I’d driven it away and already been safe by the time Barrons appeared and blasted into it.
I hadn’t really been dying after all.
He died for me and it hadn’t been necessary.
I overreacted.
And now he’s dead.
I stare at the dirk. Killing myself would be a reward. I deserve only punishment.
I stare at the snapshot of the back of my head. If the Lord Master found me right now, I’m not sure I would fight for my life.
I consider attempting surgery on my own skull, then realize I am not in the best frame of mind for that. I might not stop cutting. It’s close to my spinal column. Easy way out.
I slam the blade into the dirt before I can turn it on myself.
What would that make of me? That I got him killed, then killed myself? A coward. But it’s not what it would make of me that bothers me. It’s what it would make of him—a wasted death.
The death of a man like him deserves more than that.
I bite back another scream. It’s trapped inside me now, stuffed down into my belly, burning the back of my throat, making it painful to swallow. I hear it in my ears even though my mouth makes no sound. It’s a silent scream. The worst kind. I lived with this once before, to keep Mom and Dad from knowing that Alina’s death was killing me, too. I know what comes next, and I know it’s going to be worse than last time. That I’m going to be worse.
Much, much worse.
I remember the scenes of slaughter Barrons showed me in his mind. I understand them now. Understand what might drive a person to it.
I kneel beside his naked, bloody body. The transformation from man to beast must have shredded his clothing, exploded the silver cuff from his wrist. Nearly two thirds of his body is inked with black and crimson protection runes.
“Jericho,” I say. “Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.” Why did I ever begrudge him his name? “Barrons” was a stone wall I erected between us, and if a hairline fracture appeared, I hastily mortared it with fear.
I close my eyes and steel myself. When I open them, I wrap both hands around the spear and try to pull it from his back. It doesn’t come out. It’s lodged in bone. I have to fight for it.
I stop. I start again. I weep.
He doesn’t move.
I can do this. I can.
I work the spear free.
After a long moment, I roll him over.
If there was any doubt in my mind that he was dead, it vanishes. His eyes are open. They are empty.
Jericho Barrons is no longer there.
I open my senses to the world around me. I can’t feel him at all.
I am on this cliff, alone.
I’ve never been so alone.
I try everything I can think of to bring him back to life.
I remember the Unseelie flesh we crammed into my backpack what seems a lifetime ago, back in the bookstore when I was getting ready to face the Lord Master. Most of it is still there.
If only I’d known then what I know now! That the next time I saw Jericho Barrons, he’d be dead. That the last words I would ever hear him say were “And the Lamborghini,” with that wolf smile and promise that he would always be at my back, breathing down it, keeping it covered.
The wriggling, chopped-up Rhino-boy flesh is still neatly trapped in baby-food jars. I force it between his swollen, bloodied lips and hold his mouth shut. When it crawls out the jagged gash in his neck, my trapped scream nearly deafens me.
I’m not thinking clearly. Panic and grief ride me. Barrons would say: Useless emotions, Ms. Lane. Rise above them. Stop reacting and act. There he is, talking to me again.
What wouldn’t I do for him? Nothing is too disgusting, too barbaric. This is Barrons. I want him whole again.
Ryodan had flayed him from gut to chest, before he slit his throat. I carefully peel back the meat of his tattooed abdomen and stuff Unseelie into his exposed, sliced stomach. It crawls out. I consider trying to sew the stomach up, so his body would be forced to digest the flesh of the dark Fae, and wonder if it would work, but I lack needle, thread, or any other means of repairing his torn flesh.
I attempt to put his entrails back into his body, arrange them in some semblance of order, dimly aware that this is perhaps not a normal, sane thing to do.
Once he said: Get inside me, see how deep you can go. With my hands on his spleen, I think, Here I am. Too little, too late.
I use my newfound proficiency in Voice and command him to rise. He told me once that student and teacher develop immunity to each other. I’m almost relieved. I was afraid Voice might raise a zombie, reanimated but not truly revived.
I prop his mouth open with a stick, slit my wrist, and drip blood into it. I have to slice deep to get a few drops and keep slicing because I keep healing. It only makes him bloodier.
I search my sidhe-seer place for magic to heal him. I have nothing of such consequence inside me.
I am suddenly furious.
How could he be mortal? How dare he be mortal? He never told me he was mortal! If I’d known, I might have treated him differently!
“Get up, get up, get up!” I shout.
His eyes are still open. I hate that they’re open and so empty and blank, but closing them would be an admission, an acceptance I don’t have in me.
I will never close Jericho Barrons’ eyes.
They were wide open in life. He would want them open in death. Rituals would be wasted on him. Wherever Barrons is, he would laugh if I tried something as mundane as a funeral. Too small for such a large man.
Put him in a box? Never.
Bury him? No way.
Burn him?
That, too, would be acceptance. Admission that he was dead. Never going to happen.
Even in death he looks indomitable, his big black-and-crimson-tattooed body an epic giant, felled in battle.
I settle on the ground, gently lift his head, maneuver my legs beneath it, and cradle his face in my arms. With my shirt and hot tears that won’t stop falling, I bathe away dirt and blood and clean him tenderly.
Harsh, forbidding, beautiful face.
I touch it. Trace it with my fingers, over and over, until I know the subtlest nuances of every plane and angle, until I could carve it out of stone even if I were blind.
I kiss him.
I lie down and stretch out next to him. I press my body to his and hold on.
I hold him like I never permitted myself to hold him when he was alive. I tell him all the things I never said.
For a time, I have no idea where he ends and I begin.