“No,” I beg, confusion muddling my already pain-soaked brain. “Hudson, please. Please don’t do it. Don’t make me—”
“What are you doing?” Jaxon demands, shoving to his feet and moving toward us. “Dude, don’t touch her—”
Without ever taking his gaze from mine, Hudson reaches out and explodes a wide fissure in the ground, leaving Jaxon and Macy on one side and he and I on the other.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Of course, but—”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” he asks again, and in the space between the words—the space between us—are all the things we’ve never said.
“Don’t!” Jaxon shouts to me. “Don’t believe anything he says. You know he can’t be trusted, Grace. You know—”
“Yes,” I whisper, even as my entire body recoils from the hole in the ground he’s made for me.
“Yes?” he asks, his blue eyes a little disbelieving and a lot determined.
“Yes, Hudson. I trust you.” It may be the most ridiculous decision of my rapidly draining life, but I do trust him. I do, more than I ever would have believed possible even a couple of short days ago.
“Do you remember that night we went to the library?”
“Which one?”
He rolls his eyes. “The night Jaxy-Waxy got you those street tacos.”
I laugh just a little at how disgruntled he looks, then wish I hadn’t when another wave of pain slides through me at the disjointed motion. “Oh, right. The night you behaved like a total ass. I remember that really well, actually.”
“I think you’re confused,” he tells me with a heavy sigh. “But, considering the morning you’ve had, I suppose that’s to be expected. I won’t hold it against you.”
“You sure about that?” I ask. “Because I’ve got to say, burying me alive seems like one hell of a revenge plot.”
“Forget about the bloody ground for a second, will you, please?” he snaps.
“Easy for you to say, all things considered,” I snap back. Then spend several seconds having a coughing fit for my trouble.
“I read something in the library; then when we met the Unkillable Beast—” He stops as the coughing fit overtakes me and I gasp for air, tears sliding unchecked out of the corners of my eyes. “We don’t have time for explanations.”
“Yeah.” Another coughing fit comes on, this one harder and more painful than the one before.
“It’s getting worse,” he says, all traces of humor gone.
Now it feels like there’s a weight pressing down on my chest, but I finally manage to choke out, “No…shit…Sherlock…”
We both know what I’m doing—making it easy for Hudson to bury me in the ground.
He doesn’t want to put me there any more than I want to be there, but we’re out of options.
And so Hudson bends down and lays me gently inside the grave he so desperately carved out for me.
It’s terrifying—the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me, even after everything I’ve faced in the last few months—and I tell myself to close my eyes. To pretend it isn’t happening. To just breathe and wait it out.
But I can’t, not when Hudson waves Jaxon and Macy over, and everyone is standing over my grave, watching me.
“Bury her—” Hudson begins.
“I won’t,” Jaxon insists. “No way am I burying her before she’s dead.”
But Hudson isn’t in the mood to put up with anything from him right now. “Bury her,” he commands. “Right now. Or you won’t like what happens next. That much I can promise you.”
Macy’s eyes widen in fear, and I want to tell her he doesn’t mean it. But both she and Jaxon must take him at his word, because Jaxon is using his telekinesis to slowly, methodically cover me with small stones and pebbles.
He starts at my feet, dropping more and more of the tiny rocks on top of me, then slowly, carefully works his way up until my legs are covered, then my hips, then my rib cage and arms.
I’m cold, so cold, but I struggle to hold on just a little longer. If this is the last time I’m going to see these people—my family—then I’m going to hold on until the very last second. I’m going to stay with them until I no longer have a choice in the matter.
Macy is full-on ugly crying now. Jaxon’s eyes are locked sadly on mine. And Hudson, Hudson is crouched down at the head of the grave, his fingers gently, gently, gently stroking my hair.
I watch the three of them until the end. Until the stones reach past my neck and there is no more time left. Then, and only then, do I close my eyes and let the earth and the stone take me.
0
Amazing Grace
—Hudson—
I’m terrified.
It’s not something I like to admit, even to myself—and something I’d deny if anyone ever asked—but I am bloody terrified watching Grace sink into the earth.
Watching the rocks cover her even as the cold rain and sleet pour down on us.
Watching her fade away a little more with each labored breath she takes.
This isn’t how this was supposed to happen—it isn’t how any of this was supposed to go. When we first made the plan to come back, together, I thought we’d covered every contingency, had thought of anything that might possibly go wrong. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I never, never thought it would end up like this.
If I’d had a clue, I would have found another way. Any other way, even if it meant staying encased in stone, locked up with Grace, forever.
I run a hand through my hair, glancing around at the sheer destruction I’d leveled on this forest. I should come out and plant saplings in the spring. Grace would want that.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll destroy you,” Jaxon snarls at me as the last rock covers her. He’s obviously spoiling for a fight.
But I’m not biting. I’m not going to be drawn into an argument when he wants to act like a child. So I swallow the eight thousand things I could say in response and settle for the pure, unvarnished truth. “If this doesn’t work, you won’t have to.”
Because what the fuck am I supposed to do if Grace doesn’t make it out of that grave? How the fuck am I supposed to live with myself…or just live, for that matter, without her?