“The plan to kill Sabine won’t work,” Malcolm whispers, his voice cracking. “She’s too powerful, and she’s got our families, Star.”
“I know. So fight me! The illusion is fading. We have to—”
“No.” Malcolm’s voice is firm. “You have to win the Tether.” With a trembling hand, he picks up a knife from the ground. “Kill me,” he pleads. “It’s the only way I know to protect you and my family.”
“What?” I shake my head violently. “No,” I sob. “I… I love you.”
“And I love you.” He looks at me with more emotion than I’ve ever seen, his hazel eyes teary as he puts a knife in my hand. He walks toward me, pressing the sharp point of the blade against his chest.
My voice cracks. “I’ve been fighting these urges so hard… fighting to protect you. To protect our love…”
“Don’t. You are the most beautiful and perfect person I have ever met, Emma Baldwin. I want you to live.” His voice gets shaky and desperate. “I’m sorry. Sorry I couldn’t save Grace. But please,” he begs. “Let me save her sister. Let me die so the rest of you can live.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, hot against my skin. My hand shakes holding the knife. I’ve daydreamed about carving his body, feeling his bloodon my hands. But now when I have the chance to… it’s the last thing I want to do.
“Kill me,” he says. “I’d do it myself, but one of us must kill the other with intention in order to win.Please, Emma. I need you to do this now.”
My control on the illusion slips.
The sky around us stutters. The illusion fades.
Everyone sees us standing together. He’s in front of me, and I am holding a knife.
“What?” Teeth bared, Sabine looks around, roaring, “What’s going on here?”
I look at my mom, dad, Demetri, and I inhale a shaky breath. I plunge the knife into Malcolm’s chest, and impossibly, my heart breaks further. His blood splatters my clothes. I’m trembling and crying. Malcolm and I both crumple to the arena floor. The weight of grief and loss is crushing my soul, and I can’t seem to breathe.
“EMMA!” A shrill voice makes the birds in the trees rising above the outdoor arena flutter away. “You’re dead, Emma!” Jayla’s sobs echo through the arena as she struggles against her chains, devastated by the death of her beloved twin brother. “EMMA! I’ll kill you! You hear me, Emma! You’re dead! YOU’RE DEAD!”
The agony on her face, on his mother’s face, it claws at my heart. Jayla’s right. I’m dying inside. The old Emma, the innocent Emma, the happy Emma, the hopeful one, the one who was protected and shielded from the bad in the world.
She’s dead too.
The Tether taught me the color of evil. It’s black as the grief coating my skin. White as Sabine’s smug face. And red. Red as the blood on my hands. I’m no longer blind to the fact that evil is a monster that lives in all of us. It usually shrinks behind the good we hold inside… unless we feed it.
But me?
I let it free.
My shame is on display in this arena for all the world to see.
To judge.
Like I judged my family. But I’m no better than them.
Betrayal chokes me. I killed my first and only love. Malcolm’s body is lying motionless in a growing pool of red. Sabine’s laughter jingles like chains.
I kneel beside Malcolm, my hands on his body, feeling the warmth of his skin already fading into cool memory. And I realize that Demetri was right, love and heartbreak are the same in this family. Sobbing, shoulders shaking, I cradle Malcolm’s corpse. Almost welcoming Jayla’s attack. I deserve her rage.
The Davenport family is broken. Malcolm’s grandfather and brother are crying, and tears that I caused wet the face of his Big-Mama as his mother weeps, “Noooo. My son-shine! My baby boy! Not my sweet baby boy!”
I look at the slave statues frozen in the audience around us, their stony faces reflecting the horror and heartbreak in the arena.
Malcolm’s mother shouts, “Nooo! No more dolls!”
I don’t look at my own family, because shame will make me crumble into dust. I don’t want them to look at me and see a murderer. I cradle Malcolm’s corpse, my bloody, trembling hands stroking his cool brown cheeks. Tears blur my vision. I remember his crooked smile, his corny jokes, his steamy kisses, the way my body lit up like the stars when he touched me. Why can’t I be dead too? Each teardrop that falls on his perfect face reflects a love that refuses to fade with death.
“Please,” I beg the ancestors, the heavens, anyone listening, “bring him back to me!”
