“Calm her down!” Isla yells from the front, “Or we are going to fucking crash.”
Fritz pleads, “Bel, please. Please don’t make me do this.”
“Fuck you. You left him behind. You both did. I fucking hate you,” I shove at him again and again, panic and anger and sorrow destroying what’s left of my rational thought.
“I’m so sorry for this,” he tells me, his voice breaking before my whole world goes dark. I’m swimming against a current in my own mind, unable to gain consciousness for what could be days or hours or minutes.
Everything is so dark and infinite. It’s not a pleasant sleep, but a dreamless fog. A restless slumber of being trapped in the sorrowful galaxies behind my eyelids no matter how hard I fight to regain clarity.
When I’m finally allowed to wake, I bolt upright, ready to fight back to Caspian, wherever he is.
The scent of this place is so familiar I want to cry for simpler times and easier heartaches. Sleeping in Isla’s bed is supposed to be fun and drunk. We’re supposed to cry over silly things here. Little heartbreaks, sad movies, not this.
Never this.
“Bel?” Isla whispers, “You okay?” She sits up beside me, rubbing my back in those same soothing circles she usually reserves for panic attacks.
For a moment, I can almost pretend everything has been a bad dream induced by too much liquor and not enough food. But it’s not.
I sniffle, “They got him, Isla.”
“I know, honey.” She pets my hair, “I’m sorry.”
“And you let them.”
She purses her lips, “I didn’t… I— it’s what he wanted. He gave me a gun and told me to get you away from them.”
“And you listened?” She doesn’t miss the accusatory tone, but she gives me the mercy of ignoring it.
Letting her hands drop to her sides, she answers, “You’re my best friend, and they had guns trained on you. Fuck yeah, I listened. Those things won’t kill him. But they would you.”
Tears fall down my face, and I don’t even bother wiping them, “Yeah, you’re right. He won’t die. They’ll just torture him for time and all eternity. No biggie.” Unable to sit still for any longer, I stand and pace.
“You don’t think they’ll just send him back to… wherever they come from?” Isla asks.
“Not Alastor,” I tell her. “If someone else was in charge they might, but this is too personal for him. And I guess now we know why.”
“Oh, no. This has nothing to do with me,” Isla assures me, “I haven’t seen him inyears.We were never close, hardly spoke when I was dragged to church and had to sit next to him.”
“Then why is he so… like that?” I don’t understand.
“I honestly don’t know. He used to be so… normal. He didn’t seem to want this life either— when we were super young, anyway. He couldn’t say as much but it was obvious. Then he disappeared for a couple years around the time his mom died, and when he came back he was just… different. Cold, calculating. Manic in his need to be the perfect soldier.”
“Yikes.”
“It doesn’t matter though,” Isla shrugs from her perch on the bed, “Family or no, he’s a psychopath.”
“I’m going to kill him, you know,” I tell her, worried that even in her anger, she might resent me for the murder of a family member.
“Oh, I tried already. He’s a slippery fucker, that one.”
“You shot him?” I’m in disbelief.
“I did. Although apparently I’m not a very good shot. But hey, I’ll work on it.” She stands from the bed, “I’m sending Fritz in. He’s worried sick about you but wanted you to have this familiarity when you woke up.”
“I don’t think I can face him,” I tell her honestly. I scratched at him, punched him, screamed that I hated him in my desperation.
“Bel, that man will do anything for you. You don’t even have to ask for forgiveness, he’s already given it to you. I’m sure he doesn’t think there’s anything to forgive in the first place,” she explains as she walks toward the bedroom door, “But youhaveto talk to him. It’s just the two of you now.”
