The Rise (35 page)

Jackson stood in front of Nelly, my Gladius clenched in his hand. Nelly had her head thrown back and was laughing up at the heavens. I could tell by Jackson’s posture, fierce but defeated, that he knew as well as she did that he stood no chance against her.

I took off at a run toward him, my feet seeming to move in slow motion as I watched so many things happen in front of me at once, just flashes of images that would burn themselves into my mind for the rest of eternity. Jackson’s head turning to look at me, the look in his big green eyes. Nelly standing behind him with her head thrown back, her long white neck shaking with that terrible laughter. Jackson’s face telling me that is was okay, knowing that I would not reach him in time. The sliver blade of the Gladius rising up to his throat, the muscles in the arm that held it bulging with tension. The sound it made as he slid the silver swiftly and gracefully to the side. The scarlet that dripped from the end of it, that sprayed out in the air like red rain drops, splattering Nelly’s face and shirt. The wild look in Nelly’s eyes as her head snapped forward, and the way her white arms shot out to catch Jackson before he collapsed to the ground, holding him in front her like nothing more than a ragdoll. Her crazed face disappearing in his neck. The sounds of slurping and moaning. The sound of my own scream.

I snatched up my Gladius when I finally reached them, Jackson’s blood still slick on its blade. I stood there clutching it as Nelly drank and drank and drank from Jackson, unable to move or think. The sword was cold in my grasp, but useless, nothing Nelly could ever do would make me turn it on her. But if there was ever a time when I seriously considered doing it, it was
now
. The scene taking place in front of me was the worst thing I had ever witnessed, and I have witnessed some pretty awful things.

Jackson’s head was tilted back, his reddish-brown hair stirring softly in the wind. His green eyes were open and staring heavenward, but they saw nothing. They were blank, dead. Nelly’s hands were wrapped in his blue flannel shirt, holding him to her with enormous strength. The top of her head was all that was visible as she slurped and moaned and hissed against the opening in his neck. His blood dripped down between them, and the ground was so saturated that the drops made plopping noises when they fell. Nelly’s hands were completely red, as if she had dipped them in a bucket of paint, and it rolled down in streams to her forearms, down to shirt and to her feet.

And I just stood there watching. My knees gave out beneath me and I pitched forward, but rough hands caught me and kept me on my feet. I pulled my eyes from Nelly and looked over to see Kayden beside me, and it took me a moment to know it was him. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than how sick I felt, and I felt
really
sick.

I doubled over and began retching, the meager contents of my stomach spilling out in front of me, splattering the ground at my feet. Kayden held me upright. Otherwise I would have fallen over right into my own bile. He wiped my mouth on his sleeve and wrapped his arms around me, holding my head firmly against his chest, spinning me so that I was looking in the opposite direction of Nelly and Jackson. I wanted to push him away and tell him that I was fine, that I could handle this, but my muscles seemed to be locked into their positions, using all their strength just to hold me up.

I didn’t close my eyes. I was facing east, so the sun was the most drawing thing in my line of vision. I stared right into it, my eyes watering and burning, blinking and refusing to shield my gaze. I could feel the air going in and out of my lungs, could hear it rushing in my ears. Kayden’s heart was pumping so hard that his chest was pulsing where I laid my head. My hands dangled at my sides, my mouth hung open, and I stared at the sun.

Forever seemed to pass by in that moment, as I stood in Kayden’s arms and seemed to drift out into the world. I felt like there was no way this could happening, that surely this nightmare would end and I would awaken hot and sweaty in my bed. I thought nothing at all, except for maybe that I was going to go to hell for this, and that it would not be punishment enough. But none of this was happening. I breathed, and told myself
none of this was happening
.

And then Kayden gasped, the air seeming to catch in his lungs, and I spun around on my heel so fast that the world blurred. My chest rose and fell and then stopped moving all together, as I looked at my sister, kneeling on the ground with a very dead Jackson sprawled across her lap, her pretty face covered in blood, all of her covered in it.

And her hazel eyes that were staring up at me. Very, very wide.

Alexa

I still was unable to move. I just stood there gaping at Nelly and hearing a terrible ringing in my ears. Kayden must have been stuck in place also, and I noticed Tommy standing beside him for the first time. We all just stood there staring at Nelly, with Nelly staring back at me.

Her red mouth opened, but no sound came out, and then she looked down at what was across her lap and she screamed. It was a terrible sound, one that seemed to have been ripped out from her soul and tossed into the air like confetti. It was a scream that held so much pain, so much anguish that it hurt just to hear it, though no one of us moved to cover our ears.

Nelly’s hands were trembling, sobs making her entire body jump, as she brought her fingers down and ran them along Jackson’s face. “No,” she said. And then she cried it over and over again until it was just a nonsensical sobbed-mumble falling from her lips, her body rocking back and forth as she stroked Jackson’s face.

Tears sprung from my eyes, not the first I had ever cried and certainly not the last. I made no move to hide them or wipe them away. I still made no move at all.

