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I do not resent sacrificing my life for you—I only regret that we never got the chance to make a life together. Now you are free to live your life as you please. With the curse broken, I hope you find a man worthy of your love and your gifts. I hope you can trust him with your secrets and to be the father of the children you dream of having.
Please forgive me for not protecting you better, sooner. I beg you to get on that plane this morning. It will be safer for you. The less mortals suspect about you, the better, even those closest to you like Josie and Mateo. And though my father and grandfather will be gone, my mother will likely seek her revenge. She can’t be trusted to be rational. The curse and my father’s cruelty have damaged her beyond reason.
Please, Sorrel, do this last thing for me.
I love you.
Eric
I let the letter drop to the floor and wrapped my arms around myself, sobbing. I couldn’t believe he was going to sacrifice himself for me. That he loved me. Flashes of his great-grandfather’s burning body made me want to vomit. I couldn’t let Eric do that. I had to find him. Or was it too late? I didn’t feel any different, so maybe the curse still lived. Perhaps he did too. Please let him live. I didn’t know if I would feel a change once the curse was broken, though the fact that I didn’t feel different gave me some hope.
I hurried to get dressed, not sure where to search for Eric. I was so angry with him for not giving me a say in the matter, yet I felt overwhelming love for him. What was he thinking?
I rushed downstairs and grabbed the keys to my mother’s car off the hooks near the garage. I opened the door, hoping to find him there, but the SUV he had stolen was gone. We would discuss grand theft auto later, if he was still alive.
Driving around the unknown city, I was torn between breaking every speed limit and not drawing attention to myself. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over and have someone recognize me. Even so, I almost risked it to ask for directions to any abandoned warehouses or secluded places. Thankfully my mother’s fancy car had a state-of-the-art navigation system. I noticed there was a swamp conservation not too far away. A swamp seemed like a fitting place to drink wolfsbane and destroy a book.
I cried all the way there while thinking of what I could say to convince him not to go through with this ridiculous plan—that is, if I found him. The odds weren’t in my favor. If by some miracle I did find him in time, I would tell him that for the first time since I had left my mother five years ago, I felt truly connected to someone—him. Sure, I loved Josie, Mateo, and basically everyone in Riverhaven, but there was something different with Eric. And I had to believe the curse brought us together for reasons other than him killing himself. After all, he brought out gifts in me I didn’t even know I had. Aelius gifts? I was still trying to wrap my mind around that. If that truly was the case, there had to be more to the curse than we knew. I had to believe there was a way to break the curse other than Eric sacrificing himself. Maybe? The curse stated that only one family could survive. Yet I had survived the curse. The unknowns were all so maddening. Regardless of what we did and didn’t know, I would rather live a cursed life with Eric than a free one without him. And I would tell him so. If he still lived.
When I arrived at the swamp conservation, it looked nothing like I thought it would. It was more like a bundle of slash pine trees that looked undernourished. Eric’s stolen vehicle was nowhere to be found in the parking area, and I didn’t see anywhere he could take it off roading. I leaned my head on the steering wheel, crying and thinking of where else I could look. Maybe he went back to Georgia? One of the problems was I didn’t know how long he had been gone. Or when I had fallen asleep. That’s when I remembered Eric’s last word to me—sleep. Oh, he was so getting a piece of my mind when I found him. He must have used some of his powers on me. I should get a numbered list of his abilities for future reference.
I blew out a deep breath. Think, Sorrel. Where would he go? Maybe somewhere dark. The warehouse his family had taken me to had little natural light. This was Florida, the Sunshine State, and today there was hardly a cloud in the sky. So it would have to be somewhere inside. Though did it really matter where the book was destroyed? Maybe my heart could tell me something. That sounded nuts. However, so was the fact that I could heal people by touching them. And apparently shoot light out of me. I was kind of sorry I couldn’t remember that or how to reproduce it.
