Page 226 of Jagged Souls

He shakes his head. “You really don’t, but I’m calling it in anyway. Therapy, bruh. You’re going to fucking therapy.”

“I don’t –”

“Tough.”

I close my mouth. After all he’s done for me, I can give him this. I’ll just need to find someone I trust all my secrets to.

“I might as well put my psych degree to use, you know?” he says, an attempt to laugh making his throat tight.

I blink. “Youwant to be my therapist?”

“Who else could it be? You’d legit scare them all off.” He pauses. “Or bury them somewhere.” He shrugs confidently. “You ain’t gonna do that to me.”

Unable to argue with that, I breathe out. “Alright.”

He nods, and together, we rejoin the rest of our family. Mother has already pulled Rudy from her shadows, and he lies face-up on the grass.

“Fuck, he almost looks at peace,” Maddox says.

“He always was so annoyingly optimistic,” Enoch says, a smile breaking his voice.

Ezriel groans. “Honestly, he’s probably kicking it up right now. A goodie two-shoes like him?”

“In the Elysian Fields, no doubt.” Enoch nods.

I’d like to think so. That he’s being rewarded for all the pain he’s suffered. That he’s finally able to be at peace, away from the nightmares of his magic and the cruelty of this life.

“I bet he’s being swarmed by a thousand puppies.”

“Just one,” Khalid murmurs, and my chest tightens.

He would’ve found Krypto. And Leno.

I can’t find it in me to say anything though, to voice all the love I have for him. I want to be able to say something as he goes, but my throat is just too damn tight.

I love you.

A small hand slips into mine, and I turn my head to look at my little monster. She’s pulled herself out of bed to face a crowd she isn’t ready for just for me. “I love you,” I whisper.

She squeezes me, and I curl the only remaining finger on that hand around hers, having lost the others permanently to Antonio’s teeth.

“He is gone but never forgotten,” I finally manage to say as I take a deep breath and pull on my shadows with my other hand. It takes a lot of concentration for me to hold them, even more so to make them form under Rudy rather than wherever they wish.

My brothers and Mother pull on their shadows much easier, having had years in which to perfect their craft. In the silence that rings through the night, Maddox starts to sing. Beautifully and clearly, and for a second, we all freeze.

“You little shit,” Micha says, voicing what we’re clearly all thinking. All this time, he’s sang like a cat being dragged against a chalkboard.

He grins as he winks at her, but he doesn’t falter in his singing. And one by one, we join him, and Enoch even pulls a guitar out of his shadows.

“The sun is only rising,

The dew’s not even burned,

The colors are all enticing,

But, Mama, I’m ready to come home.

Oh, my days.