Breathless (22 page)

“I had a feeling you might.” I smile. It isn’t fake or strained or anything like that. I don’t see the lightning or hear the chants. I don’t see the world ending around me. All I see is Gracen.

It hits me then that this is my last moment on Earth. Sure, I’ll be alive in reverse world before Gracen stabs me, but honestly, that wasn’t living. That was… I don’t know what that was. Existing for a grand cause, I suppose. This… this is living. Being with Gracen, that’s what I want to remember. I want this to be my last memory on Earth, the one I will carry with me into the afterlife. The one I will carry in my heart.

I wish I could touch her one last time. The wind is blowing her hair around her face, almost in slow motion.

Seth throws the blood. It lands on Gracen, but she doesn’t flinch. She keeps her eyes on me.

“Don’t hesitate.” I remind her.

She doesn’t say a word.

“Whatever Hart told you…” Seth says before a big ball of bright white light engulfs us both. Gracen closes her eyes and tilts her head back before she shoots up like a rocket and disappears into the clouds.

I look at Seth.

He looks at me.

“What did you tell her?”

I shrug. “The truth.”

I watch as the rain starts to fall. “Only the truth.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Gracen

I
T FEELS LIKE BEING SHOT OUT
of a canon, not that I know how it feels to be shot out of a canon, but I imagine it’s similar to this. One minute I’m standing with Hart, and the next I’m flying through the sky so fast the lightning and the clouds and all the scary stuff going by is just a blur. I’m not there long.

Then I’m…

I’m not sure where I am.

I’m solid, that much I know. I can feel the earth under me, and I can feel the weight of gravity, which is a strange thing to feel when you haven’t felt it.

No doubt about it, I’m back in my body. I blink a few times to get my bearings and notice for the first time that I’m at the Hell gate.

My mother is on the floor not three feet from me.

Dead.

Her head isn’t attached.

I try to hold myself together. If I don’t do this, more people will lose their loved ones.

I start to walk toward my mother’s body. There has to be something I can do to save her. Something…

Something.

“Don’t hesitate.” Hart’s words echo through my head. “Don’t hesitate. Don’t hesitate.”

I can feel her in my head, the Abomination part of me. She’s fighting, clawing to get out. She wants me out. How about that, I feel the same way.

“You aren’t going to win.” I smirk. “I’ve got you.”

Everything inside me starts to vibrate as I stretch my hands out to my side and slowly raise them up toward the heavens, or what would be the heavens if it weren’t for the top of the cave.

I can feel every bit of anger she has trying to fill me, flood me, take me over. She’s screaming at me that this is our purpose. We’re supposed to destroy the world. We have a destiny.

I ignore her.

“You really think you can stop it?” She seethes in my head. “No matter what you do, we’ll always end up here. Whatever you think you can do to stop it, you won’t be able to hold me in forever. You little, puny, sickly, weak soul.”

“I don’t have to hold you in forever.” I close my eyes and picture every bit of my energy to reach as far back as I can go. “Just until I get home.”

It bursts from my body like a radiating light. It fills the room, and even with my eyes closed, it burns them. I picture my room. Picture Sam. Picture my apartment. Picture being home. Picture my mother alive again. Picture Lucien alive. Picture everything back to how it was before.

Only I’m not the same as I was before. I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. Not just because of the demon blood or the angel blood or the whatever, but because of me. I’m the one in control. Not the Abomination. Not Hart. Not Seth. Nobody. I’m in control of my own destiny, and that’s an incredibly powerful feeling.

I give into it, lean into it, hug it, embrace it. The feeling is much too powerful for me to contain, so with the world falling apart around me, I let the light take me over.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Gracen

I
FOCUS ON
H
ART.

Not really Sam, though I suppose he’s the one I should be focusing on. I think about Hart, about how much I love him and want to be with him.

How I’m doing this for him.

How I’m doing this for everybody.

One minute I’m in the cave being engulfed by the light, and the next I’m in my room. My room in the apartment. My white walls. My purple curtains. My desk.

