them, to help Rosemarie free Mick, or fight off the witch somehow, but I was frozen—the imminent change consuming my body and mind faster than it had ever come on before.
“Holland. Listen to me. Breathe, baby, please breathe.”
I tried. I really did. I inhaled and exhaled, just like I always had, but it was like sucking in a gust of sand. The air scraped my throat, leaving fire in its wake. I choked and sputtered, bending over to try to catch my breath.
I stood back up, my vision blurred and my breath a slight wheeze.
The witch laughed, then turned her attention back to Mick. She trailed a hand down his chest, stopping just before the waist of his pants. Then, slowly running a fingertip across the skin exposed between the hem of his shirt and the top of his jeans, she left a scorching trail of pink skin almost a foot long from hip to hip. An already-blistering burn remained where her finger just grazed.
My heart ached. My control drifted further out of reach.
She stood on her tip-toes to lean toward his ear, but her voice remained loud enough for me to hear. “Remember me yet? We could have been so happy.”
Mick’s eyes were narrowed in pain, but they widened as her words sank in. I could barely see him through my tunneling vision, but I fought to focus, blinking my eyes and locking him in my gaze. I inhaled a deep breath, then another, holding on for a little while longer. Maybe something would happen. Maybe Donovan would come. Maybe…
The witch laughed. She glanced back at me, then returned her attention to Mick. “Look how she tries to fight for you, even now. Even after all these years of loss, of failure, she loves you still. But not as I do. Never as much as I have loved you.”
She turned back to me. “Surprised? Did you really think you were the only one I made pay f
or your sins? The only one I forced to come back over and over again, never truly obtaining love, destined to fail…every…single…time? Guess again, dear.”
With those words, she turned away from me, then kissed Mick, long and hard. Rosemarie pushed her aside, and redness tinted Mick’s mouth, as if the witch’s kiss was as scorching as her touch had been on his stomach.
Rosemarie gasped and began to cry, then fought harder at her brother’s shackles.
It was too much for me, too.
Mick clenched his jaw, but pain emanated in his eyes. When my heart broke for him, so did my control.
In the blink of an eye, I was across the fire, my hands wrapped around the witch’s neck. She laughed as I choked her, which made me angrier. As rage filled me, something inside me broke in two. I heard the crack resound in my head.
Hearing that last bit of my humanity fading away was all I could take. The pain engulfed my fingers as they clenched and unclenched around the witch’s throat. Agony seared my chest, making it burn when I tried to speak or swallow. I couldn’t breathe, or if I could, I didn’t feel it past the blinding rage.
The excruciating pain moved up into my eyes, faster this time, more consuming, red the only thing I could see. Deep crimson blurred my vision, as if my eyes bled. The fiery sting moved toward my toes, knocking me to my knees as it singed the length of my legs. I fell hands-down in the dirt of the cave floor. The witch’s neck was no longer in my grasp. If I could see, I’d look to find out where she ended up, if she breathed. If I could feel anything past the scorching pain, I’d stand.
If. So many ifs.
Icy fingers wrapped around my wrist, and a barrage of images of her with Mick bombarded my mind—memories? I gasped for air, my lungs burning along with the rest of me.
This was the final push the beast needed.
“Holland! Stop! It’s what she wants! Stop! Please!”
Mick’s words didn’t make sense. He didn’t make sense. Who was he? Who was I? I was no one. I was fire. Pain. Heat.
I was scorched black skin, dripping from brittle bones. I was a hollow face, landing in the cold dirt. I was everything and nothing all at once.
“Mother!” Donovan. “Holland!”
I was Holland Shayne Briggs.
And then I wasn’t.
I was fire. I was pain. And then I was ice.
As frigid cold slowly replaced the heat, I stiffened. Freezing.
So cold.
Then I was solid. Cement.
Unfeeling, unmoving.
Gone.
Mick
“Holland, no!”
My shout echoed off the rocky walls, the terror in my voice shocking even me. She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t be a statue already! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this! None of this was supposed to happen so quickly!
Dislocating something in my hand, I pulled free from one of the shackles, pain radiating like acid through my arm, matching the burning pain in my lips and streaking across my abdomen. Ro continued to pound on the other restraint as I reached out to Holland.
“Holland! Please!”
Tears streamed down my face, the first time I’d really cried since my father died.
I felt a pop and heard a loud snapping sound as Ro finally got the other shackle undone. I fell to the ground, the sudden release knocking me off balance. On one hand, I crawled toward her, my injured arm cradled to my chest. With my good arm, I scooped her up off the ground and tried to turn her over.
“Rosemarie!” I shouted. “Help me!”
We should have had more time!
She rushed to my side, then turned Holland over in my arm, and I looked down into her hardening face. Her lower body was already fully changed; she was almost a statue. My tears fell on the cold, gray face of the girl I loved, and I screamed. “Why?”
That wild laughter we’d heard earlier carried from somewhere in the cave, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t leave Holland’s side. As my tears fell on her face, I watched the statue of Holland Briggs slowly solidify completely. Cracks ran along every inch of her pale gray form.
“Mick, don’t give up. You can’t give up,” Ro whispered.
