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Forty-Four

HARLOW

“Can I show you something?” Alec asks as he zips up his pants. He places his shirt on me, skipping my own clothes, wherever they got thrown to, and buttoning his up, then rolling up the sleeves.

“Show me what?”

He takes my hand, pulling me closer to him, and my insides jump like he didn’t just fuck me on a forest floor and let me use my magick on him. “Trust me. I think it’s what you need.”

With a wary look, I climb on his back, adopting a similar position to when he ran from my parents’ house to the forest earlier. Knowing what’ll come, I lower my head to hide from the sharp sting of the air that’ll be created by his speed.

After a few moments, the wind dies down and I’m being lowered to my feet in front of a small expanse of ground lined with a metal fence about hip height. Beyond, sticks wrapped with coloured ribbons are scattered in neat rows, about two dozen back.

“What is this?”

Wordlessly, Alec takes my hand and tugs me through the gate, down the centre. A path, based on the flattened grass. He stops in the last row, leading me to a spot where the ground is more raised than the rest.

He releases my hand and steps back, allowing me to crouch and read the inscription—no, the names—on the two orange ribbons tied to the single stick.

And that’s when I understand where we are, what this place is, and why this stick in particular Alec led me to.

The ribbon is orange to represent the fire magick of my parents.

For Emily and John Sinclair, their names written in neat, black block letters.

“Oh…”

I haven’t been able to understand grief as an emotion in a very long time, but I am sorry, Harlow. I’m sorry for what happened to them. And I realize it might be ironic coming from me, but regardless, you didn’t deserve to grow up with murderers.

Other than my own paced and disturbed breath, the cemetery is silent. No birds flutter. The wind is calmer than earlier. The immortal behind me is noiseless, his only words ringing in my mind. And me…I stop breathing because I don’t know what to feel. Stop thinking because I don’t know how to process this.

I tilt my head back to catch the clouds moving over the moon, as though Hecate is telling me the night of the full moon is passing, and the ceremony I learned all the truths from is over.

That the past remains in the past.

My fingers dig into the grass by my knees.

“I, I saw you tonight,” I whisper to them, not even sure they can hear me. “For the first time I can recall, I got to see you, but it feels empty. Like I was watching a movie. I, I don’t know how to feel… Mom. Dad.”

A tear slips down my cheek. I don’t speak again until it hits a blade of grass by my hand.

“Your murderers raised me, and it’s the worst kind of fucked up because I don’t know how to feel. They were Mom and Dad to me. I loved them. But they’re the villains in this, and I hate them for what they’ve done. And yet…I miss them. They held me through every illness, taught me to control my magick, took me to the movie theatre, and dressed up for the silly human holidays. For better or worse, they were my parents.”

Another tear slips down my face, this time filled with guilt over what I’m saying to the people who gave me life, who should have been the ones to do everything I listed.

I lift my head, rereading the names on the ribbon. Near-strangers, no matter what tonight has done.

“They’re dead. I, I killed them. By accident, and it is something I’ve had to live with, but I’m happy they’re gone—happy I killed them. The price of black magick was their deaths, and although I didn’t realize at the time I was avenging you, I’m kinda pleased it worked out like that, that their plan—whatever it was—failed in the end.

“They turned me Dark. Taught me forbidden magick. The shadows that tormented me for months were because of them . Because they introduced it into my life. They’re why I am how I am. Why I can feel it festering inside me. It wants blood. It’s angry. It wants—” I cut off when the slither wraps around my neck again, taking me back to when I was riding Alec and it was more than thrilled to be called upon. It craved his blood, his pain, and I gave it.

Behind me, Alec kneels. His hand strokes my hair, brushing it off my shoulder. It’s then I realize, when it clings to my cheeks, exactly how many tears I’ve shed. “I feel your pain.”

“Then why do I feel empty?”

“Darkness. It’s why vampires lose their ability to feel most major emotions.” He shifts until he’s on the ground and pulls me into his lap, adjusting his shirt so it covers my thighs.

“Do you miss feeling things?” I tilt my head until I can see him.

“Sometimes. Other times, no. Emotions are pain, and feeling yours right now tears me up inside. I haven’t felt grief since Cora’s death, and even then, it was probably a fraction of what I would have felt had I been mortal. But lately…” He sighs, a low rumble that spreads a warmth through me different from my magick. “Lately, I’ve had this sentiment inside me that goes a bit above any obsession I’ve ever lived with. A feeling I only get when looking at you.”

My palms are sweaty despite the cool air, and I rub them along my thighs. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It might be.” His thumb sweeps mindlessly over the scars on my wrists.

“How do you feel about feeling?’

“I’m coming around to it.”

“It’s the magick between us.”

“Maybe.” Black eyes flick to mine. “Or maybe not. But talking about this isn’t why I brought you here.” The wind catches in his hair as he focuses on the grave in front of us. “I know tonight’s a lot between your house, your memories, and now this, but I thought if you had a piece of them, it might help come to terms with earlier.”

“How did you know this was here?” I ask before remembering whom I’m speaking to.

“Sure you can figure that one out.” He shifts me off his lap and back to the ground before crawling forward, pacing over my parents’ grave. It’s odd, not only to see him crawling around the ground but to have him so close to the family he once took so much from.

The other orange ribbons dancing in the breeze catch my attention. How many of them are in the ground by Alec’s hand?

Alec moves aside stray leaves that fell onto my parents’ grave and is murmuring something I don’t catch to them. It’s low and spoken with sincerity and keeps me relaxed. He returns to my side, sitting cross-legged and pulling me into his lap.

As he plays with my hair and strokes the side of my neck, murmuring small words of encouragement in my ear, I share stories of my life with both my parents and him. To the clouds that uncover the moon above and Hecate, who’s gazing down on the scene.

I’d like to say She’s smiling too.