T ony sat there in the funeral home pew, alone aside from his crutches. With the service having ended hours ago, everyone else had left. He couldn’t seem to stop his gaze from roaming over the smooth redwood of the closed casket, which he knew only held an urn, up to the photo placed on top.
Both had been set at the center of a giant mass of orange Tiger Lilies. The flowers truly dominated the front of the room. The only other thing being a photo board of the woman who was currently nothing but ashes.
Absently rubbing at his chest, the ache there seeming to come and go, Tony once again found himself staring into Charity’s bright-blue eyes. Her funeral photo was of her smiling. But it wasn’t like there were any other options. The woman was smiling in every photo he’d found of her.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be in there,” he rasped softly, his jaw clenching as he held back his tears.
He rubbed his face and took a deep breath in before slowly letting it out, laughing bitterly. “Beyond the fact that you should still be alive, hell, your coffin should not even be here right now. It should…be on its way to being set into the ground with your urn inside, but… I failed you. In so many ways… Not just now that it’s too late to do anything. And I’m afraid that…that…” Tony closed his eyes, tears trailing down as he forced the thoughts from his mind. He didn’t want to think about who else he had failed. He couldn’t do it yet.
Just as he had been too much of a coward to explain to everyone who had come to her funeral why Charity was being left up there instead of buried, he was also too much of a coward to face his other realities right now.
With his eyes still closed, and more tears falling, he rasped, “Charity…you shouldn’t have done that… My old ass has lived long enough… You shouldn’t have…”
Tony’s eyes snapped open as a hand grabbed his. He looked over to find Oceana now sitting next to him, her eyes filling with tears while her fingers threaded through his.
“I can tell you now that you have not lived long enough. Not by a long shot. You’re still very much needed here, human.” She swallowed hard, clearing her throat as she looked forward. “Charity… She was needed here too. The world is in need of kindness, so any loss of it is a tragedy, and she was full of it. As bright of a person as one could be. As for what she did…” Oceana looked back at him, smiling sadly as a tear trailed down her cheek. “She didn’t think it through, she just reacted. A split second decision without a single thought for her own safety. But I’m certain, if she had known the results, if she had somehow known what would happen, Charity would have still done it. Because that’s just who she was.”
Tony chuckled, but the sound was practically a sob. “She would have, the damn fool.”
Oceana laughed, sounding just as sad as he was. “You know, when Iggy wanted to transfer here, I was irritated. But I also, for some reason, didn’t want to break in another hunter, so I caved. Part of the reason was I didn’t completely trust Day Lancaster. I'm not saying he’s crooked or anything, but the man can be rather cold.”
He took a deep breath and wiped his tears away with his free hand, not wanting to pull his other away from Oceana when he felt the tremble running through her. “Day is complicated. But cold would be an apt description of him, for the most part.”
His friend was protective of himself, for good reasons. Reasons that he had no business sharing. But he did know that the man would never do anything to purposely cause harm to those working under him .
The vampire sighed. “You’re different. You're warm, and you care. We haven’t been here long, but I can tell you care.”
Tony smiled. “Yeah, I care. I care way too much about you assholes. That includes you, Oceana. How are you holding up?”
Her bottom lip wobbled. “N-not good, to be honest—ha.” She sniffed. “I… You know, when I first met Iggy, he drove me up the wall. I mean, he still does. But back then, I was like, ‘how is this human still alive?’”
He snorted. “Yeah, he does tend to give that impression. Annoyance, and disbelief in how he’s survived for so long.”
She laughed. “He really does. But I mean, I found out he had a human partner before me, so I was like, ah, I’m basically going to be working alone then. But well, it didn’t turn out like that. He’s an idiot, and I want to strangle him sometimes, but as a partner, he’s not bad. In fact, he’s a pretty damn good partner.
“But when I first met him, I wasn’t worried about whether he’d be a good partner or not. I was, in fact, happy that he likely wouldn’t be, and that I found him annoying, because that meant I wouldn’t get attac—” The vampire’s words cut off on a sob. For a few moments, she softly cried, before finally whispering, “Attached.”
Tony gave her hand a gentle squeeze before slowly extracting his fingers and wrapping an arm around her, while giving the vampire plenty of time to pull away, but she didn’t. Oceana leaned into his side, sobbing hard as one of her hands clutched onto his dress shirt.
Taking another deep breath, he sniffed before saying, “He has that effect on people. One day, he’s bugging the shit out of you, until you have thoughts of offing his ass, and the next, you can’t possibly imagine your life without him. He wheedles his way in.”
“He does,” she whimpered. “I-Iggy, he told me—” Oceana gasped, taking a shuddered breath before continuing. “—he told me something about you two. I’m not sure if you’re comfortable with me knowing, but I?—”
“It’s okay. I’m happy that he trusted you enough to tell you. The only reason everyone doesn’t know is for his own safe…ty—ha.”
Safety…yet it hadn’t worked… Because a man who he hadn’t been careful enough around had now taken Iggy.
“What about you? A-are you okay, Tony? ”
“I’m as okay as I can be right now.”
Which was not at all. The only reason he wasn’t drunk off his ass somewhere was because he couldn’t do it. Not when Iggy was missing… Tony didn’t deserve to be numb right now.
“The m-man who took him…knows, doesn’t he? Maverick knows.”
“He does. But that’s not why he took him.”
At least, not the main reason. The fact was, if it hadn’t been for Tony, the man would have never set his sights on the boy.
The vampire looked up at him. “It’s not?”
“No.”
“Why then? Why him?! Why not someone else?!”
“The simplest way I can explain it is, to him, Iggy is an…obsession. But I don’t know if his reasons for taking him will stop him from hurting Iggy.”
Oceana took a deep breath before hesitantly saying, “Harlow and Foxx…they’re?—”
“They are on a well-deserved vacation .” He stared down into her eyes, hoping the meaning of his words were clear. If not, he could always take her somewhere private where he could actually explain things aloud. In fact, he should do exactly that. Oceana deserved to know what was going on. Not that there was much update on that front.
She frowned, before slowly nodding. Sniffling again, the woman looked back towards Charity’s casket. “Iggy will be found,” the vampire rasped. “He will be, I have to believe that. He will be found before it’s too late.”
“He will,” Tony lied, because the truth was, he wasn’t sure if they would get there in time. And he also wasn’t sure he wanted to be here anymore if Iggy wasn’t.
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