It was Tommy who stepped forward and kneeled down in front of Nelly, his handsome face as grave and gentle as I had ever seen it. He stayed there in front of her a moment, just staring into her eyes. Nelly looked back at him like she was lost and he was someone who might show her the way. My ruined, black heart twisted then, and I ran forward to my sister, knowing that
I
was the one who was always supposed to show her the way.

Tommy moved out of the way when he saw me coming, and I fell down hard on my knees in front of her. My hand came up and cupped the side of her cheek, and her skin was soft and warm against my palm. Her bloody hand came up and rested over mine, her hazel eyes telling me that there was nothing else in the world that she would rather see than me, though they reflected my own pain and suffering so clearly that I found that I couldn’t breathe.

Then we hugged each other fiercely, Jackson’s body between us a still-warm reminder of all that had been lost to allow us this simple embrace. We stayed that way for a long time, and she whispered something in my ear that made the destroyed contents of my chest ache.

“I missed you so much.”

We cried then, both of us together, and somehow it only felt right that way, not that any of this felt
right.
My brain seemed to be refusing to process what had happened, refusing to accept that Jackson, my poor, sweet Jackson, lay between the two of us, gone beyond reach. It was something that wouldn’t settle over me, wouldn’t set in for some time.

But I knew that he had done it for
me
, had willing sacrificed himself so that I could keep breathing, even though I’d torn his heart to pieces, and that was enough to make the tears that kept falling from my eyes never truly cease to be.

Only the blood of one completely willing, only the soul of one who knows true love can save her.

Yes, I cried.

Until your veins run dry and your tether to this world is forever broken.

The next thirty minutes or so after that are a blur. I was too wracked with grief, maybe always would be, to really remember it clearly, like my mind had gone blank for a few minutes in a last ditch effort to save my fragile sanity. I remember Kayden saying something, and then looking up to see the hard look on his face. I remember glancing all around me, seeing the thing that had made his back so rigid. People were stepping out of the houses, slowly, only a few at first, and then more. They were holding swords and daggers and other weapons in their hands, glaring at us with an unmistakable threat in their eyes, even from this distance.

Someone was pulling me to my feet then, and pulling Nelly to hers as well. I remember screaming Jackson’s name, refusing to leave without him, and Kayden letting me go to go gather Jackson’s lifeless body in his arms. Tommy ushered us over to the jeep Jackson and I had come in, trying to hurry us along gently as more and more people stepped out of their front doors. I realized that something was missing here, but it was just a breeze of a thought and then it was gone. I wouldn’t remember it until later, after a good amount of time had passed and I was able to step back and let all the puzzle pieces fall into place.

Then Kayden was placing Jackson in the back of jeep, and I was hopping in beside him, lifting Jackson’s head and resting it on my lap, leaning my head back against the window and closing my eyes. I heard the jeep’s engine spring to life and the tires squeal as we sped away. I didn’t look up to see where we were going. I didn’t care.

King William

He sat in the back of the black car, staring out the darkly tinted window and into the trees. He brought his arm up and his suit sleeve slid up, revealing his shiny watch. The festivities should be in full swing now, and soon it would be time to leave. He regretted that he could not have stayed to see them, because he was sure they were a sight to be seen. He wondered what the Sun Warrior had done when she realized she was at her end— that her sister was going to be the one to bring it to her. He wondered if she had fought her back, or if she had given herself up willingly, too blinded by her love, too weak from it to lift a hand against her sister. He had known many Sun Warriors in the past, and their love was almost always what had destroyed them. It was their Achilles heel.

A few minutes passed, then more. The sunrise was almost in full swing, the blue of the sky growing paler and paler. He stared at the trees, casting his mind out to see if anyone was coming, and felt nothing at all. A tiny bit of worry began to seep into him. Jackson and Andre were taking too long.

When Andre stepped from the trees King William felt his shoulders relax a fraction, but the tension came back with a vengeance when he realized that his son was not with him. He watched with narrowed eyes as Andre opened the driver’s door of the car and slid into the front seat. The King could have Searched his mind, but some small voice inside of him must have whispered that he wouldn’t like what he would find there, and he asked the question instead.

“Where is my son, Andre?” His voice was cool, contained.

The Warrior twisted around in his seat, a little awkwardly because of his size, and his dark eyes met the King’s with a very dead stare. “He was killed, my Liege. By the Sun Warrior’s sister, the Accursed girl.”

King William allowed himself a small moment to let this information sink in. It seemed to settle slowly down to his guts and drown there, where it would fester for the rest of forever in very good company. His mouth tasted nasty when he spoke. “And the Sun Warrior?”

Andre hesitated. It was only a tiny hesitation, but during it the King had seen the answer to his question flash across the Warrior’s face. He shook his big head. “She survived, my Liege. They both did, and her sister was…”

King William had to clench his teeth tight to keep from slamming his fist into the tinted glass window beside him. “Her sister was
what
?” he growled.

Andre didn’t flinch. “Her sister was…saved or something. I don’t know how to describe it. It was like she was brought back from somewhere else.” He paused. “And I think that it was your son’s sacrifice that did it.”