***
Stop here to finish this story as a standalone, or the epilogue for a hint at what book two will be about!
Epilogue
Two weeks later, they laid Dalton to rest. It took all I could do to sit there without squirming out of my own skin. He was a monster. He wanted me dead. If he’d had his way, I would be the one they were lowering into the ground right now, nothing more than a bloodless husk.
But the townsfolk didn’t know that. To them, sitting all teary eyed and justified, he had been a victim of Abram’s. Even if they still couldn’t quite put into words what Abram had turned into (and, as a result, were beginning to make stupid and mundane excuses about it) the narrative still stated the obvious. Abram was a murderer, a villain they had needed to bring to justice.
Even if he hadn’t been seen by anyone in town since that night.
Anyone but me, anyway.
Some believed he died and that wild animals had dragged off his carcass, but others thought he was still alive, out there, on the prowl, ready to strike again at any moment.
Because everyone knew about his place in the woods, Abram had been forced to hide out in an abandoned farmhouse in the next town over. It wasn’t much, but it was off the beaten path, close enough for me to stop by every day, and there was a basement with enough space to lock him in when the sun went down.
People were still after him, and they were looking for both a man and a monster. We couldn’t be too careful. Still, it was only a temporary solution.
Things at home didn’t get any better, either. Lulu was despondent after the death of her brother. And though she didn’t come out and say it, I could tell she blamed me at least in part for what happened. She knew that I had sided with Abram, and since the town never was able to confirm whether Dalton had died before or after they had supposedly killed Abram, for all she knew, Abram was responsible for her brother’s death.
Dalton was a hero not only to her, but to the entire town. And though I was a victim in their eyes as well, I was also a facilitator. And they weren’t going to let me forget it.
Doors got closed in my face. Children sneered at me. It was like the entire place was filled with Esters. New Haven had finally realized how much I didn’t belong here, and I absolutely agreed.
A week after Dalton’s funeral, I left town. Lulu was still talking to me. God bless her, she was trying to move past things. But I could hardly look at her. It was me who had snuffed the life from her brother’s eyes. And whether he deserved it or not, that fact weighed on me heavily.
“You’re like my sister, you know?” she’d said before the taxi pulled up to get me. “Nothing’s ever going to change that.”
There were tears in her eyes when she hugged me goodbye. And there were tears in mine when the cab pulled away.
I met Abram two days later on the island of Grimold. It was a tiny dot of a place in the Mediterranean that I had never heard of, but the instant I stepped off the plane, I knew I had made a good choice.
When Abram had first told me we were leaving, I hadn’t wanted to go. Not with a third beast still known to be in New Haven. But Abram promised me he would hunt that one down before meeting me in Grimold, and he’d held true to his promise. In a way, it wasn’t someone I knew being a beast that really scared me, though. It was that there were so many, complete strangers, insignificant in the scheme of themes yet ingrained in my life in the worst possible way.
But now was not the time to linger on those thoughts. Abram was finally here with me. New Haven was safe from the beasts and Abram was safe from New Haven. He stood on the tarmac, dressed in white, all tanned and rested, his hands hanging freely at his sides. Seeing him was like coming home, and his easy smile made me feel as though everything would be okay.
“What do we do first?” I asked after he gave me the sweetest, longest kiss of my entire life.
“Whatever you want,” he said, running his hands down my back and resting them near my big beautiful butt. “We’ve got the rest of our lives. All we have to do is live it.”
***
On our third day in Grimold, Abram took me for a walk along the ocean. The mist of all that had happened dissipated there. It was no match for the sun, sand, and sea. It was no match for the man standing next to me or for the way I felt about him.
“Tell me again,” I demanded, smiling and leaning into him.
“Again?” he asked with a secretive smile.
“You owe me,” I said, kissing his bare arm.
“I love you,” he said, and he dropped a kiss on my hairline. “I love you,” he repeated, kissing me again. “I love you. I love you. I love you. A thousand times over, Charisse, I love you, and I always will.”
Satisfied by his proclamation, I let my cheek rest against his shoulder, my fingers entwined with his, breathing in the smell of salt and sun on his warm skin.
This was my life now. Unending happiness.