“To Fritz?” I don’t understand.
She clarifies, “No, to Eamon.”
Oh.“What did he say?”
She puffs up her chest and speaks in her best gruff Eamon impression. “I ain’t fucking doin it. And if you do anything reckless, I’ll drag your ass outta there faster than you can say mercy.”
I chuckle despite myself.
Moments later, my phone dings with a text. I haven’t had the mental capacity to deal with my family or even Charlie, so Isla’s held onto it for me.
“Oh, my god.” All the color drains from her face as she turns the phone to me, and I see the nickname I hoped to never have to hear again.
Unknown number: Hey Red
“Fritz!” Isla shouts, the tone in her voice matching the fear in mine. None of us are ready for what this message might contain.
He runs into the room, practically tripping over himself in his haste. She holds the phone up to show him what she had shown me, not quite ready to unlock it.
He climbs onto the bed beside us, wrapping my hand in his in solidarity before silently nodding for her to proceed.
What we see rips a cracked sob from my mouth and a gasp from Isla. Fritz’s furious growl rattles the world around us as he buries my head into his chest to keep me from looking at it again, but I’ll never get the vision out of my head.
A single picture. Black blood splatters fill almost every corner of the concrete floor that’s so disturbingly familiar. And in the middle of it all is nothing more than a beautiful black antler, crudely cut at the base, still dripping that iridescent blackness.
Unknown number: I thought you two had more guts than this.
Unknown number: Come now, I need a challenge.
Unknown number: I’ll give you 24 hours to try to retrieve him, then he’s got a one-way ticket to Vankhala.
Unknown number: Then we’re coming for you.
“Jesus,” Isla mutters, “What a psychopath. I’m so sorry Bel, I should have looked first to make sure it wasn’t-”
“No. I needed to see it,” I tell her, fury filling my veins and replacing any meekness, any softness or kindness I might have had left. “Fritz,” I lean back, my grip on his shirt never lessening, needing to try one last time to fight for the other half of my heart, “What would you do if someone took me from you and you couldn’t get me back?”
“Probably kill everyone on this planet and then myself,” he says so quietly, so reverently it sounds like defeat.
“And I feel the same,” I tell him, which is macabre, but so are we, “And I feel the same way about Caspian. He’s a part of us, too.”
Isla eases herself from her perch, “Ummm, I’m gonna go send this to Eamon and let the two of you talk.”
“Bel, please don’t ask this of me,” he whines as she closes the door behind her, “I can deny you nothing, but I have to keep you safe.”
“So you claim me right here and now and then we can go. Ensure that nothing they do to me can really hurt me first. I trust you.” And I do. Implicitly. Wholly.
He whines again, the fear of harming me taking hold, “Bel, I don’t know if I can. I could kill you.”
“No you won’t,” I assure him. “You know instinctively what I can and can’t take. We are made for each other, remember?”
“Bel…” he looks at me, so desperate and destroyed by how our world has turned upside down. “I’m so scared. I can’t lose you.”
“It’ll be alright. I promise.” I don’t bother telling him that if he doesn’t do it at some point, we have a maximum of a few decades together before I die of old age. I don’t think he needs that reminder at this moment.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. But you have to eat something, and it’s nearly midnight. You need a good nights sleep. We’ve had a trying few days, and while tomorrow will be difficult too, I need you to have a full stomach and rested body. Then we will face it.”
“Together.”
