Lost Souls

X.

X.

Before I left the room to meet up with Ryan, I’d searched through all of the pockets in Luke’s clothes and found the USB. Hours later when my reaper is out like a light and snoring loud enough that I believe it, I finally get up, grab the bathrobe hanging behind the door, and slip out of our bedroom.

The club is quiet because it’s morning and the partygoers have all gone home. Every window upstairs is covered by the most expensive, light-proof blinds, so I’m protected from the glare of the rising sun. I make sure to keep quiet as I turn on the laptop in the study and plug in the USB.

An icon pops up in the desktop and I click on it. The sound of my mouse rings loudly in the stillness of the room. There’s an audio file in the folder. Double-click again.

When the music begins to play, I have to turn up the volume to hear it. I recognize it immediately: Requiem Mass in D-minor, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It’s the same music that used to sound every time Luke used his mind control gimmick on me. I don’t have to wonder why he chose this particular piece.

As I listen, my mind slips back to the day of my parents’ funeral, where I’d performed a piano version of the Requiem as my own personal farewell to them. That day had marked the beginning of a new period of my life, one where I depended more on my brother than anything. The end of which came when he took his relationship with Kelsey to the next level.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Even after the last note, my mind is filled with memories and recollections and an almost suffocating cloud of nostalgia surrounds me. I notice that there’s still three minutes or so left on the file, though, so I shake my head to clear it and relax back into the chair, waiting.

“If you’re listening to this, Calliope-dear, it means I’m gone and you’ve won.” Luke’s lazy drawl fills the air. “Or, at least, you think you’ve won. Sweetheart, you’re so damn wrong.”

His low laugh makes me sit up straight, a foreboding thought appearing at the edges of my mind. No, he couldn’t possibly have—

“I chose you, you know. I’m not the only keeper out there. Any one of us could’ve taken you on the beach. But I chose you, and I forbade anyone else to even touch you. I watched you as you lived, and I watched you as you died. And I knew you’d be the worst. I knew you’d be the one.

“You killed him, didn’t you? Dylan Thomas. When you were younger he flirted with you, and your brother punched him for it, and he fought back. You got mad, because you hated the idea that anyone could hurt your brother…your dear brother Evan. So after school, you followed the poor Thomas boy to baseball practice. And when he left, you followed him again. And you killed him.

“You hid his body. You dumped it in the ocean. Then you went home like a good little girl and washed your hands. You thought you were safe. But you didn’t know that someone had seen you—Dylan’s very own sister. And you didn’t know that she had her own plan of revenge.

“But she got you in the end, didn’t she? You’re here now—nothing but a ghost, a forgotten memory. She might be in jail but she’s alive, and once she proves you murdered her brother, you can trust my word that people will sympathize and her sentence will be shortened. And she’ll get out, eventually, and live the life you’ll never have back.

“Your brother’s fine, by the way—well, as fine as any heartbroken guy can be. But I doubt he’ll be fine after he finds out you killed the brother of his bride, even if he didn’t like her back then. In fact, I’ve got one of my keepers on him. He’s quite eager to take your precious Evan; you and your brother both have such beautiful souls. His is so pure, so good. But you—yours, dear Calliope, is all darkness. You’re not good at all. You’re perfect for me.

“And now, here you are. Two guesses to how I passed: you took my soul and released it, or you took it and kept it. Knowing you, you’ve kept it. But you don’t even know what that really means, do you? To keep a soul?”

My hands are trembling. I raise it to my eyes—I pinch my cheeks—desperate for anything that I can use to tell myself this isn’t real. That this is all a horrible, horrible nightmare, and when I wake up I’ll be completely and truly dead and I won’t be listening to Luke, to a dead keeper, recounting all of my human crimes while utterly shattering everything I’ve worked towards in the past five years.

“You understand now, don’t you? You’re a clever one, Calliope. That’s why I chose you: your cleverness, and your thirst for revenge. Your two darkest, blackest, most beautiful qualities. They were so very useful to me.

“I hope you enjoy eternity, sweetheart—or, well, however much of it you get. Though this really isn’t a position that’s easy to pass on, you know; nobody seems to be interested in being a royal keeper. I had to wait millennia before you came along and I found a way to set myself free. So thank you for that, love; thank you ever so much. Be a good girl and keep my soul safe, now, will you?”

The file ends with an ominous click. My whole body is shaking.

“What the fuck was that?”

It takes me what seems like hours to lower my hands, to raise my head and face Ryan, who’s standing in the doorway with fury and fear painted clearly across his face.

I am numb and I am cold when I say, “Luke was their king. And I kept his soul.”

His eyes are pools of molten gold.