Текст книги "Destroyed"
Автор книги: Pepper Winters
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 28 страниц)
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
My first stop was the armoury. A range of knives, blades, and other equipment lay as I remembered from two years ago. The anvil was the same. The stench of sweat and metal the same. But there were new items, too. The finesse not as refined, the lines not as straight. The smithy had been the only place where I’d found a smidgen of peace.
“I want you, Fox. I want to touch you.” Hazel’s voice rang in my ears, buckling my heart. I wanted so fucking much for her to touch me, to not have to deal with the shit inside my head.
The fucking bastards had to die. It was my only chance at freeing myself forever. My last hope for a cure. My last chance at happiness with a woman I desperately wanted to hug and protect.
I stood over a pile of weapons, taming my rapid heartbeat. I wanted to inflict pain. After all, I was a fucking Ghost.
I collected crescent moon blades, a silenced pistol, and a hammer I used so often to beat metal into submission.
That was all I needed.
My breathing calmed, my muscles bunched in preparation, and I slunk like the demon I was down unforgotten corridors. No spike of emotion. No residual humanity. I embraced the ice.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The witching hour was mine and I snuck into the first unseen bedroom, morphing with the dark. I didn’t know who’d created the society of Ghosts, or who bought our services. Some missions had been politicians, other movie starlets. There was no rhyme to who we killed—if they had money, they could buy us. We were purely guns for hire and it was time to burn the fucking place to the ground.
The first man I stood over wasn’t significant. I wasn’t in his realm of minions. He was handsome, well-built, and fast asleep like a fucking angel. But he was a ruthless dictator just like the rest—profiting on others pain and misery.
I pressed one hand over his mouth.
His eyes flew wide, confusion smothering.
He squirmed and his hands came up to touch me.
It was instantaneous. To be inflicted is to inflict.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
I bowed to the command for the first time in two fucking years.
With precision and an emotion almost described as serenity, I dragged the sharp blade over the gristle and tendons of his throat.
Instantly, warm, coppery blood sprang from his body in a brutal cascade. His eyes wrenched wider, his mouth snapped below my palm, and he thrashed around in death throes.
His heart pumped rapidly toward death and the stench of his bowels loosening serenaded him from living to corpse.
I left his grave and returned to the hunt. The hunt for evil. He was the first to die, but definitely not the last. I gave myself completely to the sweetness of killing. I threw myself into my task and everything else ceased to exist. Time blurred, blood flowed, and men died like fucking flies.
Room after room, I entered and dispatched. Five with the silenced gun. Seven with a blade. Two with the hammer. Four with my bare hands.
The night belonged to death, and I was the executioner.
The eighteenth handler died just before daybreak. His final cry petered out, smothered by my hand, and I stood upright rolling my shoulders.
The conditioning pulsed behind my eyes and I could barely feel my extremities. My body had become an instrument of carnage and I didn’t focus on the splatter of blood or other human tissue covering my clothing.
Stalking down the corridor, I knew I wouldn’t find my handler in this wing. He always slept alone on the opposite side of the compound. He was the next to die. He was my final trophy.
I savoured the anticipation and prowled through the dwelling, suffering blending memories of Obsidian and here. Every door looked the same, the length of corridor the same. I kept expecting to see Oscar appear or Clara bolting toward me.
“You’re not a bad man.”
Clara had that wrong. I was the worst sort of man: I was a murderer.
Instead of rushing to finish my mission, I stopped to look at the cells. I couldn’t let them die behind locked doors when I snuffed out the final handler. Retracing my steps, I headed to the heart of the house where the alarm system rested along with the security mainframe that kept every keypad lock secure on the cells.
With my blade, I stabbed it into the main console and severed power to the rest of the compound.
Instantly, alarms erupted, screaming a warning, shredding the silence of the dawn.
Rushing back upstairs, I passed children, teenagers, and adults as they shuffled out of their rooms. Recruits and operatives, all in different stages of training looked bewildered but with a small spark of hope in their eyes.
The ones who knew me nodded in silent respect before charging down the stairs and out into the freezing wilderness. The ones who didn’t were coaxed by others to leave.
It only took a few minutes before the entire establishment was an empty tomb.
Another minute until the person I was on my way to see, found me. I didn’t hear him arrive, but I sensed him.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The hair on my neck stood up on end as I spun to face my nemesis. My handler stood behind me, hands on his hips, his perfect face looking like a flawless sculpture. He was blond and beautiful, but beneath his perfection lurked oil and ink and filth for a soul.