I grab my phone from the dresser next to my bed, my old phone. The one Hart broke. It’s Monday. Last Monday.

If it were last Monday, I would be sitting at the computer desk waiting for Tina to message me back. I would be thinking about Professor Mitchell and wondering why Sam had become so distant.

And I would be lamenting about how Hart had come back into my dreams.

I don’t feel her anymore.

The Abomination.

The power is gone, and I feel drained.

I look in the mirror, and my black hair is gone. My white eyes are their normal green color. My hair is back to blonde. I look like myself again.

Me.

Gracen Sullivan.

The girl who destroyed so many lives.

The girl who will save them all.

I remember what Hart told me about the knife, and I run toward his bedroom to get it. If it’s anything like last Monday, he won’t be home. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do what I came back here to do if I don’t see him.

First things first, I go into his room and flip on the light.

It’s just like I remember it.

Bare walls.

Messy bed.

Only two pictures on his nightstand. One of us at the fair last month.

The other… an old one folded so many times it looked like it had been taped back together: a picture of him, his brother, his mother, and I assume his father.

Hart had been so handsome back in this 1800s. Lucien too, truth be told. His father was a stately man, and his mother… well, his mother looked like a bitch.

Some things never change.

I slide my hand under his bed and feel around for the knife. It has to be here. Hart said it was here… he said.

“Looking for something?” Hart… Sam is standing in the doorway. His hands are behind his back, and his brows are furrowed. This isn’t right. He’s not supposed to be here.

I freeze.

This isn’t my Hart.

Well, he is.

But he doesn’t know it.

If what Hart said were true, this guy only knows what happened up until last Monday. He doesn’t remember the Abomination or the world ending. He doesn’t remember his brother dying or that he loved me.

Or that I love him.

He’s the demon Hart that hurt me every night.

He’s the thing that tortured me all those years.

He’s the guy that possessed my aunt.

He’s the demon that hitched a ride in a poor dead body.

He’s…

He’s the thing I have to kill if I want to stop the world from ending.

Hart said so.

It should be easy. He doesn’t remember everything we shared in the very short time we shared it. He doesn’t remember the night at the hotel or how he held me when I was scared. He doesn’t remember taking care of me for three days after the Hell gate. He only remembers that I’m the key to getting revenge on his brother. And he has no idea that his brother didn’t shoot him.

Hart will die never knowing the truth about his brother.

From the corner of my eye, I see the glint of the knife under the bed. I can grab it and charge after Hart, hopefully taking him out easy.

Hopefully…

“What’s up with you? Why are you in my room?” He doesn’t move. Don’t flinch. Something feels different about him, though. His eyes are… I can’t explain it. Softer maybe? I expected him to be madder about this. Instead he’s just standing there, like he’s expecting me to do something.

“Why are you home? You aren’t supposed to be home. You weren’t before.” The knife is so close. I can get it. I can end this all.

“I don’t know. Just felt like I needed to be here for some reason.” He tilts his head to the side. “Are you looking for something, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart.

Hart called me that.

Sam hardly ever did.

Tears sting my eyes, and Hart’s words hit me like they did before in the cave. “Don’t hesitate. Don’t hesitate.”

I need to grab the knife and do this. I have to stop the events from happening so I don’t turn. I have to stop Hart, because even if I didn’t want to kill him, and I don’t, he won’t go on the same path as he did before. He’ll still be a demon, a demon who hurts people, a demon who has killed people, a demon who will still be a demon unless I stop him.

“What are you waiting for?” He stands straighter and his nose flares. A little light flickers in his eye.

No.

No…

“You weren’t supposed to remember anything.” A tear slides down my cheek.

“What… What are you talking about? You’re acting crazy, and that’s saying something for you.”

“Stop.” I’m shaking. I know I’m not wrong. He lied to me. The bastard lied. “Just stop, Hart.”

“Who’s Hart?” He has no conviction in his voice. None.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of all the games and being all prim and proper. I reach out from under the bed and pull out the demon-killing knife, the one I killed Hart with at my house. The one he’s cut me with every night. I stand slowly, letting the knife weigh heavy in my hand.

