Page 166 of Devoured

I lurch to my feet, and he jerks back in surprise. His elbow slams into the wall behind him, and he curses, but it fades beneath the sudden roar of blood in my ears. Because he—he—

I whirl on him, staring down in confusion, in utter alarm. “It was you?”

He rises slowly, his hands raised in a show of surrender in front of his chest. “Vanessa…? Are you okay?”

I think back on my first moments in this godforsaken castle. My first moments locked in that sterile room as my soul was being split and Celeste’s ghost was haunting me and all I wanted was to die. “It was you.”

“I don’t understand.”

He doesn’t need to. I meet Calix’s gaze, and I force myself to dive inside those plum-red depths. I force myself to pluck through the threads of his truths and his lies until I find the brightest thread of all.

She has no fight left in her. She barely has a care. She just wants it to end. She moves closer to the wall, her fever radiating through it, and whimpers. She sounds so lost.

She sounds so ready to die.

For some reason, the thought bruises. She releases a feeble breath as if she welcomes the end, and I can’t stand it.

“Listen to me,” I say, and my voice turns into a gravelly rasp. “This can either be an ending or a beginning. Don’t let the torture win. Fight it.”

I free-fall from the memory until I’m back in the field, staring up at Calix’s bewildered face. I always thought it was Sin’s voice. I thought I recognized the scent. But it’s clear as day now.

“You were at my door when I first transformed into a werewolf. You were the one who told me to fight it.”

He drops his hands. His gaze narrows on mine.

“Don’t deny it,” I hiss, poking him in the chest. “I saw it in your memories.”

He swats aside my hand. “Don’t poke around my memories!”

“Don’t lie to me, then!”

“What do you want me to say, Vanessa?” Scowling, he begins to walk away, back out into the field, winding through the piles of ash. I storm after him, unable to let it go.

“The truth would be a good start—”

“I had just done the worst thing I’d ever done. I had ruined your life in totality.”

“You were there for… for almost all of it.” I reach for his hand, determined to make him look at me, but he remains just out of reach. And yet, he stayed for the worst of it. He listened to so much of my pain, and he stayed. For hours. Maybe for days. “You never told me. Why wouldn’t you—”

He turns then, and suddenly we are toe-to-toe. Chest-to-chest. “It was never supposed to be me, Vanessa. It was always you and Sin. Telling you… It wouldn’t have done anything. It wouldn’t have mattered.”

I glare up at him, stricken. “It matters, Calix.”

“Why?”

“I—I don’t know.” Though I struggle to find the right words, they don’t come. Maybe they don’t exist in situations like this. “It matters to me. You were there. You were one of the only reasons I had the will to survive.”

And I was correct—they aren’t the right words.

With a small, sad smile, Calix tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. His knuckles skim my cheek. They burn against my skin, and instinctively, I know that point in the future where our paths diverge is coming quicker than I thought. “I wish it could have been different,” he says quietly. “For all of us. I wish we’d had a choice.” He looks at me then. At my lips. At my dress. His gaze roves over the whole of me until I’m convinced he’s memorizing the sight. “I’m glad you survived, Hart.”

“I am too,” I admit, shocked that the words don’t ignite in my chest. A truth. I press a hand against his on my cheek. “I’m glad we stopped fighting, Calix.”

He smiles, and his cheek dimples, and I can’t breathe again. This moment is too much. Too intense. I can’t look away from him. I don’t want him to leave.

But that’s what this is. I can feel it in my bones.

Calix is saying goodbye. He just lost his cousin. I just lost my first love. And though Sin was a traitor, a liar, and a murderer, his death has broken us. Calix and I can’t stay together. Not as we are right now. Whatever we could’ve been—whatever future we might’ve shared—belongs to that other parallel universe. The one where our loved ones haven’t died.