Fury boiled inside me, giving strength back into my aching limbs. “Now you’re just throwing insults at me because you don’t know any other way to win.”
“No, it’s the truth! Too bad if it hurts! Charlie, you lie all the fucking time, without even realizing you’re doing it! You lie to yourself, constantly, and delude yourself into telling your ego whatever story you want to hear, andthat’swhy we’re in this position now!”
I wasn’t going to take this lying down. “You want to talk about me likeI’mthe bad guy? You’re brutally honest. You wound people, because you don’t know how to be tactful with the truth.”
“Bullshit. You’ve never had an honest thought in your life. Yeah, I’ve been harsh with the truth, and I’ve lied a lot, too, but I never lied about how much I love you.”
I gaped, hardly able to believe that messed up shit had come out of her mouth. “You doubt that I love you? Are you fuckinginsane?”
“Yeah, I am, and I’m fucking owning it. Because you chose to do this, I’m doubting everything you ever said to me, because I don’t think someone could love me and want to keep me in a cage.” Ava’s voice cracked like thunder as she sobbed bitter tears of heartbreak, and out of all of this, it was the thing I regretted most of all. “Maybe you loved me, and maybe you didn’t. Maybe I am the person you adored, or maybe I was just a convenient weapon for you to call upon whenever you needed me. It doesn’t matter now. I’m ending it all.”
“Ava, I’msorrythat I locked you away,” I wept. “I never should’ve done that. It was wrong. I did it because I loved you so much, I wanted to keep you all to myself. I knew that went against everything you wanted, but I thought I was doing the right thing to keep you safe!”
“I get to decide what’s right for my life!Me!” Ava screamed. “I gave you too much power, and I never should’ve let that happen. I purposefully looked the other way and lived in denial when I knew something was wrong. I loved you so much it blinded me to what I didn’t wish to see. You’re a monster, Charlie.”
I gave an unstable snicker as I hissed, “You’re a monster, too.”
“Damn right I am. We’re in agreement that we’ll do whatever it takes to put each other down, so let’s just kill each other and be done with it. At least we’ll die together, because even now, I don’t want to go down without you.”
A crackle overhead made my Air magic tingle with electricity. Ava summoned lightning, and it was hot and out of control as it raced across the sky. Thunder rolled so loudly above it made my eardrums ache.
If I didn’t get her under control, and soon, the universe was going to fall apart at any moment. She could sustain the spell todrain Earth’s soul while she was fighting me, and I was running out of time.
I had to get twisted, and get into her head in order to slow her up. I brought my illusion magic rushing forth once again, and I caused it to conjure into something new. I pulled from our Familiar, taking the smallest piece of Oberi and fashioning it into an illusion, something living and breathing. I took from the part of Oberi that loved Ava more than she loved me, because it wasn’t fair, and I had to make things evensomehow.Oberi snorted in disbelief, and Ava showed the tiniest bit of weakness as she gave the smallest noise of torment.
My illusion magic created a duplicate version of Oberi, right down to the tail and horn. I created her so she was solid, living and breathing just like the real Oberi.
I think Ava was in disbelief, because she didn’t do anything, not at first. The Oberi duplicate shot fireballs out of her horn at Ava. The real Oberi dodged, keeping Ava at a distance as the fake Oberi attacked.
If anything could hold her off, it was this. If Ava wanted to continue what she was doing, and get to me, she had to kill a piece of our Familiar. She didn’t have the stomach to do it.
"You think an image of Oberi can stop me?" Ava hissed.
"It's not just an image. It's the real thing. This Oberi is just as real as the one you're riding on,” I snapped. “It's a piece of her. A piece of us all. Oberi took your side, but there's still a part of her that’s connected to me. If you kill her, you kill a piece of Oberi."
Ava gave a heartless scoff. "I've already killed a part of my spirit today. I can do it again."
Ava let out a high-pitched scream, and a firebomb erupted in the middle of the beach where the fake Oberi had been standing. Ava’s wails echoed throughout the beach as the dying cries of the duplicate Oberi closed in around us. I felt the heat of the explosion coming the moment the firebomb went off, and Isheltered myself inside of an Earth shield that I enclosed around me as the flames rippled overhead.
When the detonation was over, I let my Earth shield drop and knelt to the ground with a shaking hand. My magic surveyed the scene. Ava had left a crater in the middle of the beach over twenty feet wide, and just as deep.
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe she’d killed off a piece of our Familiar… a piece of ourjoined soul— without hesitating. She wouldn’t have done that hours ago.
My fingers shook as I withdrew them from the sand. Ava truly was stronger than me. Any control or power she’d given to me in our relationship had certainly been a gift, and I’d squandered it. She was kicking my ass all over this beach without any problem. I couldn’t even get a hit in on her, and here she was, making me her bitch without breaking a sweat. Only days ago she’d promised to get me in handcuffs, and she’d certainly kept true to that promise, because my hands might as well be tied behind my back while I was fighting her. I was nothing more than a doll getting tossed around at her whim, a toy to entertain her rage.
“You know, Charlie, you’rereallypissing me off today.” I hadn’t heard Ava use a tone full of hate toward me in such a long time, but loathing infected her voice now. “I think you like playing these twisted little games.”
I whispered quietly to myself, “I think you like them too, Ava.”
She’d heard me. Viciously, she responded, “Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter much to you, because you’d still make me play them.”
We’d done this for years, played mind games and gone back and forth, but Ava and I weren’t playing the same game anymore. I didn’t even think we were on the same chessboard.
I was stupid to think I could dominate her. I’d been so, so naive. Childish, cruel, heartless— there weren’t enough words to describe how ignorant I’d been, any way to encompass the severity of the horrible mistake I’d made.
And that mistake was going to cost me more than anything I’d ever gambled on before.
I started gasping as something inside my chest contracted. Fragments of pain projected outward from the inside, and my being withered as an unknown force tore me apart, shredding my essence like bits of paper. This felt similar to when the Warden had sucked the life force out of me, butworse. I wasn’t just dying. I was ceasing to exist.
