Leaving the dreadful office, I feel like I can finally breathe again. I’m still fuming, but the further we walk from his parents, the better I feel.
The elevator door chimes shut, and in a blink, Angel traps me between his arms and kisses the anger out of me. Soon we are fully making out in the elevator, my back pressed to the wall and my face between his hands. With a small kiss to the corner of my mouth, he steps back with his beautiful smile back on.
“I’mdefinitelymarrying you soon.”
Shaking my head at him fondly, I peck him one more time. As we leave Conquer, Angel looks like an invisible weight has disappeared from his shoulders as he stands a little taller—taller than he already is.
We find the others outside the castle waiting for us, and their tired faces coupled with the dark sky indicate everyone’s need for some rest.
But before we can all fall face-first into our beds, there is one more stop for the day. But imagine my surprise when Harveystarts leading Grace and the others back to the Horsemen palace.
“Hey, you’re not coming with me?”
Harvey hesitates, looking over my shoulder once before saying, “Uh no. Thought I’d give you some space.”
Something is off about his behavior, and he wraps me in a tight bear hug, telling me how much he loves me, my heart falls to my feet.
I remember my first day in a free world, we were catching up on current affairs and there was this one thing I asked Angel to spare because I wasn’t ready.
With every molecule in my body, I hope my rational conclusion is just my brain mocking and trying to break me. I wish I didn’t know any better. I wish I didn’t have to enter the castle of War with Angel tentatively following behind me. I wish I could turn in for the night and forget about this until morning.
A shrine glares back at me. To my misfortune, they set it right in the middle of the hall so people could pay their respects as soon as they walked in, but I don’t want to pay respects because it’s not true.It can’t be.
No no no no no.
My feet drag to the framed pictures to make sure I’m not dreaming. I have to be wrong. I have to be.
I didn’t come to see a shrine built for Harvey’s parents. I came here to hug my uncle and aunt. To smell Uncle Henry’s famous burgers, not the candles and flowers decorated around his picture. I didn’t come here to be weighed down by a stillness this place has never experienced but to dance with them as they sang that crazy jungle song Aunt Stella composed to tease me when Harvey started calling me a monkey.
Stella and Henry Adler. Loving parents, fierce leaders.
“What… how?”
They left, and now they’re not coming back. Maybe Papa is not coming back either, and I should start preparing for it. I mean, I killed them, didn’t I? This must have happenedbecause of me. Their son sufferedbecause of me. Papa is not herebecause of me. They must’ve cried, begged, and searched tirelessly for their sonbecause of me.
I don’t remember asking, but Angel hesitates before telling me what happened, and that’s when I completely break down. “I’m so sorry.I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. It’s my fault.” I repeat the words in a tired loop.
That’s the only thought in my head, the only words I can utter. I don’t even know how to start asking for forgiveness after doing this to them.
My knee buckles, but before I hit the ground, Angel scoops me into his arms and lowers us to the floor, so I’m sitting on his lap instead of the cold, hard floor. I can keep apologizing for eternity, and it still wouldn’t be enough. My words become indescribable, but I have to keep apologizing for ruining their life.
My body trembles with sobs, and I deserve it. I deserve this pain in my heart. I deserve the punishments I got in that dungeon. Maybe that’s why Visha wanted to kill me. Because I ruin families. I’m the cause of everyone’s pain around me.
“It’s not your fault, sweetheart.”
“It is! He was protecting me. If I had donesomething—” “You were nine, baby. It wasn’t your fault.”
I hide my face in his chest to hide from the shame of what I’ve done. “But their deaths are on me. They died heartbroken for their son. A son that wasted a decade of his life in a fucking dungeon beaten to death because of me! Because he made the mistake of looking out for me. I ruined their family, Angel.I killed them both.”
“Don’t you dare talk like that.” Cupping my face, he forces me to look at him instead of the shrine. “You are the victim here, not the culprit. They snatched you away from everything you knew too, and Harvey willingly risked his life for you. Don’t reduce his love for you by calling it amistake. Any debt you think you owed his parents got paid the day you risked your own life to set him free. He is alive because of you, and I promise you, if they were here, they would thank you a million times for doing that for their son.”
Would they?
“But he never got to say goodbye,” I croak. Angel holds me tighter because there’s nothing he can say to that. Even if I believe I wasn’t at fault, it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m the reason Harvey returned to find his world ripped to shreds. The reason he came home with no one to welcome him.
“Does he know?”
“He knew way before I told him.”