I looked at my crazy little sister squatting beside me and shook my head. Don’t give up? Was she blind? I was holding a goddamned statue in my hands! Could she not see?
“Kiss her, Mick. And tell her again.”
“Tell her again?” Ro wasn’t making any sense. Tell her what?
“Yes. Tell her again.” Ro placed her hand lightly on my shoulder. “Tell her what you told her at the house when she was sleeping. Say it, Mick. Say it again.”
I gazed down at the face of the statue and swallowed hard, pushing my broken emotions aside.
“I love you, Holland Briggs. Please don’t leave me. I love you. I know I’m not supposed to. I know it’s too soon. But I love you so much. Please don’t leave me, Holland.”
I leaned down and kissed her rigid, cement lips. I imagined the way her mouth used to move with mine, how we fit together so perfectly, and how she kissed me—trusting me even before she acknowledged that she did. I remembered how holding her felt like home, like everything was exactly as it should be, and I knew it was the universe, not the curse, that had brought us together each time.
More tears fell onto her still form as I let go of everything that never would be again.
A loud noise sounded from the mouth of the cave, startling me, and I watched Ro—eyes wide and mouth agape—as she jumped up to run toward the sound.
“Cam!” she shouted, her voice shrill with barely restrained panic.
I watched in the direction she headed, long after she’d disappeared from my sight. I wasn’t ready to let go of Holland.
“Cameron needs you, too, Holland. You can’t leave us,” I whispered.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the sometimes timid, always defiant girl I had only just begun to love.
I wasn’t ready to concede to failing the one thing I was destined to do.
A few minutes—or maybe hours—later, Cam and Ro appeared in my line of sight. I watched them through tired eyes, unable to move or speak. I didn’t know how long I’d sat there, or how long I would remain. I just wasn’t ready yet.
Something seemed strange about them, off even—they seemed stiff, I guessed—but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Maybe they’re cold. I tilted my head, the grief-induced fog slowly clearing from my mind.
“You guys okay? You look—”
My body tensed. They were both rigid, inflexible. Like toy soldiers. I watched them march from the mouth of the cave to the opposite wall. They trooped right through the flames of the small fire, as if it didn’t burn brightly beneath their feet.
Cam’s forehead was crusted with drying blood that had dripped into his eyes before beginning to coagulate, and I wondered if that was a result of the loud sound we’d heard, the one that caused Ro to flee the cave earlier. Had he fought with Donovan? Had he won? I searched the cave, then the entrance, but didn’t locate the silver-tongued bastard son.
I brought my attention back to Cam and Ro. “Cameron?”
He gripped a large blade in his hand. The silver point dripped crimson liquid, matching the stains on his fingers and the smears on the sleeve of his jacket. As he took his rigid steps, his arms pumped to the beat of his march, and the blade slashed his side with each downward swoop.
Prompted to move, my adrenaline returning rapidly, I pulled Holland’s statue to the darkest nook of the cave, then turned around at the sound of the witch’s now-familiar cackle.
“One, two, three, four…hup, two, three, four…”
She laughed again as she came into view, stopping just shy of the fire. The flames reflected off her alabaster skin, painting shadows on the surrounding walls.
“Hup, two, three, four…company halt!” The witch giggled—an innocent, childish sound that didn’t match the menacing glint of her eyes.
Cam and Ro stopped abruptly, just in
ches from the cave wall. At the same time, they both lowered their arms, Cam’s movement bringing the knife into the meat of his thigh. He didn’t even cringe as he stabbed himself in the leg. And he didn’t remove the blade.
“About-face!”
I watched in shock as Cam and Ro turned around to face the witch. I scanned Ro’s face, searching her eyes for any signs of life. She gazed straight ahead, her eyes unmoving, unblinking…lifeless. Cameron’s eyes held that same vacant stare.
“What have you done to them?” I demanded.
“Oh, they’re such good little soldiers, don’t you think?” She winked at me, then returned her attention to Cam. “They were caught misbehaving.”
“Where’s Donovan?”
“He’ll be along. Poor dear has a broken wing.” She looked back at me, wiggling her fingers. “Nothing I can’t fix though. Not to worry.” She ran her hand over the side of her head, bringing her palm back covered in blood. She frowned, then focused again on Cam and Ro. “Remove the blade from your leg.”
Cam did as he was told, the action stiff, forced.
“Good boy. Now stab your left leg instead.”
“No!” I shouted, but my cry was useless. Cam did as he was told, bringing the knife blade down into his good leg. I cringed. He left it there and continued to stare blankly ahead.
“I’ll kill you,” I stated through gritted teeth. “Release them.”
“You’ll do no such thing, and I’ll release them when I’m good and ready. They assaulted my son.” The witch looked past me, and her eyebrows shot up as a wide smile spread across her bat-shit crazy face. “Ah. Pity—” she shook her head, “—look at sweet Holland now.”
I closed my eyes, trying to think of what to do. I had to stop this. I had to keep this woman from forcing my family to go through this again, even if it was too late for me. I had to protect Holland from reincarnating again and reliving this cursed fate. I glanced behind me, briefly resting my gaze on the statue of the girl I’d so quickly loved and so quickly lost. I had to break the curse for her.
