I gave up by the sixth one and stepped helplessly back.
“If you’re still here when the clock strikes twelve, this will be your fate,” Felix said.
The clock ticked.
Flynn gasped out a wet, broken sound as his body bowed on the floor and another wave tore through him.
I looked from him to Felix, then at the door. “What happens if I leave?”
“You get to do something your sister can’t.” Felix looked over his shoulder. “You get to live, Poppet.”
My eyes once again fell on the door. “What if I don’t deserve to live?”
“The Carven doesn’t care what you think you deserve. Only what choice you make.”
The clock loomed another chime over us.
I watched as Flynn’s eyes rolled back and his face cracked while his muscles locked, and I understood that this wasn’t a punishment. What was happening to Flynn wasn’t a spectacle or something meant to horrify.
It was a ritual.
“Make your choice, Poppet,” Felix said as the clock rang its ninth chime. “Or The Craven will make it for you.”
I looked from one brother to the other and tried to decide what to do. Stay in an eternity of torture, or leave and live a life of guilt?
Torture?
Or guilt?
The tenth chime.
What would Bethie want? Would she want me to suffer for what I’d done?
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
The eleventh chime.
Bethie’s smile flashed through my mind. Not the one she had that night, but the one she wore every morning when she saw me.
I knew what to do.
I walked up to the door and grabbed the handle.
“Stop lying to yourself, Poppet.” Felix warned as I pulled the door open. “The Craven doesn’t grant second chances to many. If you can’t let go of your guilt, don’t walk out that door. You don’t want to come back here.”
Letting go of my guilt was something I didn’t know if I could do.
I looked over at Flynn. His convulsing had stopped. Now he was lying there gasping desperately for air. When I turned back to Felix, I could see the pain in his eyes.
“Why did you stay?”
“Because he did.”
For the first time since I’d met him, I understood Felix. Love made people do crazy things. If Bethie was here then I might stay. But she wasn’t.
The twelfth chime rang as I walked through the door.
December 30, 8:34 pm
