Chapter 18
Kane
"How do you know this?" I ask the child who has literally knocked the air out of me with so much realization.
"You should lie down and play like you're asleep again. They come to take me now. I'll be taken to the woman in white," she says, sounding so fucking tragic. I have to get us out of here.
I look around, wishing Dray would wake up. I need his help, damn it. These charms are too strong for me alone, but the two of us—we might stand a chance.
"Who's the woman in white?" I ask, refusing to be cowardly enough to pretend as though I'm still asleep.
"She keeps me here because it's the safest place to hide me. The council are unaware. This is hers. That's why you're here. Our world has gone too lax and now she runs it from the shadows."
"Who is she?" I repeat, feeling the urgency she seems to lack.
She ignores me.
"You need to find the girl with black and blond hair and changing eyes. She'll come for you soon. Keep her safe, or we'll all be lost souls like the ones they keep," she whispers, scaring the fuck out of me.
"How do you—"
"Sleep," she whispers, making it a command.
Black specks of darkness steal my vision before I have the chance to argue, and my words are stolen by silence as I drop to the ground, slowly losing consciousness as the world swallows me up.
***
Alyssa
I've been pacing the halls, thinking of every way possible to break past the fucking valkyries that are said to guard the walls of the prison. I wish I knew how to summon my creature goddess. I wish I knew how to control it. It does no good to be powerful if you never have control, idling in the darkness of the mind that has forsaken you.
I wish I could ask Gage what to do right now, but considering he's hell-bent on him being the one I'm destined for, that would be pointless. If he was desperate enough to use a damn love spell on me, then he'll never take it well when I tell him I know it's really Kane.
Prophecies, destiny, fated lovers—it all just pisses me off. Once upon a time, I was an oblivious light witch who really, truly thought she could live the rest of her mortal time as a normal girl. Now—damn, my life got complicated real quick.
"Any plans?" Chaz asks, looking to me as he struts through the hallway.
"Slap me, piss me off, punch me in the face—I don't know. It seems like my crazy bitch only comes out when I'm panicked or pissed. Sort of like the incredible hulk."
He laughs lightly while shaking his head.
"You saying you want to turn into a green monster?"
"I turn into plenty of other monsters. What's one more?" I mumble, slumping down.
He frowns as he comes to join me. "Even if you could call out your crazy bitch side, it doesn't mean you'd go after Kane. You went after a rapist and a woman who was abusing children. I've been reading. Some of the creatures were thought to have just gone crazy and killed at random—turns out, they did things similar to what you've done. It wasn't random. They were killing the vicious to save the innocent."
I offer a sad, almost bitter smile. "It doesn't make it right. There are other ways."
"Not to an animal. Not to a creature of fey. Dealing out a death sentence for wronging their children or the ones they protect is common for most of our kind. Just not in the light circle. Your mind changes to think like the creature you possess. Maybe that's why you black out and lose control. You're so insistent on only seeing things in black and white—using human morals as a guide to right and wrong. Your mind knows better than to let you see what you're doing, because you'll become lost, numb, and forever scarred. We're fey. Not human. No matter how hard you try, you'll never be a human. Stop thinking like one and maybe you can control your fey mind."
He stands to walk away, but I call to him, making him turn to face me once more.
"I never thought I'd hear you say something like that," I murmur, seeing a touch of emptiness burdening his eyes.
"In this world, I've learned life is not a right; it's a gift. If you're only hurting the living by being alive, then what right do you have to live? It didn't take much research for me to learn about the vicious nature of the victims that were killed by creatures like you. I think your kind was meant to govern and save the world from the wicked place it's become. Do you really think I'm the only one who has noticed this? They didn't kill your kind because you were savage, but because there would be a creature who could see the darkness that stained the soul.
"They killed your kind because they were worried they'd be seen as the monsters they are. Your kind wasn't rabid or savage; they were lost in the power that guided them to eliminate the true threats in the world—the blackened hearts who offered no good. You're not the monster, Alyssa. Never were. Never will be. How many more lies have we been told?"
He looks as broken as I felt when I started seeing the truth about our world. He's wrong. I don't see it in black and white anymore. Maybe there are some things I struggle with. Killing is wrong—at least, it should be. I don't know. This is all so fucked up.
"I'm—this is so confusing," I groan.
"You can hate yourself for what you are, or you can accept it. Think about those women and children you've saved. That woman who sat across from me cried and nearly fell apart as she recounted the events from the night she saw you. She didn't want to tell me what you looked like—even lied about it. She wanted you to go free because you saved her from a life of terror. She couldn't move, so she was stuck in the town with the man who could take her without permission any time he wanted. I had to use my magic on her to get the truth.
"Those children? They were all dehydrated to the point the youngest needed hospitalization before her kidneys shut down. You can hate the monster, but I promise you they don't. It's hard. The entire world is hard. But the ones you saved love the creature that rescued them from the real monsters out there."
He vanishes from sight, possibly tired of trying to convince me I'm not as bad as those people were. I keep thinking about what he said. I'm not human. I have to stop thinking like a human. If it'll save Kane, then it's worth it.
I strain, trying to rip up that arbitrary line that separates right from wrong. Not a damn thing. I look constipated more than I look successful. It'd be nice if Freya had left me a damn how-to guide.
I stand up, tired of straining, worried I might force a brain aneurism, and I head to the bedroom where I'll stare at the ceiling instead of sleep. Kane needs me, and I'm completely powerless to save him. If it was me in there, he would have already saved me.
As I pull the necklace over my head to put it away, a washing sense of something dark and hungry stirs within me, and a twisted grin spreads over my face. It's. About. Time.