“You’ll have to kill me,” Cameron whispers, his body shaking with fear. “I won’t do it. Kill me.”
And I know I will. I can feel it in the very marrow of my bones that I will end his life if he disobeys me. Fear spikes my blood pressure as I near him, and it feels as if I’m clawing against an immovable, untouchable wall.
I’m barricaded away from this moment, slowly falling apart as I rip my entire life to shreds.
As I stand before him, Cameron’s eyes slide closed, his hands falling away from theBlack Book.
My fingers grip his chin, yanking him against me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, soft and pained. “I love you; I will die loving you.”
A warm, calloused hand cups my cheek, his stormy eyes opening to stare into mine.
“It’s alright,” he whispers. “I know you don’t want to do it. I know you’re in there, suffering.”
My hand twitches, my body tensing up.
Iamhere. Iamsuffering. Cameron still loves me, even now.
I’m pushing against this untouchable wall so hard, so desperately that it hurts. I feel my head swell with pressure, and my skin stings.
“I forgive you for whatever you’ll do to me,” Cameron continues, stroking my skin softly. “And if things were different, if we could have had more time—” his voice becomes thick, choked with tears, “I would have loved you forever.”
So much desperate pain is filling my body. I can barely breathe, can barely think around the intensity of it.
I killed my father, my brother—potentially Julian, who only ever loved my family with everything he had.
If Cameron dies too, if I take his life with my own hands, I will end my own existence as soon as I’m back in control. As soon as I come to.
Cameron’s hand moves from my cheek, gently covering my own where I still have his chin in my grip.
“I surrender, Atticus. You have all of me; do what you need to,” he murmurs.
I do. I crash my lips against his in a cold, biting kiss as I wrap my fingers around his throat just as I did Altas.
And the beautiful, trusting man before me tenses just briefly before he relaxes completely in my grip, kissing back with a thick passion as he twitches and convulses against me.
Each one of his gasps enters my mouth, and I swallow them greedily as I take his life, his future, his love.
I’m screaming again, pushing against the wall keeping me hidden away. I can feel my own body fighting me, tensing and trembling with a force close to a seizure.
Cameron’s face goes purple as I kiss him, open-eyed and angry. And his stormy gray eyes never leave mine, watching me as I take his breath.
“Wake up, Atticus,” I hear Barfred call out from where he still stands in the center of the room, unmoving. “Save him.”
That fog grows thicker, and the more it condenses, the less sturdy this immovable wall feels. The sharp nails wrapped around Cameron’s neck pierce his skin, almost hard enough to draw blood, and he whimpers.
A soft, broken sound.
And I shatter.
I fight, like the last soldier against an army of men; I fight for his life. For control over my own. Screaming, crying, and bloody.
Then—
“No!” My voice resonates in the room around me, and my hand releases Cameron’s throat, his body falling limp to the floor.
Stumbling away, covered in blood, I fall to my knees.
