Page 117 of His Atonement

I do not want to give her up.

Do not want to give away the last piece of her I have.

No, I do not want to forfeit my Frankie's soul, my own be damned.

My soul, my freedom, they no longer mean anything to me because without my mate they are worthless and if I no longer need my soul or my freedom then there is no need to give my darling mate's soul tohe who shall not be namedor The Caster of Shadows.

If I no longer covet the things I have always desired, then there is no need for the deal, it has been rendered void and I can simply keep this last piece of my mate for always.

Gods, I'm bloody fucking brilliant.

Quickly I get to my feet, search the cave for my phone, which I morbidly and a tad disrespectfully placed between Cyril's jaws, his skull the most intact between the three on the altar.

With a serious lean to my gait and shake of my hands, I remove the Apple device, snort to myself because I put an Apple in Cyril's mouth, try and fail three times to unlock my phone before successfully pulling up my text messages.

ME: I believe my need u mys peacock gym

Ihit send and pray Cora is awake, not completely miserable and able to understand my drunken, stoned gibberish.

CORA: What the fuck is a peacock gym?

ME: peacock gym.

ME: present gun.

ME: pearly gym.

ME: pubescent gynecologist.

ME: FUCK.

ME: p r e c i o u s g e m

CORA: Oh good, you're totally hammered. But I get it. Allie has been drunk most of the day too. It only took her two glasses of wine though and I'm sure you've had a lot more than that.

ME: my ams 4 bottles drunk but I has an epicenter

CORA: An epiphany?

ME: as my said, an epidemiologist

CORA: Right. You had an epiphany while so drunk and high you forgot about how much you hate poor grammar, no punctuation and autocorrect, an epiphany that came to you while you're grieving the loss of your mate. Do I even want to know?

ME: yee. You will not be liking mys episode but it is the only way to perform mys dangle task.

CORA: Would it be better if I called you?

ME: no Frankie says I speak like autocorrect failures when my is this many sheets hanging in this wind

CORA: She was not wrong about that.

CORA: What do you need, Zan? Whatever it is must be important and I want to help, so tell me what you need and I'll do it.

ME: mys loves u tiny pertinent grin

CORA: I love you too, now tell me what you need. Tell me how I can help you through this.

ME: u shan't likes it