I recognized his voice.
It was Jagger, but it was also the horror. His rocklike growl was deeper, and the sound of it filled me with an atavistic dread.
I had no body, but I still felt my stomach clenching and my limbs trembling.
I couldn’t see, but I knew he was smiling. I whimpered, terrified. I wanted to run. To hide. But there was nowhere to go. The darkness was everywhere. It pressed on me. It was inside me. It was inescapable, and I knew I would be locked with the horror of it for eternity.
“No,” I whispered.
Jagger and the horror laughed. “Give yourself to me.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You already have. You’ve already done it. Give yourself to me.”
I gasped. Pain scorched me, and the torture of Jagger’s blood rolled through me.
Anguish gripped my chest. There was a small pulse of light there. A tiny, flickering, weeping flame. It hid behind my lock. The fragile flame wavered and struggled beneath the smothering darkness.
The horror rattled at the locked walls and then rushed them, roaring as it beat against my heart.
“You think this light will save you,” Jagger said, his deep voice a horrible, tormenting thing. “It won’t. You can’t be saved. You are going to die in darkness and remain in darkness forever. The things you have done are unforgiveable. You’ve lied. You’ve killed. Worse—who is the lowest level of hell reserved for? People who betray the ones who love them. You’re a betrayer. You’ve betrayed. Do you think your little light will protect you? No. It will shove you down. It will reject you. It will send you to your grave. The light doesn’t want you. Good will not have you. Don’t you see? Come here, Mari. Come here. Give me that light. I want it. I know what to do. Give it to me.”
While Jagger spoke, the horror attacked my heart. It raked its claws across my being. It grappled with my locked heart and sent a barrage of hate over me. It soaked me with fear and pulled free all the horrible things I’d ever done, all the hateful thoughts I’d ever had. It steeped me in terror, and shame, and despair.
And as Jagger spoke, I began to believe him. And then the anguish deepened and the beginning ended, and I did believe him.
What was I?
I wasn’t good.
I was a monster.
Finn had claimed I was free, yet I was still betraying and hurting everyone I loved.
How could I be free and still be bound by Jagger’s chains?
The lock on my heart shook. The horror had nearly wrenched it open. The good locked in my heart flickered, guttering under the assault.
If it went out?—
If I was doomed?—
If this was the end?—
I couldn’t cry. I had no body. But I trembled, and I felt the spirit of a tear slipping down my cheek.
Then I heard a tiny, gentle whisper. “Mari.”
It was so faint it may not have been real.
But I heard it again.
“Mari.”
And then, even softer, “I’m here.”
And though it wasn’t spoken, I felt it.
