Page 37 of We Are the Match

Paris

Tommy is so calm as he dies.

He is looking at Helen. He is promising things will be okay.

His blood is splattering against my jaw and hair and ear.

And then Helen’s knife is in her hand and the guards nearest her have crumpled to the ground, blood spilling. She is running for us, and Milos and Zarek are running for the exit, because they know—they know she will come for them next.

Blood soaks the scarlet tulle of her dress. Blood drips down her jaw.

And then Tommy is cradled in Helen’s arms, and his eyes are open, unseeing.

Only then do I falter. Only then do I slip to one side, bracing myself on the bloody ground with one hand.

And then Helen is screaming, cradling Tommy’s body against her, and screaming promise, promise, promise over and over again.

“She—what the fuck?” Milos is at the elevator doors, gun still trembling in his hand. He has not seen this Helen. He has not seen her unmasked, as brutal as her father and far more dangerous. “She killed those guards.”

Helen is dangerous.

Oh, and only a fool would have taken so long to see it.

Helen is wailing, a high keening sound worse than anything I ever heard on Troy, but when he speaks, she looks up at him. “You,” she says. “ You. ”

They have gathered themselves now, Zarek and Milos, after the initial shock of Helen killing the guards.

Zarek holds up a hand, stopping Milos before he can call for the elevator. “Helen,” he says. “Look at me.”

Helen does not move.

I want to shake her by the shoulders, tell her to use her knife and finish this, but instead I am frozen at her side, Tommy’s eyes still staring, unseeing, at the spectacle unfolding on the rooftop.

“You asked me not to kill her,” Zarek says. “And I have decided, this time, to spare her. But remember there are things you love, Helen. And things you can lose.”

Helen lifts the knife, the movement sudden, her hands trembling. Then she meets my eyes at last, hers wide and haunted, and the knife clatters to the floor.

Zarek tilts his head. Smiles. “Ah,” he says. “So you can control your impulses.”

“Helen,” I say softly. I place my hand on her arm and look at her, because I cannot bear to look at Tommy. Tommy, who was gentle when neither Helen nor I deserved it. Tommy, who cared for me patiently when no one else ever really has.

“Let us do the decent thing,” I say to Zarek. “And give him a burial. He kept her safe for many years. You owe him that.”

Zarek’s eyes flicker.

Milos is still staring at Helen as if he has never seen her before. “You—Helen, what are you?”

She looks at me desperately. “Your wife,” she says, but she is looking at me and not at him, as if I did not kneel here during all of it. As if I cannot taste blood in my mouth from the force of the shot. “Your wife . But you were supposed to save Tommy.” She looks up at Zarek. “You promised.”

The last part comes out a whimper.

“Take care of him,” Zarek tells me, waving his hand at Tommy, as carelessly as if Tommy has not spent almost three decades caring for Helen, as if Tommy has not been loyal in a world where no one ever is.

I reach forward and close Tommy’s eyes. Gently, gently, I brush the blood away from the entry wound. It is not enough, not nearly enough, and he deserved so much more than this, but it is all I can give him. It is more than I gave my sisters on Troy.

I take Helen’s hand. “Come,” I say. “Come, Helen.”

They leave us there, and I let Helen cradle him against her for far longer than I should.

Finally, I coax her to her feet, and then we carry him as best as we can.

He is heavy, so painfully heavy, especially in his tactical vest and gear, but it seems so much a part of him I cannot bear to take it off.

We could call someone to help, but neither of us can find our voices, and we both seem to have decided that this we have to do ourselves.

It takes us so long, so very long, to find our way to Helen’s room.

I pause there, grab a fistful of poppies from her bedside table, and then Helen guides us to a trapdoor in the back of her closet.

There is a staircase hidden there, leading down to a private cove where a small speedboat and a few canoes are moored.

We set Tommy down at the edge of the water, and I fold his hands over his chest. His hands, so gentle with us, so brutal with the rest of the world, are still.

And then the first sob rips through me, rips apart my chest where all the bombs of the gods could not.

“You were not supposed to love us this much.” I bury my face against his chest, so still and quiet.

I want to feel the steady thump , want him to call me kid and sigh when I do something utterly stupid, I want him to call me kid even when I insist that I am not.

Helen lets out a noise that is more snarl than wail this time. “No,” she says. “ No. ”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and we lean on each other, our strength gone. There is so very little left of us, just as Tommy had warned us. Just as so many had warned us.

Helen sighs, a soft release of breath.

“I want to send him off,” she says. “Will you help me?”

In the end, we pull a boat in, one of the smaller canoes docked here, and help him into it.

I hold out poppies from Helen’s bedroom.

She places one in his hands, folded now over his heart, and I do the same.

She says I love you and I’m sorry and promise , so many times I think my heart will break.

Tommy, who loved Helen so much it killed him.

I fold his hands over the poppies and smooth his dark-brown hair, speckled with gray. I straighten his coat, button the buttons over his heart.

We send him to sea, our Tommy, to rest at last, to rest away from this gods-cursed place.

“Helen,” I say at last.

She is so, so far from me now.

“Paris,” she says finally. “You should take this speedboat and go.”

I reach for her without thinking, and she steps farther into the water, holding out her hand between us.

“ No, ” she says. “No. I am—I am sorry. You should be far away from me. Everyone I love—everything I love. He will take it from me.” Her face is streaked with tears, eyes red and puffy and desperate.

“Helen, wait. Listen to me. We should go upstairs, get you a shower, a change of clothes.”

“Everything I touch—” Helen’s chest heaves. “I—I can’t stop it. Paris. I can’t make it—I can’t make it stop.”

Helen is trembling in the water beside me.

“Helen of the gods,” I say softly. “I am not afraid of you.”

She is shaking violently now, her makeup running in rivers down her face, sweat beaded along the crease of her forehead. “Please, Paris.”

“I always thought you would be begging me under very different circumstances,” I tell her, but there is no mockery in my tone.

“Go.”

“You are dangerous, Helen.” I reach out and close my hand over her arm. Loving her is dangerous, yes, that much was always true, but it cannot dissuade me. So I hold on to her. “But so am I.”

Helen stops mid-sob, the shock of my hand touching her enough, apparently, to jar her back into her body. “Paris,” she whispers. “ Paris. ”

We are both trembling.

“Are you done?” I ask her.

Helen laughs, only half mirth, and more sob. “I am sorry,” she says. “I am—oh, Paris. Will it always be like this?”

Helen’s shoulders sag, the last of the fight going out of her before I am able to answer, and then I wade forward into the water and catch her as she falls.