I squint to make sure I am not hallucinating.
But there it is.
My heartbeat quickens, and my limbs feel heavy. I move closer to him, to confirm that this isn’t a dream, that this isn’t a nightmare.
A shiver works its way through my spine, as I lift my hands outward and closer to his skin.
There it is, buried in a sea of ink and scars. I run my trembling digits over the distinct jagged scar on his ribcage that runs through an intricate black and grey design of a locket.
A half locket with the face of a rag doll.
My breathing quickens as I see in cursive lettering, right beneath the locket, the word “siempre.”Always.
I say the word beneath the tattoo out loud as he takes my hand in his.
“I had it added shortly after that day, just like in the painting that Eddie’s—”
I look up at him. “Leo?” I whisper in absolute disbelief of the words that are coming out of my mouth. “It can’t be true, can it?” I ask, my whole body shaking in disbelief.
“It’s the only truth I have left, Sen. Please, open it.” He motions to the box. “Everything you need to know has been waiting for you in that box. It’s been in there since the last time we went to the cemetery.”
“How do I know—” I begin to ask before he cuts me off.
“If it’s me?” he interrupts. “Ask your soul. It has recognized mine since the second you saw me on Devil’s Night,” he says with tears in his eyes, which somehow, as he is speaking, lessen in their onyx tone.
He begins to recite the last two lines of the poem I wrote, the one that inspired our locket tattoo, all those years ago. “I am the needle; you are the thread. Together, we weave a wicked love story from the dead.”
“Oh my God.”
He grabs my face, cupping it in his large palms.
“God has nothing to do with it,” he says as he presses a kiss on my lips. “God, if such a concept truly exists, could never drum up enough creativity to give you to me, and he certainly couldn’t keep me from you. No imaginary concept in the sky could ever be responsible for the way I make you scream my name, or the things I would do to your body for the rest of my days. Nothing, not even death, can separate my soul from yours. This is real, Sen. Can’t you see,mi reina, you and me, we are simply meant to be.”
Chapter49
Carmine
Mi reina.
The cause for my demise.
The reason for my triumph.
The only one that can evoke love from my bleak, damned soul.
For far too long, I have felt dead inside. Haunted by visions of pain and carnage, reducing me to a shell of the man I once was. But with her, the shadows that consume my life have a home. With her, my darkness no longer needs to hide, but instead, it can play … with hers.
We were robbed of our beginning, without explanation. Now, only we can write our ending, no matter how fucked up a tale it may be to get there.
She remains speechless as my grip stays on her delicate face. Her tears stream down her cheek, splashing against my fingers, as I wait for her to say something, anything.
I hate that I betrayed her, but I will do whatever I have to, so she knows all that I have done has always been for us to exist again.
When my mother was alive, she used to call it “dying unto oneself.” She meant it in the more religious sense, to deny oneself their desires and urges to honor God. I did something similar, except, in my version, I denied who I was—killed him—so I could blend into the world my father forced me into. So I could live to see her. My desire has always been her, and my urges have been to kill anyone and anything that stands in the way of that.Myself included.
I have fantasized about this for so long that I don’t know what I will do if she runs. My soul simply could not survive another parting. I would rather her shoot me in a fit of rage than live another second of this wicked life without her.Without us.
Letting go of her chin, I walk to grab the box, hoping that its contents will help explain what I know my words alone cannot.