My heart bucked, sending thickening fear through my blood. The conditioning stuttered and failed when faced with the one man who was king over me.
“If it isn’t Operative Fox. I see you disobeyed orders once again and didn’t swallow your last task.” He cocked his head. “And you’re no longer blind. Interesting.”
I didn’t say anything. Clamping my lips shut, I swallowed my terror and stood my ground.
This man had hurt me more than anyone and the conditioning crunched my spine, ordering me to bow to him. To grovel for forgiveness.
“I love you, so you can’t be a bad man.” Clara’s sweet voice pierced through my fog, giving me something to latch onto. I wouldn’t let him win. Not this time.
He suddenly laughed. “How did you pull that trick, Fox? I must say. Very inventive.”
I clenched my hands around the hunting knife. “No trick. You warped my mind so badly, my brain decided it no longer wanted the gift of sight. You drove many of us mad with what you made us do.”
Clucking his tongue, he shook his head. “Always so dramatic.” He paced forward a couple of steps, closing the distance between us. Holding out his hand, he growled, “Give me the blade, Operative Fox. Return to your cell immediately. Punishment will be absolute after this heinous treason.”
My legs spasmed with the compulsion to obey. I took a step back unable to ignore the conditioning forcing me to my old cell. It crippled my mind, took my limbs hostage. It was like fighting a puppet master holding all my fucking strings.
Closing my eyes, I thought of Obsidian and the man I’d become. I’d struck fear into the hearts of others. I’d become more than just an operative. That man wasn't afraid of this blond asshole.
I’m not afraid.
I forced my foot to move, followed by another.
“Obey me, Fox. Stand down.”
I groaned, clutching my stomach as a wash of sickness filled me. Obey. Obey. Obey. Once again, the conditioning buckled my body, making me groan. I belonged to him and it hurt—fucking hurt—to disobey.
Gritting my teeth, hating the white smog settling over my eyes, I pressed forward another step. “Not this time.”
Every shuffle rebooted my heart from thrumming with terror to thudding with an entirely different beat. One that craved blood. I had violence running in my veins and another’s life-force on my hands. He might have butchered and tortured me, but ultimately he made me stronger. Strong enough to withstand him. Strong enough to end him.
“I’m fucking warning you, operative. Take one more step, and I’ll slaughter you where you stand.”
The conditioning rushed me like a swarm of wolves, tearing savagely at my body. Obey. Obey. Obey.
I locked my legs into position. Fighting. Battling. Winning.
Then I took another step.
My handler bared his teeth, eyes livid. “One more fucking move and I’ll let the bears have you.”
Only a foot between us. Our heights were even, our body size mirror images of each other. However, unlike the past, I was no longer his slave.
He was mine.
I struck.
Grabbing his neck, I squeezed with everything left inside me. “You no longer have the right to tell me what to do. You never had the right. You’re the fucking devil for making me destroy my family, and it’s time you returned to hell.”
With cold eyes, he lashed out and a hot laceration erupted down my side. “It’s not me who will die tonight.”
I dropped him, and he scuttled back. Hunching into a crouch, he bared the knife still red from slicing me. “You don’t stand a chance against me. I own you. Give up now and die like the traitor you are.”
I snarled, “Never.” Exploding forward, I threw away my weapons, and tackled him to the floor. We rolled and fought, grunting and growling. He struck twice with his blade, sending heat spilling down my side. I didn’t feel the pain. I didn’t acknowledge anything but the objective of killing.
“Pity you don’t have any more family, Fox. We’d make them pay for your disobedience.” He punched my jaw as we rolled. He got the upper hand and slammed my skull against the floor. Whispering in my ear, he said, “You always were a little bitch, Fox. Maybe I should fuck you and remind you of your place.”
His hand slapped my ass, and my mind stretched to breaking point.
I snapped.
I hated this man. Hated. Fucking hated.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
In the moment of choice between stealing a life and torturing a soul free from its mortal body, I switched from human to machine. I didn’t want to dispatch him quickly. I wanted to make him pay. Pay for everything he’d done to me, to my loved ones, to countless other victims.
He would fucking pay for his trespasses and then he would burn in hell.
My mind shut down.
And I vanished into ruthless revenge.
* * *
I watched her.
From my place in the shadows, I watched the woman I wanted more than anything.
