Toxic

Chapter 8

"Can I say goodbye to Andre?" Rosalind requests, and I feel the sacrifice she is making.

"Of course." I pick my way over the piles of bricks cautiously until I'm back beside Ruby and Lola, who look none the worse for wear, except we are all covered in dust. Ruby sighs at the state of her Hollister top, smeared with grey.

"I'll get you a new one. If it wasn't for you, we would not have been able to save Andre." I promised.

"I don't think he's safe yet," she replies, watching Rosalind tiptoe over to him.

He is spattered with blood, crimson oozing from multiple wounds on his chest, but none of them were near his heart, so he'd be okay until we could get him to a hospital.

Rosalind is facing Andre now, all the fight long gone from him. She grasps his wrist and hauls him upright, taking the full force of his weight.

Those reptilian eyes flash open, the hostility emanating from him impossible to miss. Rosalind leans closer still, until her lips are almost touching his ear. "I'm sorry. Strange as it seems, I love you, but I am releasing you." She croons softly, in a whisper that sends a shiver down my spine and through my soul.

Andre recoils somewhat from her close proximity, but perhaps he understands, because one of his claws touches her cheek gently, before the hand drops and she steps backwards.

"If only there were some other way to save him." I lament.

Rosalind's brow furrows, and then it is as if a light bulb has been switched on inside her head. "Thorn, do you remember what I said about the bond between you and Andre keeping him like this?"

What was she getting at? My head throbs, a vicious stinging pain as though someone is sticking pins into my skull. As long as my love for him held, he would remain as this...beast.

"Do you mean, that if, somehow, I convince him that I don't love him any more, it will relinquish any ties we have?"

"Precisely. If he doubts your affection, the bond will weaken, and he should be free." Rosalind's poisonous eyes shimmer with tears.

"Will he understand me? He can't even talk." I point out.

"Just try, Thorn," she begs. Her anguish was detectable, despite the calm tone of voice she'd previously maintained.

"Come here, I don't want you to get hurt." I demand, and she willingly backs against the far wall, and for the first time, I see the ancient spirit underneath the young woman exterior.

I wipe dirt from my hands straight onto my black jeans - it wouldn't show up anyway. Then my hands reach up to the amethyst necklace Andre bought me for our anniversary. So trivial it seemed now, but I had never taken it off, as though it were molded into my neck. My fingers are nimble, and I find the clasp and undo it, lifting the jewel away from my throat.

The stone glistens in my palm , and I run my fingers over it, caressing it. The chain dangles loosely as I stride towards Andre. He hisses quietly as I approach, but I hold my ground, this was for his own good.

"Here, take this back." I thrust the necklace at him, and his eyes grow wide in shock. "I don't want it anymore." Lizard hands close around the pendant, and his expression is unreadable. I started as I meant to go on, and the next words out of my mouth were. "You're nothing to me."

Andre cringes away from my lies, the stone swaying in his reinforced grip. "I don't love you."I say finally, and he flinches as if I have struck him.

"Thorn, I think that's enough, come back." Rosalind assured me. I glare at Andre one last time, just to hit it home, then I walked back the way I had come.

"How do we know if it's worked?" I could not bear to lose Andre. He wasn't just some boyfriend, that I'd chuck when I went to university. I wasn't likely to want "space" from him. Andre was irreplaceable, and it hurt to be away from him.

"He may transform back into a human, but I cannot be sure. We must bide our time, and if the worst comes to the worst-" Rosalind broke off.

A jagged choking sound is coming from Andre, as though he's gasping for air, and his hands move towards a wound on his neck. Blood gushes from it suddenly, and he clutches at it, trying to staunch the flow, but to no avail. Then I realise something. Along with the streams of red, there are splashes of emerald, until the river becomes entirely green.

"The venom is leaving him, there should not be much." Rosalind tells us.

Andre's bleeding cuts off as quickly as a tap being turned, and then his scales begin fading, one by one. I manage to restrain the sense of elation I feel when this happens, because I'm still repulsed at the transformation. His acid skin is becoming paler too, until it returns to his usual pale complexion. He's human, or at least he looks it again.

I feel the lump forming in my throat long before the tears come. He must be in excruciating pain, because he falls to his knees, eyes closed, forehead screwed up. "Andre, it's me." I whisper. He shudders, but opens his eyes. He looks directly into my own, and I feel his agony. I crouch down besie him, the floor rock hard on my knees. I fold my arms around him and pull him to me, but he's trying to lie down.

No. After all that we'd weathered, he was leaving me. "Stay!" I sobbed, tears splashing onto his chest. The only clothes he had were his now torn jeans, and his skin was like he'd spent the last year in a freezer.

He lies among the bricks, and I have to face facts, he's dying. The rise and fall of his chest ceases, and he must be there now.

I stand up, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket. I can't look at him or I'll collapse. Rosalind puts her arm around me, though she's in bits herself.

Then she beckons Ruby and Lola to us, and they drag me into a huge hug, letting me sob into their hair, while they shed tears of their own.

Rosalind watches all the while, her expression tortured. "Will you make it quick for me?" she pleads. I know what she's getting at.

"You don't have to die." She had done all she could to save Andre, and even if he hadn't made it, she desereved to live.

"Yes, I do. I want to, macarbre as it sounds. I know to much of loss, of suffering. I have lived too long already. Just make it quick."

"I can't do that to you." I say, stubborn as ever.

"Yes, you can. Just use your ice bomb, it will be almost painless for me." Rosalind is brave in the face of death - admirable.

"Fine. Ruby, Lola, can you take Andre to the car, please? I don't want you to see this."

Lola grabs him under his arms, and Ruby takes his legs, and together, they carry Andre out of the diminished warehouse into the dawn.

Wow. We have been here all night. Mum and Dad would kill us when we got home of course, but I could't care less about that now.

Rosalind squeezes my hand one last time, and then she shuts her eyes and waits.

The door of Ruby's Mini slams - they were waiting for me.

I summon my ice bomb, and it numbs my fingers, not that there was any feeling left in them at all anyway. I take the huge block of ice in my right hand, and throw it straight at her. It explodes, just like those water balloons you can buy.

Her face is wet, and she gives me one last smile, before it is locked into place - the ice was sealing all her veins shut. Rosalind turns icy blue from head to toe, before shattering into tiny crystals that rip through the air.

The witch is dead, but I want to give her a proper funeral.

I sweep all the ice particles together with my fingers, and then I call for Ruby. She might not have heard me. My voice would barely carry round the corner, but I hear footsteps, and there she is behind me. She must have left Lola to guard Andre.

Ruby points to the pile of ice chips, chanting, and a cobalt flame surrounds them, and they do not melt, but become ash. The pile is no bigger than a football, yet fire blazes through the building as Ruby leads me away from Rosalind's funeral pyre.