“I’ve got you, wife.” Jude’s grip latched onto me as he swung upside down with only his legs holding him on the trapeze bar. It appeared that his plan had worked, since he wasn’t hanging from the rope. Instead, I wished we had a moment earlier to discuss everything before we tried to do the same thing a different way. Jude looked around and then shifted his gaze back to me.
“Jude, we need to get to the gates, like now,” I urged him and he nodded.
“Trust me, OK? I need you to turn reaper now.” He paused and I nodded. Seconds later we fell with terrified screams from the crowd watching us plummet to the polished marble floors below. I closed my eyes without hesitation, my hands in Jude’s as I became one with my powers. A lightness lifted my soul as I separated from my body into that realm of the afterlife. Yet, I still felt Jude with me, tethering me between two worlds. I vaguely felt my physical form being caught by someone, which was a relief that I wouldn’t be stuck as a soul after today.
I opened my eyes as an arm wrapped around Jude and he turned a shimmering blue color.
“No!” He could not become a ghost. I wouldn’t take him onward. That would be the end of me.
“Trust me,” he whispered as our scenery turned black, then light, then dark, then we landed in a room I’d hoped I would never see again.
“Go, Lucy. Get out of here.” Jude pushed his ghostly friend away from the gates to the afterlife that called to her with sweet words of peace.
It took a few seconds for me to catch up, but once I realized she had helped Jude and me float through the house like ghosts do, we were now in a room that threatened her soul. She did this for Jude, for us, and for everyone up there.
She took a step with an outreached hand toward the gates. Disappearing tears flew past her as a burst of wind pushed Jude and me back from the gates.
We did everything that was needed to seal the broken part where the souls had been able to slip out. Now the only part of the curse left was the blood paid. Our blood.
“We need to touch the gates together!” I yelled at Jude as the voices in my head tried to tell me to give up and accept my hopeless life. Only I knew those voices were lies, and I wouldn’t give up. This awful room wanted me to fail, to walk into the afterlife like they had the first time Jude had shown it to me.
“After you, wife.” Jude held his still bleeding hand toward my matching one. I’d felt a hint of remorse for cutting his hand before, but I didn’t know if I’d get another chance to do so. Part of me had hoped that just droplets of his blood on the ground mixed with mine would do the deed, but that wasn’t the case. I gripped him, our blood mingling together, truly binding us in this life and the next. No matter what happened in this life, we’d find each other in the next.
We walked together, past a stalled Lucy who was torn between choices for her to follow in her head. She could walk to the gates and burn or run. It seemed like a simple choice but those blasphemous gates were like sirens luring her to her true death.
“One, two . . .” Jude counted and together we pressed our bleeding hands against the gates.
Pain, sorrow, and joy filled my blood as the gates sucked power from me. Exhausted, I could barely stand.
“Love always wins, right?” I laughed with a shaky voice toward Jude and he gave me no answer.
A bright light blinded me, filling my soul with peace and love. One minute we were in a frightful nightmare with a curse and the gates to the afterlife. Then the next moment we lay on the ballroom floor, confused as to what happened and where we landed.
“What the—?” I blinked over and over, hoping to understand what my eyes saw. Dorian stood before me with my physical body in his arms.
“I caught you.” I swooned from his words and relief sagged against my chest. I closed my eyes and went back into one of both spirit and body. I’d never used my gifts like I had tonight, so I felt woozy as Dorian lowered my legs to the ground.
“You’re all here. You made it.” I smiled at all of my friends.
“What is super speed and changing into an animal against ghosts? Not shit. But put an empath and a boy genius in the room with one and you have one hell of an escape and therapy session.” Phillip’s arms wrapped around me with a shit-eating grin on his face. I wanted to smack him on the arm for this whole thing. Of course he knew all of this would happen.
“It could have gone many different ways, but I gambled on love, and love always wins.” He released his hold and winked. He had bet that Jude and I would fall in love and break the curse.
“Glad everyone is all right. Now I’ve got a bunch of dead to send to the afterlife. I’ll talk later.” Jude had interrupted, the deathly darkness billowing from his body in waves toward every ghost in the room. The crowd that was still watching us like this was part of the show cheered, while some gasped when they realized this wasn’t a trick.
My power hummed alongside his. He was my match calling me to join in this feast of death. This I could do.
Angry ghosts who Rudy had convinced to join his team rushed us with weapons but Jude’s power wrapped around their throats.
“If you would do the honors, wife.” I nodded. There were at least ten ghosts within Jude’s hold. And while I knew he could send them away to the afterlife himself, he was letting me have a little fun . . . payback for what had been done the past few days.
Every soul I touched became black and red. A horrible aura of hell grabbed them before they disappeared. Not one of the ten carried a heart of light to find peace beyond this life. A shame, but they had made their choices.
“Oh shit,” Asher cursed as he looked around the room and muttered beneath his breath. One by one, the people in the crowd collapsed to the ground.
“Did you kill them?” Echo cursed at her soul mate, running over to check on a masked woman’s neck for a pulse.
“No, but I put them to sleep. There is a horrid darkness on the ground outside and they did not need to witness what’s to come.”
