“You understand nothing,” I seethe, more snarl than rebuke. The pink petals crushed in my palm, I cast the flower away, cleaving a piece of my insides with it.
His chuckle is mocking, getting the reaction he wanted. His tongue collects the blood from his bottom lip. “I understand you won’t be able to help yourself. The temptation will drive you mad. I lied a little—” his dark eyes gleam—“for the reason I killed my brother. He was out of control, getting sloppy. I couldn’t allow that, for him to get us caught. I need to do what I do, man. There’s no other feeling like it. Nothing else compares. That’s how I know you’ll give in, no matter how hard you fight it.” A glint of smug satisfaction lights his gaze. “And you’ll savor it.”
My nostrils flare, a flood of wrath ripping through my bloodstream. I flex my fingers, welcoming the painful throb. Red smears my bare knuckles. Bruises still shadow my skin from when I had to all but demolish the speaker to stop from losing control—from violently taking her.
“But hey, listen. I can help you.” He says this like we’re conspirators, pals. Like he’s bestowing the secret of his trade. “I can teach you how to be careful, to control it. Even how to make peace with it.”
Beneath the roar of bloodlust, Cassian’s muttered words taper off. I can no longer hear his scratchy voice past the rising torrent in my head, a tidal surge that drowns out everything but the snapping sinew and bone. A shadow edges into my vision, deepening until the deafening, empty chaos of the void pulses black.
“Because I know”—he won’t shut up—“how good it’s going to feel?—”
“Enough.” My tone is a lethal command. The wet feel of his blood on my skin—sinking into me, infecting—rattles with a deranged anger through my bones. Rage clutches my throat, igniting the vicious need to draw more.
As a tremble of fear breaks across his sweaty face, dark amusement curls my mouth. “Fuck, I didn’t realize you were so damn insightful, Cassian.”
I bring out the astrolabe. My bare thumb traces the grooved plate, the missing rule strumming a panged chord against my ribs. The compulsion to check my astronomical watch grips me, but I can feel the approach in my marrow. I’m fine-tuned.
“It’s time,” I say, voice hollow.
Neck tendons strained, I reach for the drill, bypassing the syringe.
“Wait—” Cassian’s eyes track me, wide, frantic. “Hey—fucking wait. You said you’d give me the stuff for pain.”
Relinquishing a tense breath, I clutch the handle and depress the button. The whine of the spinning bit starts his protests all over again.
“You lied,” he shouts, breath ragged. “You fucking lied.”
“Did I.” Casually, I set the tool on the steel case and grab the syringe, moving to hover over the corpse. I lift Julian’s limp wrist and stick the needle into his arm. “I didn’t say who I’d administer it to.” I tap his brother’s cold cheek. “Guess that makes us both liars.”
I don’t usually take sadistic pleasure in the ritual. But right now, there’s an insidious impulse gnawing inside me—a visceral need to punish, to inflict immeasurable pain to somehow offset this gaping ache ripping a hole through my goddamn chest.
Staring down into Cassian’s glassy eyes, his blown pupils reflecting the faint glow of stars, I let the empty syringe fall to the earth. Wondering, when the time comes, if I’ll be coherent enough to ease her pain. Whether she’ll suffer less at my hands than the universe’s.
My only solace is that, after tonight, maybe I’ll finally be too far gone to care. Sunk beyond even the reach of her haunting notes.
And you’ll savor it.
The echo of his words summons something despairing from my depths—something dense and final that settles in the core of my chest. Molars gnashed, I fist my hand, dry blood cracking against skin, and whatever lies at the shadowed boundary of me thirsts for more.
The tide will keep rising before it recedes.
I take hold of the bone saw.
Time fractures, a lost interlude filled with the whir of steel screaming against bone. The sound is a shrill discord crashing off boulders and pines, drowning the last of his cries. Bone dust chokes the air. Blood spatters my skin.
Before long, I’m bathed in it.
Like a melody pulled into a riptide, eternally echoing deep under the surface where no one can hear.
It’s her refrain, caught on an endless loop beneath pounding dark waves, that reaches me below the abyss. Where it will become both my refuge and my torment.
For what I’m bound to do, I hope it destroys me in the end.
I don’t resurface tonight. As silence rings in my ears, I stand frozen, gaze cast on the endless dark sky. My drill lies untouched, forgotten. The astrolabe abandoned.
The echoes lost.
Above, the comet suddenly brightens. A teal halo flares in a luminous outburst between the Gemini twins, crossing the path of gravitational waves from an ancient, violent event.