“You told me you wouldn’t remember.” He opens his mouth to say something I know is going to be a lie. “I’m not playing anymore, Hart. Can we just not? You told me you wouldn’t remember.”

In one second, my Hart returns. He’s not trying to pretend he’s Sam. He’s not trying to pretend that this isn’t screwed up. He leans against the doorframe and slides his hand through his hair. “It’s a deal I made with Seth.”

“Seth?”

“I told him I wanted to remember, so when you got back here, I’d make sure you went through with it. Or to stop you in case you thought of doing something stupid.”

“You didn’t trust me.”

He laughs softly. “I know you.”

I stare at him for what feels like forever. I feel the weight of the knife in my hand. It feels like the weight of the world. And it is. It’s the entire weight of the world, right in my hand. “You know, I still have the Abomination inside me. The potential to be.”

“You planning on chugging demon blood and dying after I’m gone?” Sarcasm. Lovely.

“You never know. Seth might not remember anything. He might still want revenge on God.”

“I don’t think Seth is doing anything. Lucien had a little chat with Tina, who happens to be a higher ranking angel than Seth, and she’s going to get him nice and contained.”

“Tina’s an angel?” I guess I should’ve known. She’s always been a guardian angel to me. She kept me going when I thought I was losing my sanity. She was my only friend. And she wasn’t real.

“She’s real.” Oh good, he can read my mind again. “She thinks highly of you. She must to listen to my brother.”

“You remember that too?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

“That comes with remembering.” He walks toward me and takes my hand in his. I put the knife behind my back, I don’t want him to get it and do something we’ll both regret, although I regret a lot of things right now.

“I told you not to hesitate.”

“Did you expect to come in and have me just come at you?” Now it’s my turn to be snarky.

I don’t know why, but I feel like there’s an urgency to this. Like some internal clock I can’t shake. “I’ve been feeding you demon blood for years. Remember, Gracen? You have some in your system right now. You aren’t the Abomination anymore, not yet, but you could be. If you die right now, you will.”

I stare at him while the wheels in my mind spin, trying to put together all the pieces. Hart… he set me up. “You made it where I couldn’t kill myself if I tried. If I did, I’d turn, and all of this would be for nothing.”

“I don’t know what would happen if you made the wrong choice and did something bad to yourself, but I know you well enough to know that you won’t chance turning into the Abomination. Not again. Seth didn’t think that part through when he…”

“When he what?”

Hart runs his fingers over my cheek. It isn’t like how it was outside. I can feel his skin on mine. I close my eyes and lean into his touch. It’s been so long since I’ve felt it, so long since I’ve allowed myself to enjoy it, to really feel it.

This is it.

This is goodbye, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Nothing at all.

“I love you, you know?” Hart smiles down at me. The red ring around his eye glows brighter. “I love you more than anything ever in this world. Lucien won’t remember me, so please don’t tell him. I don’t want him to remember. I want him to get to enjoy being an angel.”

“He’s an angel again?”

“You spun the clock back, right? Everything is like it was before, except me and you remember. I’m glad I remember. I wouldn’t give up any time I’ve spent with you for anything.”

His fingers gently run down my cheek and down my neck, leaving goose bumps in its wake. “Didn’t you already die to save me once? It didn’t work out that well for you.”

He looks so peaceful when he smiles down at me. “It’s different this time. That time you stabbed me because I was trying to save you.”

“How is this different?” His fingers travel down my shoulder, nearing my elbow. I fight the urge to close my eyes. I want to look at him. Drink him in.

The knife trembles in my hand. The weight of it feels wrong, much too heavy.

I can’t do this.

I can’t.

“Because this time…” His fingers move from my elbow to my hand before I can react. One second, I have the knife in my hand. The next, Hart is holding it and backs away. “This time, I’m doing it myself.”

“No.” I plead.

“You really think I’d make you stab me? No, this one’s on me.”