Chapter 195
Elliot
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I don’t always need to let off steam. Most days, I can breathe through the tightness, roll the anger over until it softens into something useful. Today was not one of those days. She’d said it–You shouldn’t care that much, as if caring could be measured and dialled down like a lamp. As if I could unplug the part of me that had held her when she was small, that had watched her grow into this fierce, impossible woman. As if I hadn’t been living on the edge of this for years, waiting for whatever the world wanted to throw at us next. Mace doesn’t want to accept what I feel. I get that. I know the rules stacked against us, the paper that makes everything “right” and “simple.” On paper, she’s my sister. On paper, I should be able to turn it off, bury it, be the steady brother who only ever smiles and teases and keeps his hands to himself. But you can’t switch off the part of your chest that holds someone. You can’t order your heart to stop recognising its own echo.
She’s perfect for me. That truth sits inside me like a brand, hot and unmovable. And I keep asking myself the same stupid questions: what if she doesn’t like me? What if destiny hands her to someone else, and I lose the one thing I’ve wanted since I could understand wanting? What if I’ve been chasing a dream and it snaps shut on my fingers when the world tells us to be sensible?
The spirals start then, anger at the world for making it complicated, anger at myself for wanting her so severely, anger at the men who’d leer or step too close and think it was their right. Anger that tastes like iron and too–strong coffee. So I leave. Because if I’m going to break something, I’d rather it be the part of me that can be put back together cleanly.
The portal opens like a wound you’re used to, warm air, the smell of old dust and the metallic tang of things that have been buried too long. The Underworld takes no notice of how I arrive; it just opens its mouth and lets me fall into it. I ride the current down into the pits, where the heat reminds me I’m alive and the shadows answer with an honest cruelty that people in daylight could never understand. The pits are a good place to let the noise out. Souls scrape bang on their cells, and I let my hands curl into fists, let the shadow at the edge of my control leap forward, let the sound leave my throat. I need to throw my weight against something that resists in precisely the right way. I need to hit something until my fist remembers what it feels like to be a body that moves and not a chest full of questions. The memories, the echo of every insult I’d swallowed, every rejection that crushed my heart, they fuel me. I choose a victim, open the cell, and I push. I strike. The shadows peel away and reform, and I strike again, harder. Each blow takes a sliver of the raw edge off the anger. It doesn’t fix anything, but it makes the ring around the wound less sharp.
When the sweat cools on my skin and my breath stops rasping like it will crack, I sit on the lip of the pit and let the Underworld’s hush close around me. Quiet isn’t peace. But it’s better than the electricity that had been humming in my ribs. I think of Mace, of the laugh she stole from me when she was a child, the way her hand would find mine before she could even name the thing she was excited about. I think about the kiss she’d given me earlier, so small and ordinary, and how something in me had fit into it like a missing piece. I think about the fear that perhaps fate will be cruel and hand her to someone else, and how that fear makes me want to do the wrong thing to secure the right outcome. I won’t do that. Not to her. Not to us. So I rise, shoulders stiff, and let the shadows fall back into place. I don’t have answers. I don’t have promises that will make any of this okay. I have, at best, a vow to be better than my impulses; to try to say the things I can’t stop feeling in ways that won’t suffocate her. She needs to shift. She needs to see what the bond will do to her. And until then, I live in the nowhere between hope and panic, between the idea that destiny will be merciful and the terror that it won’t.
Movement from behind told me I wasn’t alone anymore, and I didn’t even have to look to know who it was. Noah. He strolled up like the pits were nothing more than a backyard firepit, boots crunching on the scorched stone, and lowered himself onto the ledge beside me. His presence was heavy but steady, the kind that anchored rather than weighed down.
“What’s up, kiddo?” he asked, voice warm and dry.
I made a face, shoving my shoulder against his. “I’m not a kid.”
He laughed, the sound low and familiar. “You’ll always be my kid. That counts, right?”
I huffed out a breath that was half a laugh, half an exhale of frustration.
“What’s eating at you?” he pressed gently.
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11:39 Mon, Oct 6 M
Chapter 195
I stared down at the pit. The words came out before I could stop them. “Have you ever wanted a girl that just didn’t want you back?”
He tilted his head, eyes glinting with a memory. Then he chuckled. “Have I never told you about how your mother and I met?”
I glanced at him, brow furrowing. “Kinda. Sort of. But… what did you do? How did you get her to see that you loved her more than anything in this world?”
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Noah’s smile turned wry, like he was looking at a younger version of himself. “I just kept at it. Kept showing her that I was here, that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I loved her. Even when she shut me out, even when she didn’t believe me and then one day she let me in and gave me a chance.”
I swallowed hard, staring at the cracks in the stone. “And what if she never had?”
His hand came down on my shoulder, firm but not heavy. “Then I would’ve kept living. Loving her from a distance if I had to. Because love isn’t just about getting what you want, it’s about wanting what’s best for them even if it isn’t you.”
His words landed deep and heavy. I let out a long breath, the edge of the spiral easing just a little. “I wish it were that easy.”
Noah smiled faintly, squeezing my shoulder. “It’s not. But it’s worth it.”
The pits hissed below, the smell of stone and shadow wrapping around us, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could keep waiting a little longer.
