Secrets - [Guardian Trilogy 01] (46 page)

“You’re going to be okay.” The lie burned in my throat and behind my eyes. I knew she was gone. I’d felt the moment her soul left this earth like a hole through my chest that grew with each passing second. But I needed to speak the words. I needed to feel I could still explain. Her mind was completely quiet, her lovely, curious eyes, glassy and empty. Her pulse rapidly slowed until it was gone. I held her against my chest, squeezing my eyes shut against the reality in my arms. My last hope was that I’d done it in time—that I’d saved her from my fate.

I killed her. The only woman in my God forsaken life whom I ever loved—and who honestly loved me in return—was lifeless in my arms, obliterated by my own hands. The first tear I had shed since my brother died trickled down my face. She was gone and my heart with her. I felt a hand on my shoulder like a branding iron. Anger began to sizzle, but I ignored Quintus and only squeezed her tighter.

“Holden, she’s not here anymore.”

“Leave me,” I growled, barely able to control the rage saturating me.

“You saved her from herself. It was the best thing you could’ve done.”

“Shut up.”

“This life was always meant to be temporary for her. She hardly lost two months—not too bad in the grand scheme of things.”

“Not another word. I’m warning you.”

“I don’t understand your reaction. You've been around long enough to see the big picture better than this.”

I loosened one hand from its grasp on her increasingly cold remains, found his leg, and channeled all of my rage and resentment into one singular thought: pain. The damn guardian collapsed to the floor, writhing, but I didn’t let go. The hatred continued to poor from me. His irritating light began to dim.

I could kill him. I could kill him right now and never have to hear his smug voice again.
With this thought, my other hand loosened as if to help. One of Olivia’s lifeless arms fell to the floor with a thud. I let Quintus go.
What am I doing?

I collected Olivia back in my arms and tried to close my mind to the sight of the gaping hole in her skull oozing blood. But it was too late. This gruesome picture had taken over. I could no longer could picture her lovely face or hear her throaty laughter.
How did I let this happen?

“She’ll become like you?” I croaked, needing to be reassured that I had at least succeeded in that. The guardian didn’t respond, but he was still there, panting from the pain on the floor next to me. I turned my head towards him. “I wasn’t too late, was I? She’ll be back?”

“If she chooses this life, she’ll be back.” Quintus pulled himself upright, his light still pale. “Let her go.”

“Is killing her not enough for you? I’ve let her go.”

“Holden, put
the body
down. The sun will be rising soon. We must finish what was started.”

“Vetis,” I hissed. I gently laid Olivia’s empty shell on the couch and pulled a blanket over her.

I could feel the heat from the bedroom, five feet from the door. All the lamps were blazing down on Vetis; his flesh was burning. His pain filled the air and mixed with my own as I walked into the room. I held the lamps as close as I could to him. I wanted the bastard to
feel
. I wanted him to suffer and pay for what he had done. I wanted to hurt him a thousand times over. I watched blisters rise on his skin and felt the hole in my chest fill slightly.

When the sun rose, Quintus carried Vetis to my car, going unnoticed as only a guardian can. His light kept the demon pinned down in its shell, while I drove into what was quickly becoming a bright sunny day. When we came to a large farm in the middle of nowhere, we laid the body in the middle of the field—no shade, no chance of protection. The demon’s pain surged inside of him and poured forth in unearthly screams.

I watched until the bitter end, despite Quintus’s best effort to get me to sit in the car. It took hours, but I enjoyed every single shriek and whimper. Eventually Vetis screamed his last and it was over… too soon. It wasn’t fair. I needed him to pay more for what he had done to Olivia, for what he had taken away from me. If I could have revived him and killed him again, I would have. Over and over again.

I started back to the car, not even trying to control my rage.

“It’s over,” I whispered. I wanted to cause pain. I wanted to hurt others as I hurt. I wanted to destroy the world if she wasn’t going to be in it. Most of all I wanted not to have been the one that took her life. I wanted the gaping hole inside of me filled before it drove me mad.

Quintus followed behind me, wisely saying nothing.

I sat in the passenger seat, lost in the caverns of my mind, searching for her among my other victims. Quintus sat next to me, but didn’t move to start the car. His heavy presence made it hard to concentrate.

“Are you waiting for something?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“No, I guess not.” Quintus drove us back to the city, but it was impossible to think with him so close. He drove past Olivia’s exit without even pausing.

“Where are you going?” I looked back at the exit.

“You need to go home and change. You’re covered in blood. You also need to pull yourself together, or there’ll be rioting. The police will be looking for you.”

“They can have me. I’ll confess.” I didn’t care. I could blow off a lot of steam in prison.

“That'll never do.”

I looked at him, resisting the urge to hold his heart in my hand and squeeze until that blinding light died.