I didn’t mean to stalk her. To follow in secret and witness her private sorrow, but I couldn’t go to her. Time and time again, I tried to move my legs and walk to her, but I didn’t trust myself. I wanted to wipe away her tears, and hold her. I wanted to rock and console her, but although I’d found hope, I hadn’t found a cure.
My jaw gritted as my heart raced. Anger and frustration had replaced the iciness of the conditioning. After I’d finished with my handler and the massacre of three nights ago, I’d showered and dressed and bandaged my wounds. I’d boarded a plane and returned from frost to sunshine and hoped it was over.
Whenever I tried to recall that night, only fragments returned. I couldn’t remember in detail what happened. I remembered walking over body parts and opening the doors wide so local scavengers could clean up my mess. I remembered a red cascade of blood sluice down the drain in the shower. Some of it mine, but most of it from my handler. I remembered the stench of fear coming from a man who’d brutalized me all my life. I remembered his screams, and the blessed relief I felt as the obedience of my past slowly unbound its tight web around me.
My conditioning weakened the moment he died. It was as if the orders in my head melted from blizzard to softly falling snow, granting a reprieve from the agony of ice.
I wanted to rejoice at my newfound freedom, but then I mourned because instead of being completely unhindered, I was only marginally free. The Ghost persona hadn’t fully gone. And I grieved everything I would lose because of it.
I would never be normal. I would never be able to fully relax and sleep harmlessly beside Hazel. I would always have to monitor my thoughts and actions.
I was fucking exhausted, and there was no respite in sight.
Behind my sunglasses, and hiding place by the cafe across the road, I watched as Hazel and Clue disappeared into a second-hand shop. I hated having her out of my sight.
For three nights and two days, I followed her. I slept outside her flat in my car. I had countless conversations with her in my head. I acted out exactly how I would go to her and how I would apologise. But every scenario didn’t end well, and my confidence deserted me.
How could I say sorry for leaving when her daughter died? How could I beg forgiveness for being a man who would never be able to hold her?
So, I stayed in the dark and watched her go through the motions of life. She barely left the apartment and it gave me plenty of time to figure out how to do something—not for Hazel, but for Clara.
I used her love of horses as inspiration for her final resting place and I called the one person who I knew would execute my plan flawlessly all while being there for Zel.
When Clue answered the phone, I almost broke down and asked to talk to her. To murmur condolences and tell her how I felt, but I stayed focused and stuck to the plan. Clue had taken my offer with eager arms and within a day, she’d dragged Zel out of the house to make preparations.
With my heart racing, I charged across the street. Entering the second-hand shop, I made sure Hazel didn’t see me and ducked behind shelving groaning with knick knacks and paraphernalia. A whiff of dust and ancient belongings filled my nose.
Clue and Hazel were at the back of the shop. I moved closer, staying hidden so I could hear what they said.
“How about this one, Zelly?” Clue held up a bright pink, plastic pony with see-through wings.
Hazel smiled softly. “Yes. She always wanted a Pegasus.”
Clue laughed quietly and reached out to hug her. “That’s true.”
They clung to each other.
My heart squeezed with jealousy. I cursed the unfairness—the fucked-up mind I lived with. It should be me holding her and sharing tales of a little girl taken too soon. But I was also grateful that Clue was there for her.
The two women parted, before rummaging around in a bin full of toys. Glittery ponies, bright blue and rainbow ponies—they came out and were placed into a basket.
“You know, I bet she’s watching us right now and laughing.”
Zel looked up, her skin dull with grief. “What do you mean?”
Clue smiled. “Well, she probably has a real Pegasus and unicorn by now. And she’ll be laughing thinking how much we’re missing out on. How silly these plastic things are.” She flicked the tail of one glow in the dark horse.
Zel looked down at the yellow pony in her hands. “I like to think of her like that—surrounded by things she loves.” She sniffed, giving a watery smile. “I know I’ve had time to prepare for her passing. I know the doctors told me what to expect and what stages of grief I would go through, but nothing fully prepares you for it.”
Clue stopped rummaging and gave Zel her full attention.
“I keep thinking she’s just around the corner. I’ll see the tip of her hair disappearing around a building, or hear her voice on the breeze.” Zel’s eyes welled up and my heart shattered. “I keep hoping she’ll come bounding home from school, or trail bubble bath all over the floor.” She rubbed the centre of her chest as her voice turned thready with sadness. “I miss her so fucking much it hurts. It hurts in my head, my eyes, my back, my soul. It doesn’t matter that I know she’s in a better place. It doesn’t make it any easier knowing she’s no longer in pain.”
