Maybe that’s where I needed to go. Maybe what I needed was to work this shit out of me.
Azrael watched me for a long time, and I let him. I didn’t find his eyes as terrifying as they had been before. In fact, I hatedwhat I saw, not because it was scary, but because I recognized it. I saw in him what I felt in my soul, and I wondered if anyone else could see in my eyes what they saw in his.
Death.
Rage.
“I can see it, you know,”he had said.“That little crack they found in your soul and widened. Like calls to like, rose. It would do you well to remember that. He may be your Claim, but it was you who so eloquently described the difference between twin flames and soulmates. I don’t believe in such trivialities, but if I did, I would have to say that while you and the mountains are flames, you and I? Our souls hum to the same frequency.”That’s what he had said so many weeks ago.
Were we the same like he suggested? If so, did he have the answers I needed to fix this? To fix me. “How do you do it?” I finally asked, my voice a bare whisper.
I knew Everett hated Azrael, I knew that. And because of that, I had held the fear that if he and I were the same, maybe he would hate me too once he found out the truth.
But I couldn’t keep going through this life fighting with my own mind, trying to survive this.
I wanted to live.
I got out of that room so I could live. So, if I was like Azrael, if we were the same like he said, and Everett decided that he no longer wanted anything to do with me, then fine. At least I would die having finally solved this problem. At least I would die having known a few seconds of true freedom before I went back to that…to thatplaceI had seen when they had killed me.
His stare was unwavering. “I’ve come to realize that every heartbeat is numbered, and whether that number ends by my hands or another’s, it will still end.” His hand flexed around his cane. “I do like ending them myself though.”
“How?” I asked, straightening. “Tell me,” I ordered.
“Why?” he retorted quickly.
“Because I want to know,” I answered, my voice as steady as his stare. I needed to find whatever formula he had in order to fix this. Maybe it would make sense coming from his mind. Maybe, by the time Everett returned, I could find the ability to speak to him again without completely losing my shit.
He angled his chin. “If you’re looking for the answer to the question ‘how much have I really changed?’ I already have that answer. Would you like to know?”
I swallowed, searching his eyes. “Yes,” I breathed out.
“Not at all,” he answered, thrumming his fingers.
Confusion filled me at his confession. “What?” It was impossible. I had changed, I could feel it. I know I had.
“You haven’t changed at all, wild rose. You’ve only…” his smile stretched. “Bloomed. As an author, you should know that while your works are of fiction inthisworld, there are more truths to it than you could ever rationally admit to. You, my dear, are just as fucked up as the rest of us. Maybe more so. The craving of blood, of death, of destruction, it has always lived and breathed within you, those men simply widened that crack.”
I shook my head. “No.” That was impossible. Yes, I have always been angry, but not like this.
“Yes.”
“No,” I said again. “I’ve never felt like this before. Ever. Not one time. I tore open a man—men—because of this. What you’re saying can’t possibly be true.”
“But it is,” he sang. “You swallowed your anger, as the mountain boy says, your entire life. Over and over again, biting that sharp tongue of yours to keep the vultures happy, and then, dear rose, you found something just as sharp. A pen. So, you bled, and you bled, vomiting up the truths you wished to release upon this world, living vicariously through yourcharacters, getting off on the idea that your hands were slick with their blood. And then,” he went on, my blood chilling, “you were taken. You were held far away from your pen and paper, far away from your outlet, so when they cracked you open and you were given the opportunity, you executed that rage in the only way you knew how; you slaughtered.”
I inhaled sharply, shaking my head. “No.” I wasn’t always like this. I couldn’t have been.
“You ripped those men apart, poor Tommy, and rightfully so. Your minddidcrack, wild rose, just not in the way you thought, and I don’t know why you’re sliding into such deep denial now because, if I remember right, you craved the feeling of pulling that trigger for a long time. You craved the sound of a bullet shattering through a skull, but now, it seems, you’re terrified of that very truth you confessed to the mountains not months ago. We are the same, you and I, in a far more dangerous way than anybody will ever willingly admit. It should scar me, knowing that Everett was attracted and fucked a woman so similar to me, but alas, perhaps there are enough differences to make it less debilitating.”
My eyes widened. “How do you know that? About the confession.”
“I know everything. I told you once and I’ll tell you again, every road leads back to me.”
My heart was thudding in my ears, my breathing labored, but the denial died on my lips because he was right, I had liked it. Ilovedit. I loved ripping those men apart for touching me. I loved feeling their skin tear under my nails, hearing their screams turn to gargles and coughs. Fuck, I had loved it so much, I had done it again. In front of Everett.
Was I Azrael?
“Don’t worry, deary,” he beamed. “You can’t possibly be that similar to me. It’s just the rage we have in common, the cravingof absolution. Of death and justice and balance. Other than that, your mind is solid.”
