Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (21 page)

he hands on the clock above my desk crept toward midnight, each little tick pounding through me like a drum. I paced the confines of my room, running my hands over the purple bedspread, picking up the picture of my mom and me from my desk, letting the ribbon of Dace’s Snowlympics medal slip through my fingers… trying to memorize every second of being in this room with him.

A week ago, I thought we were imprisoned here, shut away with nothing to do but worry and stress and argue with each other. I didn’t feel that way anymore. I felt… winded. Unable to swallow the lump in my throat or ease the painful pressure in my chest. My whole body ached, as if the mere thought of leaving Dace behind tore through something vital inside me. A weird sense of déjà vu threatened to break the levee holding back my tears every time my gaze landed on the pile of clothing on my bed.

For the second time in a matter of months, I prepared to leave behind everything I knew.

When I left Smyrna after Mom died, I didn’t think I’d find comfort in Beebe. I didn’t think I would ever get over the grief of leaving my childhood home. I was so certain no other place would ever mean as much to me, but that wasn’t true. When I left Smyrna, all I really left were memories and my mom’s grave. This time, I had to leave my heart.

“You’ll take care of him, won’t you?” I asked, spinning to face my dad.

He stood in the doorway, watching my endless circuits around the room. His glasses didn’t hide the moisture gathering in his eyes.

My bottom lip quivered at the sight.

“Oh, Ari,” he said, holding his arms out to me.

I scurried to him as quickly as I could, flinging myself into his arms.

He wrapped me up in a big bear hug.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, rubbing my face against his shirt like I used to do when I was a little girl. Every time I fell off my bike or got picked last for kickball, I ran to my dad for comfort, and he’d always been there. Even after he moved away, all I had to do was tell him I needed him, and he dropped what he was doing to be there for me.

Why hadn’t I appreciated that more before now?

“You can do this,” Dad said, hooking a finger under my chin to tip my head up. His lips turned down at the corners, his smile grave. Even so, pride shone brightly in his eyes. “It will be hard and you’ll cry, but you’ll do this because that’s the brave girl you are.”

“I don’t want to go.” I wanted to stay right here with my dad and Dace, destiny and fate and all that crap be damned. Walking away from Dace wasn’t how this was supposed to work. We were supposed to help each other, not hurt each other.

Why did things always have to go so wrong for us?

“I know, hon, but Dace needs you to go. He needs you to be safe.” Dad swiped a tear from beneath my eye. “That boy would do anything for you, so you’ve got to do this for him. For both of you.”

Dace’s bloody body flashed through my mind, the chain around his neck digging into his flesh.

I whimpered like a pathetic, little girl.

Dad tucked my head against his chest again, patting my back.

“Come with me, Dad. Please.” We’d already decided he would stay, but I couldn’t stop the plea from tumbling out. Everyone thought I was strong and brave for making this decision, but I wasn’t. I felt like a coward, and just like the little girl who fell off her bike learning to ride, I needed my daddy to help bandage me up again. Except… he couldn’t bandage me up this time, could he?

I was ripping my own heart out of my chest, and my dad couldn’t kiss that wound better or make the pain go away. All he could do was what he’d already promised to do: help make sure I had something to come back to when all this was over.

“I wish I could, baby, but you know I have to stay here.”

I did know. If Sköll or Hati followed us, I wouldn’t be able to protect him anymore than I could protect Chelle. I still didn’t want to go without him though. I wanted to be selfish.

“We’ll be okay here, Ari,” Dad said.

“Promise me.” I pulled away to look at him. “Promise me you’ll both stay safe.”

He smiled at me again, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses. “I promise.”

My dad and Dace would be safe. I’d go to this Dr. Michel and he’d have information we could use. Dace would kill Sköll and Hati without breaking a sweat, and that nightmare version of him would remain exactly that: a nightmare. Rainbows and puppies all the way.

There was nothing but faith left to keep me moving forward.

My legs trembled beneath me, but I took a deep breath and nodded.

I gave my dad another hard squeeze and then stepped back. Sobs caught in my throat, but I refused to let myself give in to them.