Her eyes met Clue’s, lost and in pain. “I don’t—don’t know how to go on.” She hiccupped as a torrent of tears flowed down her cheeks. “It’s so damn hard. So unfair to be the one left behind.”
Clue scooted closer and gathered her into a huge hug. “Aww, Zel. It’s okay.” She stroked her hair, rocking just like Zel had done when Clara died. Clue began to cry silently. Even though she cried, she never stopped being strong for her friend. “You need to give yourself permission.”
“Permission?” Zel pulled back, smashing at the tears on her cheeks.
Clue nodded. “The reason why you’re hurting is because you’re clinging to the past. You’re not ready to face a future without her. And that’s okay. It’s okay to miss her, Zelly. You’ll miss her every damn day, but you can’t forget to live either.”
She shook her head. “Clara wouldn’t want you killing yourself with grief and I don’t want it either. We both knew this was coming. You just need to find acceptance and rejoice in her life, rather than drown yourself wishing for a different outcome.”
Zel blinked, sucking in a cleansing breath. “How are you coping? You’re so strong. You’re letting me lean on you so much.”
Clue pulled away, rubbing Zel’s arms. “I have Ben when it gets too much. He’s been amazing. And even though there’ll always be a hole in my heart where Clara used to be, I can’t begrudge or scream at life for taking her. She taught me so much—she taught you so much. Hell, she even taught that asshole from Obsidian so much. Something as amazing as Clara doesn’t last long. You have to come to terms with it; otherwise you’ll never be happy again.”
Zel sniffed and anger filled her eyes, muting out the sorrow. “I can’t believe he left. He left me crying over my dead daughter and couldn’t even bring himself to stay.” Zel balled her hands, clutching the yellow horse. “Clara may have died that day, but he proved to me I can’t rely on anyone. I survived on my own and I was stupid to let him in. He made me hope. He made me rely on him. He made her death so much harder because I thought I would be able to share it with him. Find comfort together. But he was a spineless coward.”
Clue bit her lip. “Don’t judge until you know the full story, Zelly. He might have a good reason.”
Zel laughed coldly. “Of course he has a good reason. He can’t touch. And I can’t blame him. But it doesn’t mean I can forgive him. I’m done with it all. I need to say goodbye to Clara, then find a fresh start.”
I couldn’t listen anymore. I backed away feeling as if my veins were open and spewing blood. She’d flayed me open, leaving my beating heart unprotected.
She would never be able to forgive me.
“You’re not a bad man. I love you, so you can’t be a bad man.”
I earned the love of an eight-year-old, yet I couldn’t earn the love of a woman I would fucking die for.
No matter what I did, it would never be enough to repair the past and give her what she ultimately needed: a man who could hold her and fight battles on her behalf. I was a fighter. An assassin and mercenary. I could be so many things for her. I just had to figure out how to be the rest.
“Stop fighting with my mummy. I don’t want you to.”
I swore on Clara’s life I would find a way to be everything Zel needed. Every touch would still be torturous. Embraces almost a mythical dream. But it was possible, because I wouldn’t stop until I made her mine forever.
I’d done everything I could to ‘fix’ myself, but I refused to face reality. The brainwashing was too deep inside me. Too imbedded in my psyche to ever let me go. However, the intensity had faded just enough. I had more power. Power over myself. Power over my thoughts. It was a beginning.
I will find a way.
I would fucking love Hazel and share her future and be there for her always.
Fox died the night of the Russian massacre.
Roan had been reborn.
Zel wanted a fresh start.
And I knew exactly what to do to make her wish come true.
19
Hazel
I thought I had space in my heart to love two people. To share my life with another. I thought I could love another child to ultimately replace the one I lost.
I thought Roan would change—that Clara would show him a way to be human. I thought even though a tragedy had happened, I would be able to cope.
I thought so many, many things, and they all turned out to be bullshit.
Turned out my heart wasn’t a living, beating thing. It was made of concrete and lead and rock, destined to never love another or ever beat fully again.
Part of me died that day.
I wished I had died that day.
But I couldn’t.
So I kept going.
Alone.
