It.
Hit.
A single beat of his heart.
And I was sucked into a string of swirling memories.
They came in passionately and vividly one after another. SuddenlyI’m standing on the highest point in Weeping Hollow, my face heavy and behind a mask, calm winds brushing my neck—“Nix, look up,” the boy standing in front of me shouts; colors burst into the night sky above the tree-line. His smile is white, his face beaming, he’s much smaller than me, no more than nine or ten, and pointing at the colors. But I’m distracted by the cottage on my right. A young girl stands in the window; a lantern turned on in her dark room, glowing buttery light on her young face. I freeze up in case she screams to alert her family. But she doesn’t. She looks down at me, then gives me a small wave. I wave back, the lights from the fireworks reflecting off the window.The memory flipped into another night.They have white plastic masks on their faces, too. And from the laughing, I know we must be smiling, chasing one another between trees.Next,teaching Julian how to hold a pool stick.I can’t see that it’s Julian because I can’t see his face, but I know it’s him, and a swirl of nights around this pool table collided;back slapping, hand shaking, drinks clashing, eyes expressive, around and around the pool tableuntil it stalled.Her whispers are soothing in my ears, and I’m crammed in the backseat of a car, my knee digging into the console, vents coughing up heat as she shivers in my lap, brown hair splayed across young skin; I’m trying to focus on the Voodoos sign reflecting off the windshield as the full moon casts light across her rosy lips and faded freckles; because I have her where I want her, but my pulse is hammering in my ears, and I’m nervous because I want to do right by her. “Please, Phoenix,” she begs, but the mask is too heavy. It’s always too heavy. “One day, I promise,” I say, my voice not my own, a rough voice shaking in my chest. “It’s yours, but not yet.” And so she kisses my neck, and it makes me feel things.Then the memories raced, andI’m pitching a black, heavy ball across the bar; a brutal weapon slashes across my chest, screaming, and, “If it bleeds, it suffers,” I hear us say. And I’m back in the woods around a fire, driving a knife into my palm, and blood fills the memoryuntil it transformed into a crowd of people;then there’s Adora,and my breath hitched;she’s in the background, but I see her,and my heart thundered—not Phoenix’s heart, mine, and the difference shook the memory, trying to pull it apart, but not beforeI feel a stutter in my chest as I jump over the bar and stalk toward a girl. I grab her arm until she’s suddenly in mine; then we’re kissing, and I’m tasting her lips as I feel her everywhere; my first kiss, I think. It’s yours.
Phoenix gasped, and I was pulled through a black hole until I felt his chest moving and heart slamming against my palms. He lay unconscious but alive as his head slowly repaired, bones snapping back into place, flesh welding back together, the side of his head ballooning into shape. I became lightheaded, faint, my limbs heavy, and I sagged to my side. My elbow scraped concrete, catching me.
For a moment, I was dizzy, the earth see-sawing, dimensions crossing, seeing silver, blue, and green. But as soon as the world settled back on its axis, I rose to my feet with the image of Adora stained in my mind.
Phoenix’s memories made me raw, vulnerable, shaken up. All I wanted was to crawl back home, to the lighthouse, into her arms.
But another cold wind came, and I was suddenly staring into green eyes and a mask. Zephyr was only an arm’s length away. Julian stood, rising from Phoenix’s side. He laid a hand on Beck’s shoulder, who was still kneeling at our feet beside Phoenix, holding his head, relief raining down on him.
The three of them had surrounded me, watched me.
I steeled my spine despite my heaving chest.
We were all together again.
“Who are you?” Julian asked, emotion tearing apart his voice.
Beck stood and joined Julian and Zephyr, eyes watery and pale blue and intense. My posture softened with an exhale.
Ocean was right. I was a part of them as much as they were a part of me.
I looked them in the eyes, acceptance washing over me.
“I’m the lost Heathen.”
CHAPTER 42
ADORA
January 6, 2021
22 Days until the Crimson Eclipse
25 Days until the Cantini-Sullivan Wedding
Daylight crownedthe cliff’s edge in the distance. Cyrus was kneeling beside me on one knee, his hand on my shoulder.
“I requested a meeting,” he said, guilt in all his features. “My mother left for the chamber, but we still have half an hour.” His gaze drifted over the Sullivan sisters’ tangled bodies. “She believes we’ve all gone mad.”
Fable moved under my arm, and the night before came rushing back.
I sat up, and the wool blankets gathered against my chest. “What did you do with the body?” The words came out empty. Drained. Almost uncaring. But as I’d said it, a sickness stole me. Despite not caring, the words tasted terrible as they left my lips. Bitter. Awful. Poisoned with heart.
Even though he was a Heathen, he was also a man.
The one Fable was in love with.
Cyrus’s mouth set in a hardline, his face grim from witnessing death. But no matter how indifferent he appeared to be, he leaned in closer as though he didn’t want the universe or Fable to hear his words. “I left him there.”
I slapped his shoulder. “Youwhat?”
