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He shakes his head, takes two steps away.
“I wonder if it’s always been like this,” he says. “If our hate has always devoured us from the inside. Hell, we don’t need a Willow Girl to destroy us. We manage just fine on our own.”
“Brother—”
“No. No more brother.” Gregory walks to the door. I’ve never seen him like this. “You claim her. Put your mark on her. And it ends. It ends for her, at least.”
“Until the next crop,” I say, my voice breaking.
I’m tired.
I’m out of fight.
“Tell me,” I start, looking at Gregory. “Will it be your sons to take the next Willow Girl? Will it be you who teaches them to hate us?”
At that, Gregory almost flinches.
“There are rules,” he says, shifting his gaze momentarily, running a hand through his hair again, and for one single, fleeting moment, letting me glimpse that loneliness, that alone part of him that makes my heart hurt.
I don’t try to hold back the tears that are building as I watch him. As he watches me. As I lean closer into Sebastian, into his strength. Because I need it right now. I need him. And he’ll need his strength to hurt me because it’s the only way.
The only way to save me.
To save us.24SebastianHelena and I have been back on the island for one full week. After that episode in the kitchen, Gregory disappeared. He left Lucinda’s house and I haven’t seen him since. And I haven’t tried to contact him.
Lucinda did as she was told. She talked to Ethan, told him she needed to take a trip, a vacation on her own. Told him she’d send him postcards.
Ethan was more okay with it than I thought he would be. Hell, maybe he was relieved she left.
When I talked to him about it, told him that he’d stay at the house in Philadelphia, that it was his, a part of his inheritance as a Scafoni, and that I’d be back to visit him, he seemed excited, even. I didn’t want to leave him until I was sure, but with the medical staff and help I hired, I know he’ll be looked after even if it’s not a long-term solution for him.
For the entire time we’ve been back, I’ve been poring over the Willow Girl Covenant, trying to find some way out of this. There isn’t one, though. I already know it. I’ve always known it.
I have to hurt her if I want to keep her.
Helena is sitting at the table cradling a whiskey. She’s been drinking it nightly since we got back.
I look at her, and she’s looking tired.
“You want me to ask cook to prepare something else for you?” She’s so anxious that she hasn’t been able to keep anything down.
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll call a doctor. See if he can do anything.”
“What’s a doctor going to do?” she snaps, then lowers her gaze, realizes. Her tone is softer when she next speaks. “We just have to finish this. It’s just going to get harder the longer we wait.”
“We’re not doing it his way, Helena. We have a year. We’ll find another way.”
She shakes her head. “We have to. What choice do we have?” She drinks her whiskey. “And really, don’t we deserve this, you and me? What we did to him…” She runs her fingers through her hair. Her forehead is creased with worry. “What we did to him,” she repeats, looking at me, “I never intended to hurt him. I know you didn’t either. But we did hurt him. Together, we did. Being with him…what we did…he’s human, Sebastian. And we hurt him.”
“You talk like you have feelings for him.”
“I do. I care about him. I don’t want him to hurt. But that’s all that means.”
I struggle to understand this. It’s selfish, I know, but rivalry and jealousy, they’re tearing me apart. They’ve torn my family apart.
And I know she’s right.
We have to do this. For everyone’s sake. This branding, this ceremonial marking, the pain she will suffer, it will seal my claim to her, which will free her. And it will free my brother and me.
But I’ll never forgive him for demanding it.
And I’ll never forgive myself for doing it.
The sound of a boat engine has us both turn toward the dock.
“Mother fucker.”
I stand up as I watch Gregory dock his boat, killing the engine. He steps off and stops. From the distance, I can see he’s looking at me.
Helena stands too, and we watch as my brother approaches.
“Go up to your room, Helena.”
“No.”
I feel my hand squeeze around her arm, tightening as Greg nears, as I see the smile widening on his face.
“I said go to your room.”
“You’ll kill each other,” she says.
I turn to her. “That’s one way to end this, isn’t it?”
But Helena doesn’t have a chance to reply because we’re no longer alone.