* * *
The funeral was held on a large piece of land just outside of Sydney. I didn’t know whose property it was. All I knew was horses existed everywhere. Paints, palominos, thoroughbreds, and Arabians. Their long noses and velvet soft ears squeezed my heart until I couldn’t breathe. Clara would’ve loved it here. She would’ve hugged every horse, slept in the open fields, and begged never to leave.
It was the perfect place.
God, I miss you. The burn of tears that were never far away stabbed my eyes.
The rain that’d been a constant companion for a week stopped the moment we arrived. It was as if the mourning period had been put on hold to celebrate the life of one taken so young.
I’d existed in a fog all week. I didn’t like to dredge up excruciating memories of Oscar finding me still holding Clara, or the hearse that came to take her away. I didn’t like to recall the agony and tears of telling Clue that our little trio had been broken. I’d been terrified Clue would resort to self-harming again—to find a release—but I hadn’t factored in the comforting presence of Ben.
Clue had been so amazingly strong. She’d held me while I broke. She’d cried with me and laughed with me. She kept me sane. And it was all because Ben was her pillar, feeding her strength, giving her the safe haven she needed.
Ben did for Clue what Fox should’ve done for me. I had no one to bury myself in or cry myself to sleep in their arms. I would always love Clue like a sister and could never have existed without her, but I needed…him. I needed his strength, his fight. I needed his anger and even his fuckedupness. Instead, he left me to fumble all alone and proved just what an asshole he was.
Ben kept me alive the past week. He held us until we almost passed out from tears. He gathered us close and gave us a rock to cling to while grief threatened to wash us away from this world.
He fed us when we forgot to eat, and he began our therapy early. Instead of letting us wallow in sorrow, he found every painting Clara had ever created, every picture of her, every macaroni glued statue she’d done at school and made Clue and me tell him stories of my daughter.
He reminded us she would never be gone as long as we kept her alive in our thoughts, and we had to remember the good not the bad. We had to keep living for her.
A few days after Clara’s death, Clue received a phone call that shot life back into her. She went from couch potato to a whirlwind of efficiency and threw herself into arranging the most perfect funeral any little girl could want.
I looked over at my non-blood sister. The breeze ruffled her straight black hair and tears glistened in her eyes. She nodded, feeling the same bond, the same need to remind ourselves we were there for each other.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For this. For everything.”
“Don’t thank me. There’s someone else you should thank, too.”
I looked over my shoulder at Ben. He looked regal and dapper in a black suit, black shirt, and the requisite My Little Pony badge over his heart. The funeral was in Clara’s honour—and My Little Pony had been her favourite.
My heart squeezed hard, threatening to send me keeling over.
I can’t do this.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, gathering the black mournful dress I wore and holding the shattered pieces of my heart.
Don’t cry.
I’d shed more tears the past week than I ever thought possible. I should’ve shrivelled into a husk with the amount of water I expelled. But no matter how much I wailed and cursed, I didn’t feel better. The tears escaped, but my sorrow didn’t. It sat festering in my soul, mixing with loneliness and slow building hatred for the man who’d left me when I needed him the most.
After everything I’d sacrificed for him. After everything I’d given him, he couldn’t bring himself to even attend Clara’s funeral. I’d not only lost my daughter forever, but him, too. I would never forgive him for leaving me to face this without him.
Not once did I think about the baby inside me. Not once did I turn to Clue or Ben and tell them the news. I wanted to forget. I wished I wasn’t pregnant. I wanted life to stop and leave me the fuck alone. Nothing else existed but the death of my daughter.
“Don’t feel sad, mummy. I don’t want you to feel sad.”
Sunshine suddenly pierced through the rolling grey clouds like a giant spotlight. The bright ray landed on a beautiful horse with a red-speckled coat and pink mane and tail. A roan.
My heart flopped thinking of a little red-haired boy who’d lost his entire family only to turn around and watch me lose mine. Where had he gone? What the hell was he doing?
What was more important than being here to say goodbye?
More rays of sun beamed through clouds, turning the rolling meadows into glittering green blades, swaying gently with the breeze. The horses glowed like equine jewels, and I knew this was the right place for Clara. Nowhere else would’ve fit.
I didn’t know how Clue managed to find such an idyllic spot. I hadn’t bothered to ask. If Clue hadn’t helped me arrange everything, I would probably be mummified lying on Clara’s bed staring at the ceiling.
“Come on, Zelly. It’s about to start.” Clue wrapped an arm around my waist. I gave her a watery smile and let her guide me to a small semi-circle of black-shrouded people.
