Inside, in the very centre of me, I knew this; Finn’s quiet explanation tears at my heart, too. “Why?”
“I don’t know. But that’s why I have to do it again. I can’t send you to a life in the Void or allow a demon to resurrect you into a Between they own. That’s why I’m asking what you want this time.” Finn folds a hand around mine and I prepare to pull away from the cold. The fingers enclosing mine are warm and soft; the soothing comfort I remember from the night I almost died runs through instead of the ice. Finn. It was always Finn in my nightmares, easing my fear with his gentle power. The words I’ve struggled to remember for so many months sound in my mind: ‘You’re safe. Don’t be afraid, I’ll fix this’.
He was wrong.
“Are you an angel, Finn?” I ask him warily. “The Dark guy at the party said you were.”
Finn looks at me sharply. “In your understanding of things, I am. But everything is a little more complicated than the labels people want to give us.”
“So, you’re not my guardian angel or something?”
Finn makes a soft noise of amusement. “How can I be? I’m a Reaper.”
“Labels, huh?” I say and smile at him.
He doesn’t return the smile.
“There’s no fog,” I whisper to myself. “When I’m with you, there’s fog and I get dizzy. Why can’t I feel the cold?”
“Because you don’t have any of my energy inside, not at the moment. If you want, I can send you back to the Void and you can make the decision whether to have a demon resurrect you as a Between.” He pauses and releases my hand. “Or I can give you my energy again, and you can return as a Between who’s free. I wouldn’t ask anything of you.”
Tears well in my eyes as I consider the choices; because I realise this isn’t only my life I’m making a decision about, I reach out to touch Finn’s face. “You. What would happen to you?”
He gently takes my hand and removes it from his cheek. “I have to make a choice,” he says quietly, “I’d stay, too. I can’t go back if I transgress again.”
“What would happen to you if you stayed?”
He shrugs and stares ahead, in a closed-off, Finn way. “I’m not sure.”
“Why risk that? Why do this? No, I can’t, Finn. I’ll go back to where I was. Back to Alek.”
“No! I want to do this; don’t make the decision based on what you think should happen to me. This is my fault and this is how I want to fix the situation I created.” He wipes a hand across his face then turns back to me, his expression difficult to make out in the dim light. “Rose, how I feel about you breaks my heart every day. I see how unhappy and frightened you are and want to take that away, make you whole again, not hurt you further. Seeing you struggle and not being able to touch and comfort you is punishment enough for what I did.”
I stand, battling against breaking down and showing him the pain he’s talking about. I don’t want to hear what I’ve suspected for so long. I presumed because I contained his energy that was what connected us. But this came before, from the night I lay in this road. Something caused him to save me, and his need to help me is stronger than his need to right his mistake and end me. Now he’s prepared to take a step into a void of his own to do this.
“Why me, Finn? Why is this all happening to me?”
“Coincidence, fate, whatever you believe in. I don’t know.” He looks up at me, skin shining in the rain. “I won’t come between you and Crazy Boy, don’t worry.”
Alek. “Do you know what he’s doing? Who he’s bringing back?”
Finn stands, too, and shifts his jacket closer against the rain. “Yes, I do. Do you love him?”
“What?” I blink at his out of the blue question.
“Alek. Do you think you love him?”
I pick at the edge of my cardigan. What do I feel for Alek? Not love, but the beginnings of something. Is it a need for him mixed with fear I’ll lose him, the way he fears he’ll lose me? There’s a reason Alek came for me and is risking his life in the Void; that reason must go beyond the fear of losing me.
“I don’t know.”
“Would you care if he was lost to the Dark?”
“Of course!” I shoot back. “He’s important to me. I care a lot about him.”
Finn inhales and nods. “Okay. I guess I’m stuck then. I can’t do anything I’m told.”
I laugh because he sounds like a naughty child, and he frowns at me. “You laugh at really inappropriate things,” he says.
“You say some funny things.”
He shakes his head. “Will you allow me to give you the energy you need to be a Between so you can stay here, but not risk your life for demons? Because if I don’t, you’ll be alone in the Void.”
“Great set of choices,” I mutter.
“I won’t interfere with your life and, of course, I won’t touch you. But if I stay in the world, I’ll need to be around you. Is that okay?”