Pack your things,
I coached myself.
And under the cover of darkness, go. Slip away before Sköll and Hati even know you’re going. You can do this. For Dace, you
will
do this.

I turned back to my suitcase, my vision blurring. I folded my clothes by rote, not really caring what I took with me. Not until I came to one of Dace’s t-shirts which I’d claimed while in the hospital, anyway. I had washed the shirt days ago, but it still smelled like him.

My shoulders shook.

I couldn’t leave without telling him goodbye.

“Can you…?” I swallowed hard, clutching his shirt to my chest. I didn’t turn around though. I didn’t want to see pity in my dad’s eyes. “Can you send Dace up here?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can do that.” He paused. “I love you, Ari.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

The grave expression on Dace’s face when he walked through my bedroom door a few minutes later killed me. His eyes were dim, his face pale and sallow. Pain seemed permanently etched across his beautiful features. It tore at me as I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands buried in my lap to hide the way they shook.

Dace stood across from me, not speaking. I didn’t say anything either, unsure where to begin.

How could I say goodbye to a living, breathing piece of me?

I didn’t know, so I stared at him instead.

I didn’t need to see him to remember every feature of his face, but I wanted to look anyway. I needed to see the way tenderness shone in his emerald eyes when he looked at me, and the way golden strands of his hair brushed across his forehead and curled wildly around the nape of his neck. I wanted the sharp planes and angles of his face burned into my memory like a brand, seared there so I never forgot why I left.

Geri sat silently in his corner. I wasn’t sure the wolf understood why I had decided to leave them now, but, like Dace, he didn’t fight me. He watched me from inside, his face blurring with Dace’s until, once again, they were one and the same. They were snowy-white gray streaked fur surrounding burning, vivid emerald. My beautiful boys. One fully human, the other fully wolf… and both so much a part of me I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my cheeks this time.

Like always, as soon as Dace saw me crying, he came to me, helpless to do anything other than try to offer comfort. He drew me to my feet with warm hands before enveloping me in his arms. His heart beat steady beneath my ear.

I burrowed into his hold, pressed so tightly to him not even air moved between us. My body shook and trembled in his arms. I searched for a way to explain everything running through me. To tell him how my chest ached and my throat felt swollen closed. To describe how grief choked me, and regret burned me. To share the little light of hope still flickering in the dark. That small flame did nothing to hold the deep shadows at bay, but it still wavered bravely, burning bright against the black backdrop of fear and grief.

I didn’t know how to say any of that, though. I wasn’t eloquent like Dace was. I couldn’t speak in poetry, or strum songs into his skin with my fingertips. I gave him all I could instead. I let all of my jumbled emotions fill me, and then I opened my mind wide to him, allowing him to see everything I couldn’t put to words, to feel everything I couldn’t describe or explain. I said goodbye the same way we said hello so many months before: without a single word passing my lips.

“I want you to promise me something,” he demanded, his voice hoarse and ragged when I slumped against him, exhausted.

Sorrow etched every line of his face, and I knew this moment would be branded into my memory alongside all the others. This one would haunt me like so much else. And this one would hurt more.

“Anything,” I mouthed soundlessly, unable to force my throat to work.

He pressed his forehead to mine. “Don’t hate yourself for any of this,” he whispered, emotion swirling through his eyes. “I’m not worth it.”

My heart bled.

I choked on tears and grief and all the things I didn’t know how to say to him. On
goodbye
and
be safe
and
I still love you.

“I love you,” he whispered fiercely. He rained kisses across my face, soaking up my tears with his lips and the pads of his thumbs. “Forever.” He squeezed me tighter for a moment and then just like that… he was gone, Geri’s mournful howl whispering through the empty space he left behind.

ace’s Jeep wasn’t in the driveway when Dad helped me drag my suitcase down the stairs and out to Ronan’s Mustang an hour later. I didn’t know where Dace went, and I couldn’t feel him in my mind anymore. The walls Dace pulled down to say goodbye were rebuilt, brick by damning brick. I think he meant the walls to make this easier for me, but they didn’t.