Everyone wore a My Little Pony item and the flowers dotting the small group were arrangements of ponies of different colours. Some unicorns, some with wings, some glitter-filled, some glow in the dark.
Clue and I had scoured all the toy shops and second-hand sellers for as many My Little Ponies as possible. There were so many I had no idea what I’d do with them afterward.
The reverend began to talk, and I tuned out. Ignoring the small huddle of children from Clara’s school and a few teachers who’d come to say goodbye, I stared at the horses. So powerful but delicate. So strong but gentle.
They hypnotised me as the service droned on and on. I didn’t need to know how miraculous Clara had been. I’d lived it.
“I’m tired. I’m going to sleep now.”
Finally, the reverend’s sermon came to an end and arms went around me. I shut myself down, focusing only on the animals my daughter loved more than anything in the world. I couldn’t stand people touching me, consoling me.
Once the final stranger had hugged me and a hushed expectation filled the air, I panicked.
I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do this.
I’m not ready!
The reverend walked toward me, and I took a step back, shaking my head. He took my arms gently and laid the hand-painted urn in my hands.
It was cold and lifeless and my façade broke. A single tear streaked down my face knowing I would never hold Clara again. Never see her smile or laugh or grow.
“Don’t be mad at him, mummy. He needs you.”
My sadness switched to anger. Him. He did this. The man who loved my daughter so fiercely, he made the clock tick faster—take her quicker than I ever wanted.
My mind tried to tell me it was a blessing. That she’d gone before being paraded through hospitals or prodded by merciless doctors. She was free now. But the mother in me couldn’t see it that way. It didn’t matter that she was in a better place and eternal. All that mattered was she was dead.
And Fox ran.
Standing in the patch of sun, hugging the urn of my daughter’s ashes, I tried to cry. I wanted to rain tears on the field just like the sky had before. I wanted to let every crushing thing inside out.
But nothing happened. I just existed in hell.
An image of a new child filled my mind. Instead of a little girl, I pictured a boy. An innocent infant who would never know his big sister. The picture stabbed my heart. I didn’t want him. I didn’t want the responsibility of loving something more than life itself only to run the risk of losing him just like Clara.
I didn’t have the strength. My life had hit rewind and replay, leaving me at the beginning again with endless heartache, no future, and a baby growing inside me.
A horse flicked its tail and cantered forward. The burst of life cast away my worry of the future, and I turned inward. I wasn’t ready, but it was time to say goodbye.
Closing my eyes, I whispered, “I wish you hadn’t left me. I wish you were still here. I can’t go on without you. I can’t live without you near. How am I supposed to go on, Clara? How am I supposed to survive?”
The build-up of emotion crushed my head until I thought I’d explode. Opening my eyes, I stroked the urn, tracing the explosion of stars on the glazed porcelain.
“I’ll never forget your perfect laugh or your smiling face. I’ll never stop loving your silly jokes or your warm embrace. I’ll always be here for you even though you’re gone. Until the day we meet again, until my life is done.”
Clue came to my side, jerking me back to the present. I looked behind me. Only Ben stood sentry. The rest of the congregation had gone. How long had I been standing there, hugging the last remains of my daughter?
“Don’t be sad, mummy. I don’t like it when you’re sad.”
“It’s time to let her go, Zelly.” Clue laid a hand on the top of mine. “We can do it together.”
A low moan rose in my throat, but I allowed Clue to unlatch my arms and share the weight of the urn. I wanted to stop her. I wanted to curl up on the ground and petrify like a fossil curled around Clara’s ashes, but Clue didn’t give me a choice.
Her eyes met mine, spilling with tears. “She’ll be happier with the horses, Zel. Don’t make her stay in such a small, dark place.” She sniffed as a fresh wave of tears trickled down her beautiful face. “It’s time.”
It took everything I had not to break down and unravel. To tear the jar from her and leap onto a horse’s back and gallop far away. Run from this reality. Pretend it wasn’t true.
Placing one hand on the bottom of the jar and the other cradling the top, I waited for Clue to do the same. She leaned in and kissed my cheek before nodding.
My heart stopped beating as together we tipped the urn upside down.
A grey cloud fell like icing sugar, and my heart went from dead to thudding like crazy. A gust of wind captured the fine dust, whipping it upward in a delicate dance. I bit my lip as Clara embraced the wind and soared toward the horses. The breeze swooped between the legs of a palomino before spiralling upward in a mini tornado and scattering in all directions.
