Kate Brian - Endless

The choice was clear. If it was either me suffering forever in the Shadowlands, or them, I picked me.

I looked down at my feet, a steely cold resolve coming over me. I knew they didn’t deserve to be here, but in the end, in truth, didn’t I? Nell might have been an evil bringer of death, but he was still a living human being, and I had killed him. I had done it on purpose. I had done it with malice in my heart. I had relished the act of it. In that moment, murdering him had felt good. It had felt right.

My dad and Darcy didn’t belong in the Shadowlands. But maybe I did.

I closed my eyes and pictured my father, Darcy, my mom. In my mind’s eye, I looked at each of them, solidifying their images in my mind, and said good-bye.

“No, Rory!” I heard Darcy scream, though whether it was real or imagined, I had no idea. “No! Don’t do it! Please!”

I blocked out her appeals, which made what I was about to do that much easier.

I opened my mouth to say it. To say yes, I would willingly go to the Shadowlands if the innocents would be set free. I looked up at Nell. His awful grin widened, deepening the lines on his face.

“I—”

“Rory, no!” Tristan’s voice shouted. “Don’t do it! It’s a trap!”

Tristan and Joaquin appeared out of the mist. Krista reeled around, yelling, and struck out at Joaquin. His eyes widened in surprise, but he reacted quickly. He grabbed her arm, pinned it to her side, and kicked her legs out from under her, shoving her face-first to the ground.

“What the hell is going on?” Joaquin asked me.

“She’s the one who’s been sending people to the Shadowlands,” I said. “It was Krista the whole time.”

Tristan and Joaquin exchanged a look, as if this didn’t entirely surprise them.

“So Liam was telling the truth,” Tristan said.

Joaquin knelt beside Krista, his lips a millimeter from her ear. “If I were you, I’d stay the hell down.”

Then he shoved himself up and placed his foot on the small of her back.

“Rory.” Tristan reached for me, but Nell pulled me back, a few steps farther into the abyss. I eyed Tristan desperately, wishing there was some way he could save me from this, like he’d saved me from so many other awful moments. But not even Tristan could fix this.

“Rory, listen to me. It was a setup,” he said quickly. “Bea found Liam. It turns out he and Pete knew each other in the other world, and that was why they always acted so weird around each other. Liam didn’t tell us, because he thought his connection to Pete might make us suspect him, and Pete didn’t want to get Liam involved. But last night Krista let him go, hoping to distract us with another manhunt. He was with Lalani in her room by the docks, and he’s fine.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s good,” I said, trying as hard as I could to cling to something positive. At least Liam would be okay. Eventually. At least my first instincts about him had been correct.

“Pete’s so-called confession was a setup,” Tristan continued. “They wanted you to be alone—or sort of alone—when you heard it. Pete said Krista helped the Tse twins escape the mayor earlier and got them riled up again. The mob was just a distraction for the rest of us to deal with so she could get you to go into the jail alone and he could blurt it out to you—make you come up here. None of this is real.”

“What about my family?” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the abyss. “They’re real. And I can save them, Tristan.”

“You don’t know that.” His voice was a high-pitched croak, his eyes rimmed with red. “We’re talking about pure evil here, Rory. You really think you can trust anything he says? Anything they say?” he added, looking from Nell to Krista. “How do you know you don’t say yes and then you’re all just stuck here forever?”

The heavy reality of this possibility settled in over my shoulders.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Steven Nell asked, tightening his grip on me. Rage flared behind Tristan’s eyes, and I could tell it was taking everything within him to keep from lashing out, to keep control. He didn’t acknowledge Nell but looked directly at me.

“Don’t do it, Rory. Please,” he begged, inching toward me. “You don’t deserve to spend eternity in the Shadowlands.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t,” I told him. “And maybe this will work or maybe it won’t. But, Tristan, I have to try. If there’s a chance I can save my family, I have to try.” I looked up at Nell, swallowing back my revulsion at the sight of his face, so very close to mine. “I’d like to say good-bye.”

Nell’s watery blue eyes softened as he looked at me, and somehow, that expression of caring was more horrifying than anything he’d ever done to me. It was as if he was calling me his with that one look.

“You have one minute,” he said, releasing me.

I staggered away from him and threw myself at Tristan. He held me so close to his chest I couldn’t separate his heartbeat from mine. I buried my face in his wet T-shirt, gasping for air.

“Don’t,” he said in my ear, his teeth clenched. “Don’t you leave me. We’re going to be together forever. Please, Rory. Don’t do this. Don’t.”

I tilted my head up, and tears flowed freely down my face. “I’m so sorry, Tristan. I’m so sorry. I love you. I’ll never stop loving you, I swear.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine firmly, desperately, longingly, and I kissed him back as hard as I could, trying to impress the memory of me into him, as if some piece of me could really linger there forever.

“I love you, too,” he said.

“I know.”

Somehow, I released him. I turned and looked at Joaquin. His chest was heaving, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. I stepped up to him, stood on my toes, touched his cheek, and kissed it.

“Good-bye.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I knew how he felt. I knew what I was doing to both of them. But I also knew that I was doing the right thing. I stepped past Krista, who was smiling beneath Joaquin’s boot, and stood in front of Nell.

“Don’t,” Tristan pleaded, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t, don’t, don’t.”

I lifted my chin, not letting myself consider what was to be.

“Yes,” I said to Steven Nell, to my worst nightmare come to life. “I’ll come with you.”

“No!” Tristan screamed.

Steven Nell smiled. My ears, my head, my heart, my lungs filled with the awful sucking sound that meant it was over. That meant I was being swallowed whole. Devoured. Never to see my family, my home, my love again.

“Rory, no! Please, no!”

Tristan reached for me, his arm and hand and fingers stretching out in pure despair, and then he was gone.

“Rory. Rooreee! Time to wake up, sweetie. It’s a whole new day.”

I took a deep breath, clinging to sleep, knowing that if I opened my eyes, my mother’s voice would cease to exist, just like she’d ceased to exist. She was singing my name, and I didn’t want it to end.

“And I thought I was a heavy sleeper,” Darcy said sarcastically.

“Give her a break.” That was Dad. “She’s been through a lot.”

“Come on, sweetie.” My mom gently shook my shoulder. “I want to look into your eyes.”

I blinked myself awake. I was on a soft cotton pad on the floor of a vast white room, and I was staring at my mother’s face. She looked nothing like she had on the day she died, with those sunken cheeks and milky eyes. She looked healthy. Perfect. Like she’d never been touched by cancer.

“Hey there. It’s my baby,” she said, her voice full.

I sat up and she enveloped me in a lilac-scented hug. Her blond hair brushed my face. I’d forgotten her hair, how long and soft it was.