by A. K. Morgen
The fact I even had to worry about the answer killed me. Love wasn’t supposed to be like that. And I shouldn’t have had to wonder if he’d choose my life over theirs. Dace was stronger than that nightmare vision of him, but with me there… I didn’t think he could see the truth. He didn’t want to see it.
But now that I wasn’t right there, watching him tear himself apart, I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I underestimated him. No matter how angry he became or how much he hurt, he wouldn’t sacrifice everything for me, would he?
I sighed. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“Are you going back to him when this is over?” Chelle whispered.
Was I?
“I want to go back, but….” I took a deep breath, dashing tears away. “I don’t know if we can fix this.”
Chelle scrutinized my expression, searching for… something. Worry clouded her dark eyes, making it apparent she didn’t find her answers written on my face. “Please don’t break his heart. I know that’s not what you want. I know you love him. Just,” she sighed, “whatever you decide, don’t forget how much good you’ve done for each other. I know you don’t see it right now, but I do, and maybe it’s not fair to ask you to remember that, but he’s my friend, and I have to ask.”
“I know,” I said quietly, unable to fault her for trying to look out for her friend. She’d known Dace a lot longer than she’d known me. I wouldn’t dream of her taking my side and leaving him high and dry. That’s not who Chelle was, and that’s not the kind of friend Dace deserved. “I’m trying to remember that. I guess I do need to put things in order and figure out what I want and what I need, and I think he needs to do the same.”
I didn’t want to believe we’d lost so much of ourselves through the ages that we weren’t capable of being together in this life. We were meant to make one another stronger, to protect one another. I just needed time to figure out what that meant for us. Time to figure out how to save Dace, and save us.
There was a way, wasn’t there?
Fuki hopped down and curled up on the floor again, his interest in sleep outweighing his desire for more petting.
“Have you talked to Gage or your sister?” I asked, unable to contemplate the question of my future and Dace’s right now.
“Yeah, Gage called a little bit ago.” Chelle rose from the bed, stretching her arms over her head. “And Beth called this morning.” She hesitated in mid-step. “Before we left, I told her and Mandy you wanted to check out the IU campus. I know I was supposed to lie about where we were going, but I couldn’t. Not to them.”
“I don’t think anyone will mind that you told them. Besides, they deserve to know where you are even if they can’t know why.” I eased myself out of bed and winced at the way my muscles protested. I felt more or less back to normal, but it would be a long while before my muscles forgot what they’d endured. Some demented, nightmare version of muscle memory, no doubt.
Chelle groaned and shook her head, locks of her dark hair falling over her face. “Am I doing the right thing not telling them what’s really going on?”
“Honestly?” I asked, scraping my own hair back into a messy ponytail.
She nodded.
“I don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not. But if it were me, I don’t think I’d want to know.”
Ignorance wasn’t bliss, but it sure beat abject freaking terror. I was well versed in the later and it sucked. Hard. Chelle wanted her sister and Mandy to move on without dealing with the same nightmare circumstance forced on the rest of us. Maybe that wasn’t her decision to make, but who the hell was I to judge her for making it?
“Thanks,” she said, shooting me a grateful smile.
“That’s disgusting,” Ronan said an hour later, glaring across the table at me.
“What?” I looked down at my plate, a forkful of eggs dangling before my face. Everything looked fine to me.
“The yolks are running and you put ketchup on them.” He curled his lip as if I were eating monkey brains instead of eggs and hash browns from the little diner down the road.
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t put ketchup on my eggs. I put it on my hash browns.”
“Which you then mixed with your eggs,” he said.
“Says the guy eating mayo on a chili dog.” I arched a brow, looking pointedly at the massive hot dog laying half eaten in the Styrofoam container in front of him. “That’s disgusting.” I put my fork in my mouth and moaned.
Who knew Ronan was so picky? Or that torturing him could be so much fun?
He rolled his eyes at my display and looked away.
“I agree with Ari,” Chelle piped up, looking at his plate, her expression full of doubt. “That looks horrible.”