Anger lined Quintus’s voice. “She was willing to give her soul to keep you out of hell and you’re willing to throw that away. You made the right choice. She now has a chance. You both do. Don’t take this gift lightly. Don’t make Olivia’s sacrifice be for nothing.”

The sound of her name took the wind out of my sails. I sank into the seat and closed my eyes, suddenly very tired. “She didn’t make this sacrifice. Don’t play this like it was a great gift to me. I made this sacrifice. I let her go. I robbed her of her choice and for what?”

“Because you love her.”

“I didn’t have the right to prevent her decision.”

“Why did you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you kill her? You could’ve shot her in the arm or the leg—surely that would’ve been enough to keep her from speaking, but you didn’t. Instead you took her life. Why?”

Everything was spinning. Why did I kill her? He was right. It wasn’t the only option. I couldn’t answer. I stared dumbly out the window trying to stop the world from tumbling out of control.

 “I’ll tell you why. You did it so she’d have a chance to help people, to fulfill her destiny—to become a guardian. It was what she would’ve wanted had she been thinking clearly.”

“Was it what she wanted? Are you positive?”

Quintus nodded.

“Well she sure as hell didn’t choose it. I don’t think that’s why I did it—I don’t think that’s why I did it at all. Part of me knew that so long as the choice to become like me was on the table, it would always be a temptation for her. I didn’t want her to become
this
.” I pressed my palms against my eyes, wanting to turn back time and undo my actions, but I couldn’t. This was all my fault.

“Maybe she would’ve been good at it,” I continued. “Maybe she would’ve managed not to resent me, but I didn’t want to see her like that—the best of her, the
real her
gone. . . .I did what you wanted. It’s over.” I wanted to close my eyes and never open them again. The world was broken without her in it.

“Be a better person because she touched your life.”

“I am what I am. Even less so without her.”

“I’ve seen what you can be—so much more than what you expect from yourself, definitely more than I expected from you. A jinni has never fought against its nature as well as you have. You could change everything.”

“And where has it gotten me? It’s still here, it’s always here.” I hit my chest. “It still has its claws in me.” I slammed my car door and stormed up to my apartment. It didn’t matter what I wanted any longer—I couldn’t have it anyway.

I took a shower letting the water run over me for a long time, though I could feel nothing. I burned my clothes and the sheets that smelled like her in my fireplace. I broke the dishes I bought for her and threw away the food. I cleaned my apartment top to bottom, trying to scrub every last trace of her out of my home and out of my mind. The strap of her camera bag caught my eye. I pulled it out from between my end table and couch and held it in shaking hands. I thought about smashing it, but couldn’t. I thought I might give it away, but I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else having this piece of her. I had no choice. I held the camera in my hands and thus began my new life—a living death.

* * *

The weeks after Olivia died were the worst I have ever lived through. They were worse than when my mother died. They were worse than when little brother was murdered. They were worse than when I traded my soul for the power to make my brother's killer pay.

 Drowning in emotions I couldn’t control, my mind became my prison, my torture. That night constantly repeated. The look on her face when I fired, haunted my every thought. My ears were deafened by her screams while Vetis tortured her. The police never even considered me as a suspect. Quintus must have gone back and wiped down prints. Her murder was hot news, mentioned every night on the news, headlining every paper—even the Nationals. Her photos sky-rocketed in demand and price. Her murder remained unsolved and fascinating to the public at large.

I found myself spending a lot of time with her mother. First, to help protect her from the media storm surrounding her daughter’s death, but then for reasons I couldn’t explain. She was destroyed, devastated, but each day she picked up the pieces of her shattered life and went through the motions. It comforted me to see someone else do what I could not.

Perhaps this was a self-inflicted punishment, having to see and feel the pain I’d caused. Perhaps I was making my own hell, but it was still less than I deserved. She was so much like Olivia—or the person she could’ve become. Caring for her, while painful, was also cathartic. Through her, the tiniest spark of Olivia’s essence remained in my life.

Every day for three years I waited for Olivia to come back. I could never find her in the ghost town of my mind. I hadn’t seen Quintus since the day she died. I hoped that meant she’d chosen to be a guardian, and she’d be back soon. The idea that I’d been too late nagged me every single day. What if they got her? What if all of this was for nothing? What if she chose to stay dead? The longer I waited the more certain I was that she would never come back.

After three years, I faced the truth. The soft light that had once filled the void in my soul like a bright full moon on a dark night was never coming back. Olivia was gone for good. I was alone.

Thirty Three

I opened my eyes to nothing, felt strange, scattered. What happened? This wasn’t what I expected it to be like. Where was the demon? Where was Holden? I tried hard to remember. I remembered the flash of a gun, then nothing. Slowly the space I was in started to brighten. It was gradual at first then it became bright and brighter until all the darkness ceased to be.

“Have you made your decision?” a voice boomed and echoed through the light.