I’m only vaguely aware of a light that’s not my torch coming down onto me, lighting up what I’m trying to tell myself isn’t real.
I’m only vaguely aware of Caden’s voice floating through the howling wind and hammering rain and my roaring heart. I’m sure he’s saying my name, but it’s like another language. It’s too far away to grasp and I continue to fall, continue to fracture into a million pieces.
Because my brother’s coffin is empty.
CHAPTER 49
ELODIE
“Elodie, have you lost your damn mind?” Caden’s voice is angry, shocked, and it’s hitting me from a great distance, the ringing in my ears fogging up everything else.
I’m just staring at this empty, corpse-less coffin. I feel myself lean forward, brace my hands on the sides of the coffin, and peer deeper inside. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps I just need to take a closer look. But when I dip my head inside and see nothing but an empty shell, my chest mirrors it. I’m cavernous. Hollow. There is nothing inside me for anything to cling on to. My brother isn’t here. And neither is my heart.
“Elodie!”
His yell finally snaps me back. I blink several times. Broken from a trance, I slowly turn around. The torch he’s shining stings my eyes and I squint, not able to see him.
“Look,” I whisper, but there’s no way he can hear me above the roaring rain.
“Get up here right now.”
“No!” I scream. “Look!” I throw an arm down, gesturing to the coffin beneath me. “He’s not here.”
“Just get up here. Now,” he speaks softer, but still impatient and angry.
Why should I go to him? He nearly shot me a couple hours ago. He hates me. I press my weight down onto the coffin. “No.”
I can practically hear him roll his eyes as the beam of the torch drops onto the ground and he finally comes into view behind it. “Elodie, so help me, I will come down there and drag you out.”
“He’s not here, Caden! The coffin’s empty!”
At this point, I need him to acknowledge it. Because my heart’s beating so fast and my head’s spinning so hard I’m beginning to wonder if I’m hallucinating.
With a long sigh, Caden comes down onto his knees and leans over the hole.
An eternity of silence follows. I hold my breath. “Do you see it?”
I can just about make out his eyes in the darkness. “Yes.”
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“So, where is he?”
“I don’t know, Elodie!” Caden cries, irritation coating his voice. “They told me Max’s body was too messed up for anyone to see, maybe it was the same for Lewis. Maybe there was nothing left to bury.”
I throw my hands up to my ears to block the words out, to shove away the unbidden images that come with it. “No! They would have buried him still!”
“Just, please, come out of there and we’ll talk about it,” it’s the softest he’s spoken to me yet, a tone one might use to calm a wild, rabid animal.
I shake my head vigorously. “I’m not leaving him.”
“He’s not fucking in there to leave!” he yells at me. “Oh, fuck this.” Caden swings his feet over the edge and slides down.
He grabs me and I try to fight but come to find there’s zero strength left in me. My punches fall flat and my legs flop like fish beneath me as he hoists me up and practically chucks me up onto the ground.
I lie there on my back, staring up at the black sky, rain hitting my face like little taunting drops of devastation.