He snorted, giving her a disgruntled look before cutting into his hot-dog concoction again.
I snickered to myself.
Despite knowing Ronan didn’t like Dace and wanted to kill me once upon a time, the more time I spent around him, the harder I found disliking him. He was actually pretty cool underneath all those blank stares and emotionless monotones.
I doubted he’d start cracking jokes anytime soon, but I could live with that.
“Have you ever been to Indiana?” Chelle asked us, tossing a piece of sausage on the floor for Fuki.
He sniffed the morsel suspiciously and then devoured it in one bite, his tail swishing back and forth. He looked up at Chelle with a hopeful expression. She tossed him another piece, her smile indulgent. She’d already fed him all of her bacon, and the three chicken breasts we got for him.
Clearly, she was his new best friend.
“Nope.”
“No,” Ronan said, taking a long swallow from his beer bottle.
I eyed the bottle sideways, but didn’t comment. He was old enough to drink a beer with dinner if he wanted. Though what he found appealing, I couldn’t begin to guess. Beer tasted awful.
The doorbell rang.
Fuki jumped and then spun around and growled.
Ronan and Chelle both looked at me.
“It’s probably a neighbor,” I muttered and wiped my mouth before climbing to my feet. No one had come knocking since we got here, but I expected a visit sooner or later. I made my way toward the front door, my stomach fluttering. I wasn’t nervous, not exactly. It was more… wariness. I didn’t want to lie to the people I grew up around, and I knew I would have to stretch the truth as far as it would go if anyone asked about my life in Beebe.
The doorbell rang again, the chime echoing through the empty house in a demanding hum.
“Coming,” I shouted.
I unfastened the deadbolt, but didn’t slide the chain back. “Can I help you?” I asked, frowning through the crack in the door at the young guy in a polo shirt and jeans on the other side. He was my age, maybe a year or two younger. I didn’t know him.
“Are you Air-e-anna Jacobs?” he asked, mangling my name in his attempt to sound it out.
“Arionna,” I corrected. “And yes.”
“Oh, sorry. I have a delivery for you.” He eyed the crack in the door. “You want me to leave it out here or what?”
“Oh, um… one sec.” I closed the door and tugged the chain free, confused. Why would anyone send me something here?
Ronan slapped his hand down on the door before I could pull it open to find out.
I looked up at him, a question on the tip of my tongue. His rigid stance halted the question from tumbling out. Tension sizzled and popped around him like fireworks. The dark scowl on his face, grim and foreboding at once, caused alarm bells to begin ringing in my head.
“Let me,” he said.
I stepped back without protest, giving him room.
Ronan pulled the door open again, his lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes narrowed to mere slits.
The delivery guy gaped at him.
“What is it?” Ronan asked.
“Flowers?” The guy bent over and scooped up something I hadn’t seen through
the crack in the door. A vase. He practically shoved the flowers into Ronan’s arms.
My stomach heaved as soon as my gaze settled on the familiar black and white. Blood rushed through me, the fierce pounding of my heart resonating like the discordant clash of a drum in my ears. I swayed, my knees suddenly unable to hold my weight. This time, I welcomed the familiar weakening. I didn’t want to be standing up for this.
“Shit,” Ronan swore, grabbing for me as I slid down the wall, but he couldn’t catch me and hold the vase at the same time.
The arrangement slipped from his hands.
The glass shattered on the tile at his feet, bouncing across the floor in a spray of crystalline pieces. My eyes locked on the water spilling across the grouting in little rivulets. The flowers scattered; the red berries from the mistletoe rolled this way and that before coming to a stop. They looked like blood splatters against the crushed white petals.
Blood red on snow white floated through my mind. Screams in the dark. Geri looking at me with Dace’s brilliant eyes. Drops of my blood dotting his snowy fur. Pain.
I gagged at the sudden, intrusive memory of Hati’s attack.
My dinner was a lot less delicious as it fought to come back up.
