‘I just did as I was told. At the time I had no idea what the point of it all was. To be honest, I knew next to nothing about my parents.’ A bitter grimace played across his lips. ‘But it would be too easy to say I’m innocent. I went along with it, even enjoyed it, for a while. There’s a special magic to realising you’re no longer bound to the mortality of the body. That you can live forever. It felt like a blessing. Until I realised what it really is: a curse.’
‘How so?’ I asked carefully. Immortality was a popular motif, and not just in myths and fairy tales. In the real world, too, we were obsessed with growing as old as possible and being able to live a long, fulfilling life. I was sure many people would do anything to achieve a thing like immortality.
He fell silent for a moment, then got up and took my mug. Reaching the sink, he put it in, along with the saucepan, before turning on the tap. His voice was nearly lost in the running water. ‘I can live forever, but not properly. None of the lives I live are… real. I slip into them, run them day-to-day, take on the person’s family and friends, but none of it is my decision. I’m a puppet. I do what I’m told.’ He switched off the tap, but kept his back to me still. ‘Our council chooses the bodies we inhabit: it’s always about power, money and contacts. About making life as comfortable as possible for ourselves.’
That explained why the members of the League were in such high-level positions, even though at first glance they were not connected. How could anybody on the outside ever guess what linked them together?
‘And none of it lasts,’ Cliff went on, his voice low. ‘Just as I’m getting used to a life, I have to leave it again. Every time I… meet someone, I know that soon I’ll have to… stop seeing them.’
I went rigid as it dawned on me what he was saying. That he was talking in part about us. How whatever this thing was between us, it had never stood a chance. ‘That sounds like a lonely life.’
Slowly, he turned to me. ‘I told you Ashton and the others are my family. And in my case, I really can’t choose them. We only have each other.’
‘But you can decide to stop jumping,’ I said. ‘Live a life to its end, and… go.’ Whoever this council were, they couldn’t force him to live out an eternity he didn’t want. Could they?
Cliff shook his head, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘No, that’s not possible.’
I frowned. ‘Why not?’
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Tossed the rag onto the countertop and returned to the island. ‘They’d never let me. I tried to run away once before. To dodge the ceremony. It took Ashton less than two weeks to find me, even though I’d left the continent. We know each other in a way so deep I can’t really describe it. We’re… bound together.’ He didn’t sound reverent or ecstatic. More resigned, as if he’d come to terms with it as fact.
‘Soulmates. That’s what he called it.’
‘Whatever it is… I can’t stand him sometimes, but I’ll always love him.’
I felt like listing everything that was deeply unlovable about Ashton, in my opinion–everything from abusing my best friend to trying to kill me–but stopped myself. I knew that wasn’t how feelings worked, and anyway, I knew only a fraction of Cliff’s and Ashton’s past. Whatever they’d been through together, it ran deeper than it seemed today.To truly love means to forgive. I thought of Mum’s words. Probably they were more important the more time you spent with someone.
‘Are you afraid yet?’
I studied his face. The defined jawline and sharp cheekbones, the straight nose, the thick eyelashes, as dark as his brows and hair. I found it hard to get my head round the idea that none of it was really him–but then again, perhaps that wasn’t true. A face was like a photograph: no matter how beautiful it was, it was lifeless without the personality that shone through the features. I had never been interested in the face itself, only the person whose brow furrowed in that pensive way, who wore a muted grin at the corners of his mouth, who looked at me as if he took for granted I would always be the centre of attention, even in a crowded room. I had never been less afraid of him than in that moment.
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘No. I’m not even as overwhelmed as I probably should be. Somehow, it all makes sense.’ I shrugged and sat up straighter, only to promptly lose my balance.
In a flash, Cliff’s hands were on my shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s find you somewhere with a backrest.’
Instead of taking me to the bedroom, Cliff led me to the sofa. He moved as if to sit in the armchair, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him down next to me. A little reluctantly, he sat, leaving a foot or so between us.
‘There’s one more thing I need you to explain,’ I began, pulling the woollen blanket draped over the backrest onto my lap. ‘What Aspen told me. About Piper and the others. That was him, wasn’t it? Blake?’ My heart began to beat faster: I couldn’t help it. Logically, it had to be true. Aspen had said her brother changed completely after he met Ashton, which must mean all those terrible things happened when he was still… him. Still, I needed to hear it from his own mouth.
Cliff gripped the backrest, his knuckles whitening. ‘Yes. A few decades ago, I started speaking up about what body I wanted. There are so many people with such… dark personalities, especially in the so-called upper classes. People who have done ugly things. Blake spent his whole life taking what he wanted, because he knew no one would stop him.
‘Youstopped him.’ Even I could hear that my voice had softened–with relief, with affection.
‘That doesn’t make it any better what I did to him, Mabel. Nothing justifies murder. I was just trying to make the guilt easier to bear. I suppose it was selfish, really.’
I grabbed his hand and held it firmly as he made to take it off the backrest. I ran my fingers gingerly over his knuckles, over the tiny freckles on the back of his hand, the delicate grooves of his skin. I understood now why he’d said I wouldn’t want to be touched by them if I knew what they had done, but… he was wrong. These hands were not the acts that had been committed with them. This body bore no guilt. It wasn’t dangerous.Cliffwasn’t dangerous. And he wasn’t a monster just because he’d done a few bad things. Not that I could ignore what he’d done, of course. If all this was true, he was responsible for taking lives. That wasn’t right, but it didn’t mean everything about him was wrong. Or that he could never do anything right ever again. Someone who reflected on his guilt and despised himself for what he’d done wasn’t a fundamentally evil person. Maybe it was naïve to think that way, but even if it was, it didn’t matter. It was what I believed. And I knew how stubborn I was when it came to my beliefs.
‘I don’t think so,’ I whispered. ‘Doing bad things doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.’
‘That’s just what you want to think.’
‘I want to think it because it’s how I feel. Because I’ve seen the way you talk about Aspen. I’ve seen how deeply you care for me–so much so that you’d rather let me hate you than put me in harm’s way. I’ve seen the way you act when you think no one’s looking, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you’re a good person. You can’t change your past, but your future… that’s up to you.’ I clasped his fingers in mine. ‘No matter what other people try to tell you. And your present, you took control of that today, didn’t you? You stopped Ashton and saved my life.’
Cliff’s lips were tightly compressed, silent. For a while he studied our hands, self-loathing oozing out of him every single second. The expression beneath it was no less dark: worry. ‘I don’t know how to protect you from him,’ he confessed softly. ‘How to protect you fromallof them. The council approved Ashton’s motion, and they decided to eliminate you.’
I wondered what was wrong with me, because I wasn’t even all that concerned. Something about Cliff’s nearness made it impossible to be afraid. ‘But you’ve decided not to go along with it.’
He gazed at me in despair. ‘But I don’t know how I’m ever going to do it alone.’
