Page 51 of We Are the Match

Helen

I left my mother the detonator, in the end. I left her with her war.

Because if she wins—if we rule—and I do not have Paris at my side, how can it be any victory at all?

I wanted Tommy to be here, telling me this is okay.

Promise?

Promise.

But I am grown, I am Helen , and I push my ghosts aside and let the breath expand deep inside my chest, straining against my ribs.

Paris holds her hands out to me now, in the darkness of this little bunker.

“You—you’re here?” she says breathlessly.

“I’m here.”

She kneels, right there at the edge of the water. She smells of gasoline and fury, but she holds the lighter up to me, a promise worth more than any ring.

“Tell me to go,” Paris says. “Tell me to run, and I will leave it behind. Tell me to run, and we will abandon revenge and ruling. Tell me to run, my love, and I will take you with me.”

I tug at her hand, pulling her to her feet. “I came,” I tell her, my voice trembling with the weight of what we have both done. “I came for you, Paris.”

“I was coming for you ,” she says, eyes bright. “We don’t have to wait until all this is done. We don’t have to hold so tightly to the roles we played. We can be—we can be more .”

“I thought we couldn’t,” I say breathlessly. “I thought there was nowhere we could run to escape them. I thought—”

“You thought right.” My father’s voice rips through the darkness, and then he is there, his men surrounding him, guns trained on us. I am on the roof and Tommy is dying. I am in the water and Erin floats beside me. I am in this cave, and Paris is holding fast to me.

He steps forward, my father, rage in his eyes and a knife in his hand.

“Do you know what I do to women like you?” he asks Paris.

She never shows her fear, my Paris, but she lets go of my hand and steps in front of him. “Do you know what I do to men who treat Helen like a belonging?” she asks.

Oh, Paris, my Paris.

I have always been yours.

“Lena sends her regards,” Paris says.

There it is: my father frozen, just for a flash. “From the queen,” he says reverently. “Yes. Yes, of course. It could only ever have been her.” He wavers on his feet as if the news is as physical as a blow to the chest.

And then there is a flash of steel in the darkness, Paris snatching his arm and pinning it to the wall for just long enough to—

His hand falls, still clinging to his knife, blood erupting from the stump of his wrist.

“You will never lay a hand on her again,” she says, her eyes triumphant still when my father’s guards force her to her knees.

I do not wait for them to force me. I kneel beside her. I take her hand.

There is no bullet left to fear. There is nothing left to fear.

There is nothing left but us.