I swallowed hard, barely forcing it back down.
Maybe Ronan was right about runny eggs and ketchup after all.
Fuki ran into the room, growling loudly. He stepped right in the middle of the broken glass, but by some miracle, didn’t slice his paws open.
“Holy shit,” the delivery guy yelped, his eyes wide at the sight of Fuki wading through the ravaged flowers to the front door.
The wolf curled his lip and snarled his response.
Ronan’s fingers dug into my shoulders when I swayed again. He eased me down to the floor, kicking glass and flower petals out of his way. As soon as my butt hit the tile, he spun on the delivery guy, grabbing him by the collar.
The guy squeaked.
“Who sent these?” Ronan demanded. He didn’t snarl or yell or shout like Dace had a tendency to do. He spoke softly, enunciating every word. The effect was chilling. He sounded outright terrifying.
I think the delivery guy agreed. He shook in Ronan’s grasp, his face blanching.
“Who sent them?” Ronan demanded again. His knuckles were white against the guy’s green polo.
“I-I don’t know, man. I’m just a delivery driver!”
Ronan swore and let go of him. “Get out of here,” he snapped.
The guy didn’t wait around for a tip. He turned on his heel and fled down the steps, Fuki’s furious growls chasing him into the dark.
Ronan slammed the door closed.
I fixated on the flowers, numb and cold in turns. My body trembled with the force of fear beating through me. I wanted to squeeze my eyes closed, but I had a feeling that would only make this more real. The flowers weren’t going to go away.
They were there. Right there.
And then I spotted the card, attached to the stem of the black rose with a small golden apple charm. I reached for it without thinking, my hands shaking.
“What does it say?” Chelle whispered, the thin, tremulous question full of fear.
I hadn’t even realized she stood beside me.
I closed my hand over the card, but Ronan plucked it easily from my grasp.
He gave away nothing as he looked at it, not even a twitch betrayed his thoughts. “Skáldskaparmál,” he said. He closed his fist around the card, crumpling it.
Skáldskaparmál. Another story from the Eddas.
I gagged again, shaking all over.
Our flight hadn’t fooled Sköll and Hati for a minute.
I think they were actually waiting for it.
“What does… that word mean?” Chelle asked a few minutes later, not even attempting to pronounce Skáldskaparmál. She was visibly shaken, her face pale and her dark eyes wide. Her gaze bounced around, focusing anywhere except at the glass shards and ruined flowers Ronan tossed into a trash bag.
Fuki still growled, his tail standing straight out. He didn’t understand the significance of the flowers, but he wasn’t blind. He knew Chelle and I were upset. I think Ronan was shaken too, but aside from the hatred burning in his black eyes, he didn’t let on. He simply cleaned up the mess, not saying a word.
“It’s a book of the Prose Edda,” I whispered, bringing my legs up to my chest and hugging them with minimal discomfort. I’d read every translation of the Eddas I could get my hands on since waking in the hospital. I didn’t know nearly as much as Dace, but I remembered enough to understand the reference. “It’s the story of how Loki helps Thiazi abduct the goddess Idun, who grants immortality to those who eat her apples.”
“Oh.” Chelle’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. She shivered, her body quaking as violently as mine.
“It doesn’t make sense though,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone else. “Loki is punished when the gods realize he kidnapped Idun. They force him to bring her back, and Thiazi chases them and catches fire. He plummets to the earth, and the gods kill him.”
If Sköll and Hati were sending a message, why pick that story? Why not pick one of the hundreds that ended badly for the good guys? The Norse myths were full of those.
“Does anything they do make sense?” Chelle asked. She swallowed hard, an angry fire sparking to life in her eyes. “They wanted to scare us. I’d say they succeeded, whether they picked the right story or not.”
“Maybe.” I pressed the palms of my hands into my temples. My head was beginning to throb, the resulting pain making me more nauseated than the sight of the flowers did. I couldn’t think through the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to think right now. Sköll and Hati knew Chelle and I were here, more or less unprotected.
