His arms slowly closed around me and I fell to pieces, my tears spilling onto his white T-shirt and soaking through. I let myself fall apart in his arms as he held me and I breathed in his fresh pine scent, his presence somehow making my heart slow and my world start to feel less shaky again.
He held me until I could draw breath, until I was strong enough to stand on my own two feet again. Then I pulled away and wiped at my eyes, spinning away from him as I wrapped my arms around myself. I didn’t want to need him. I wanted to need no one and nothing. I wanted to be strong enough to face the world alone. Like Dad had taught me. Like Jess had always said I could. But I was just a weak little girl again, except now my dreams were fragmented and my innocence gone.
“What did they do?” he asked and I shook my head, unable to say it. My voice felt trapped down in a deep, dark well inside me. He moved closer behind me and I felt the warmth radiating from his body like it was the heat of the sun.
“Fuck them,” he snarled as more tears spilled over my cheeks.
I nodded, but said nothing.
“Fuck them, Tatum.” He grabbed my arms, twisting me around to face him and there was so much passion in his eyes, I could feel it butting up against my ruptured heart and demanding I be strong. “They’re trying to break you. Are you gonna let them?”
I bit into my lower lip as another fat tear rolled down my cheek. He reached out to wipe it away and the action helped my voice resurface. “They went too far this time.”
His brows pulled together and he stepped closer, dropping his hand to cup my jaw. “If you’re done, that’s it. They win. Is that what you want?”
His tone was harsh, but I clung onto the strength in it, needing it to fuel my own. I shook my head, dropping his gaze but he forced my chin up again, refusing to let me crumble.
“Say it then,” he demanded. “Because it looks like you’re done to me.”
I opened my lips, taking in a long breath as I tried to draw on his mettle. “You don’t understand. What they did…what they took from me-” I choked on the last words and my heart crushed in my chest.
“What did they take?” he growled.
“Everything,” I groaned.
I tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let me, forcing me to remain in his hardened stare.
When Jessica had died, I’d fallen apart. It had cut a gaping hole in my chest which had never healed. One second she’d been sick with a cough, the next she’d been in intensive care fighting for her life. It had all happened so fast. The blinding lights of the ambulance at two am. My dad climbing in with her. My neighbour resting her wrinkled fingers on my shoulder promising me everything would be okay. But it hadn’t been okay. Nothing had ever been okay since.
“Well then there’s nothing left for them to take now, is there princess?” Monroe’s words were softer and my lips parted as I realised he was right. How could they hurt me now when they’d already ripped me to shreds? Literally burned the only items in the world that mattered to me? They were gone, destroyed, ruined. But now that they were, they could never be used against me again.
There was nothing left to destroy, barring one thing. I lifted a hand to my necklace, caressing the pendant of the Celtic knot before reaching behind my neck, taking it off and holding it out to Monroe.
“Will you take this for me?” I asked, my voice rubbed raw from screaming.
His brow creased and he didn’t reach from it, his lips pressing tightly together. “Are you going to give up?”
I chewed on my lip before shaking my head, finding another ounce of resilience to hold onto. He took the necklace into his palm then tucked it into his pocket and my shoulders dropped in relief.
I turned to face the lake, lowering down to the ground and using Saint’s coat to cover my ass from the damp sand with a sweet satisfaction running through me as I got it dirty. Monroe dropped down beside me and I glanced at him, unbelievably grateful that he’d found me here.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m gonna stay right here until you’re ready to face those assholes again. Then, we’re going to get your uniform and you’re gonna show them what you’re made of by making it through the entire day, princess.”
I stared at him for a long moment as my heart thumped wildly against the base of my throat. He was a dark prince, not a valiant one. I knew there was a malice in him that almost matched that of the Night Keepers’ at times. But there was a goodness in him too. And even if he was just doing this for the sake of his own revenge, I was still grateful for it.
“Thank you,” I breathed.
He shrugged and I turned my gaze to the water, trying to let the calm of the world seep into my skin. And as the minutes ticked on, my pain numbed and my heart turned to iron.
I wanted to destroy those bastards more than I’d ever wanted anything. I wanted to do it for Jess, for Dad, for Monroe. But most of all, I wanted to do it for me.
The only thing I feared was what I was going to look like at the end of this battle. Because how could I destroy three monsters without becoming one myself?
Even Beethoven couldn’t lighten my mood. Or Mozart or Vivaldi or Stravinsky or Wagner or Tchaikovsky or even fucking Debussy.
My skin was coated in sweat and my muscles were burning with fatigue from pushing so goddamn hard in my workout to try and make up for the time I’d missed from my ritual, but it was no good. No fucking good.
My grip tightened on the weight I was holding and with a roar of rage, I launched it across the room where it hit the grey bricks and knocked a chunk out of them before it fell and slammed into the ground beneath in a scattering of dust.
I whirled around and took the stairs back up to the main room of The Temple two at a time as my pulse pounded in my ears.
I hadn’t slept. I never did much anyway, but last night I’d been awake all night ringing and ringing Kyan as I climbed the fucking walls, not knowing where the fuck he was. Where the fuck she was.
I didn’t even know what time it was now which was fucking unthinkable. My ritual was the only thing which kept me sane and it had blown up in my face this morning. And it felt like…like…my motherfucking head was about to explode.
I stormed through the living room and up the stairs to the balcony as I tried to get my mind straight. The clock on the wall was waiting for me, offering the answers that could get me back on track if I just-
Seven, thirteen. Thirteen fucking minutes past seven. What the fuck was that? Nothing happened at thirteen minutes past anything. It was a void time, a time when I should have been deep into the cathartic part of my workout not wandering the church like a fucking wraith.
I swiped a hand over my face as I tried to calm myself, but as I looked down at my palm I found fresh blood coating my fingers from my fucking nose where that bitch had punched me.
The voices were getting loud now, the echoes which haunted me, chased me, infected me.
It’s too late now, you’ve lost the fight today.
Better to let the demons take charge.
Better to just give in…
I cranked Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake up loud enough to drown everything else out, trying to let it calm me, searching for myself in the peace of it but only finding any solace in the darker parts of the composition.