AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just tell us what you mean, when you say you can bring souls back,” South pushes me for an answer.
Cover my face with my hands, not wanting to be the bearer of this news.
“Who have you saved? Kept grounded?” Marden asks me.
I shake my head, not wanting to answer.
“Dammit, Ten, tell us,” Hawthorne says, pacing the small room.
“Fine,” I shout. “You won’t want to know. It’s not a good story.”
“Just tell us,” he asks, reaching for my hands. South and Lennox look at me, but I realize, maybe they already know.
Maybe that’s why they confessed their love. Maybe they are as scared as I am.
“I’ve seen all of you fading, and I’ve touched you all when it happens, and it keeps you here.” The words force everyone in the room to flinch. Lennox’s dark eyes are now black, South’s piercing blue eyes filling with tears. They know what this means as well as I do.
“And?” Hawthorne asks jaw clenched as if he knows when I am holding back. “Who else?”
“Eric.”
“And?” he asks again, this time louder. More urgent.
“And what?” Eric asks. At some point during the interrogation he sat up, and while his shoulders are still slumped, he’s alert.
“The what matters greatly,” Marden says with a hush that fills the room. “You may have thought you fell for a Shade, but this woman is not dead.”
7
Hawthorne
I fell in love with her the moment we met. Both of us lost in a world we didn’t understand.
I knew, then and there, that I would always protect her, no matter the cost. Of course, I had already made the deal, but seeing her changed things. It was no longer about the bargain. It became about devotion.
To her.
Ambitious for me, even then. Tennyson was always larger than life. With ideas that challenged me and instincts that overwhelmed my own.
Still, she took my hand when I offered it and together, our bodies those of children, we navigated the in-between.
Even as we grew, and she learned how unusual it was to stay here for so long, she decided we were lucky that we had been given this gift for finding one another. Our souls weren’t ready to depart and that made us unique. That created a bond that couldn’t be broken.
Hades always came looking, sending spies to haunt the night.
It was my job to keep her safe.
And that I did.
Of course, as we got older, as South and Lennox joined our crew, desire grew inside me.
I loved Tennyson like a best friend, but as my body changed from that of a boy to that of a man, my love changed too. It became something deeper, passionate, true.
My downfall was admitting this to South and Lennox, who felt the same way as I did. When they spoke, I knew they meant what they said; our love for Tennyson was different but equal, and we wanted her to know it. Needed her to understand the implications.
We loved her in a carnal way as much as we loved her as our oldest friend.
Looking at her now, the sorrow in her eyes, with an oversized leather jacket hanging on her shoulders, she looks smaller than she usually does. Her bravado is gone and what remains is fear.
I realize then, that I have never witnessed my best friend being afraid. Not all those years ago when she broke her arm, and not when she got in fights with girls over who had what. Not when she marched into a party uninvited or introduced herself to some new arrival who was supposedly some famous Earth-side celebrity.
Never did she waver, but now, she does.
“Is it true?” South asks. For such a strong man who grew up on the streets of Detroit, full of hard edges and rough stories, he looks so damn sad right now.
He may have died once on Earth, but it’s as if we’ve taken our unprecedented longevity in Styx for granted.
He’s going to die all over again.
“How would I know?” she asks in a whisper. So softly I can hardly hear her and at that moment, I hardly recognize her either.
“You’re alive?” I ask, stepping closer, cupping her face in my hands instinctively the need to touch her overpowers my mission; my soul knows we don’t have forever.
I’m fading, and she is not.
She steps away from me, as if not wanting me near. But I know she does. She’s pushing us away because she knows she is going to lose us.
Fixing her eyes on Marden, she asks, “How do you know this about me?”
“You know it about yourself, child, and it’s not fair of you to touch these men and keep them here when they are meant to go,” Marden says plainly. “Let them be free!” She smiles softly at as but it’s impossible to match her countenance. “But the bigger issue remains,” she says. “What has brought us all together tonight?”