“We can’t tell Dace,” I said as soon as the thought struck, looking between Ronan and Chelle.
Chelle stared back at me, not speaking.
“He needs to know,” Ronan said. He tossed the last of the mangled flowers into the garbage bag and stood with his back to us for a moment before he turned. Hatred still shone in his eyes, turning them to hard obsidian, when he met my gaze. “You can’t keep this from him.”
“I’m―” I broke off, knowing I needed to choose my words carefully. I saw the mutiny in Chelle’s eyes, and heard it in Ronan’s voice. They would tell Dace about this unless I gave them a damn good reason not to do so. “If we tell him, he’ll demand we come back, and anything Dr. Michel might be able to tell us will be lost.”
“Dace doesn’t even think Dr. Michel can tell us anything,” Chelle said. She frowned at me. “I’m sorry, Ari. I’m not trying to force you to go home, but this is a threat.” She waved one hand in the direction of the garbage bag and puddle of water on the floor. “They’re threatening abduction now.”
“We don’t know that,” I argued.
Neither she nor Ronan looked like they believed me for a second.
“Think about it,” I pleaded with them. “Why use a story that ends well if they’re really threatening us? Maybe… maybe they’re trying to tell us something else.” I heard the desperation in my voice, but I couldn’t stop myself from rambling on, looking for another answer―any answer that didn’t end with us calling Dace and him demanding we go back.
The steely glint in Chelle’s gaze was unwavering, though.
“Please,” I whispered to her. “Please don’t tell him yet.” Asking her to keep this from him wasn’t fair, and we both knew it. But I asked anyway. I had to ask anyway. “I need time. Please just give me a little time.”
“Time for what?” Ronan asked, watching me with sharp, raven eyes.
I ignored him and his perceptive gaze, speaking instead to Chelle. She cared about Dace too. She wanted to save his life, too. I shouldn’t have used that against her, but I did. I didn’t have a choice. “If you tell him, he’ll insist we go back now. He’s going to die if I go back, Chelle,” I sai
d. “Dace is going to die.”
“You don’t know that,” Chelle said, her furrowed brow crumpling. Lines of worry played around her lips.
“He told me he doesn’t care if he survives.” Saying that out loud, admitting to Chelle and Ronan that Dace gave up, killed something inside me. My voice trembled. Tears pricked at my eyes. I wanted to curl in a ball and cry until I couldn’t anymore, but I didn’t. I forced myself to go on, to confess how hopeless and afraid I was. “He thinks all of this started because of him, Chelle. He blames himself for what happened to Dani, and to me. If I go back now, I don’t know how far he’ll go to save me. But I do know he’ll let Sköll and Hati kill him if it comes down to that. I think… I think he wants to die.”
I couldn’t face Ronan with that admission hanging in the air. I didn’t want to know what he thought about Dace now or what he might have to say. Ronan wasn’t a bad guy, but part of me felt like I betrayed Dace by confessing to Ronan how bad things were. If I didn’t look at Ronan, I could pretend, at least for a little while longer, that his threat to stop Dace was unjustified. I could pretend that my world hadn’t imploded the moment I realized Dace gave up. Because if I had to face the truth… if I had to accept that the other half of my soul threatened to become a monster because of me… I didn’t know what I would do.
I needed to find a way to save him from himself before that happened. No, I had to find a way. And I couldn’t do that in Beebe when my presence there pushed Dace closer to the edge every day. Somewhere, someone had to know how to pull him back. I just needed time to find them.
Chelle’s expression collapsed. A mixture of worry and sorrow clouded her gaze. “I won’t tell him, but we’re leaving tonight.” Even though her hands shook faintly, her tone held firm, making it clear she wouldn’t back down on that point.
I agreed to give her that much.
“Ronan?” I asked, still not brave enough to look directly at him. I stared instead at the trash bag he held in his rough hands. Crushed, waterlogged rose petals clung to the plastic and water dripped from the bottom corner.
