Blood of the Covenant (bxb)

Chapter Seven: Nonsense

I don't want to die. I don't want Tyler to be with me if he loves Karmen, but I don't want to die, either.

I would die for him to be happy. I'm certain of this. The choice is his to make, but if it were mine, I would make it. I wouldn't do it happily. My death would not be a peaceful one. But I'd rather die than force my soulmate to be unhappy.

Misery drives me further and further into the dirt until I imagine it swarming up around me, burying me in the woods forever. It would be easier that way. Fewer people would be hurt if I, Ethan Pham, was never seen nor heard from again.

Maybe the Idols will be merciful and put me out of my misery before the sun rises tomorrow.

*****

"Ethan."

I open my eyes. My entire body aches, both from my nap on the forest floor, the intense January cold, and a feverish, sickened heartbreak. I cried in my sleep. I'm frozen to the bone, but I still spring back when I see who woke me.

Karmen.

She wears pajama pants, her feet bare, her hair braided down her back like she wears for bed. She frowns at me as I flinch away from her, the silver light of the nearly-full moon the only thing that illuminates her in this dark, long-forgotten part of the forest.

"Just do it," I whisper. "Whatever you're going to do. Do it."

Karmen hard expression doesn't change. I think she can see into my soul. "Has anyone ever told you you're really fucking dramatic, Ethan?"

Her voice, low and sharp around the quiet insult, surprises me with its strength. My own voice is shaking and flattened by pain. She is like the Douglas firs around us, tall and strong against the winter winds. I'm a brittle rosebush that has lost all of its blooms for the winter.

"Ethan," Karmen whispers, shuffling closer to me. "I am not going to say this again, so listen carefully."

I swallow, shrinking back in fear, still certain that she is going to attack me. Maybe not kill me. I don't think she's that vicious. But I'm probably going to lose a limb tonight. Maybe an eye or an ear.

"Mates always have the ability to love each other," she murmurs. Then she stands up. "Get up. The whole pack's been looking for you."

She holds her hand out to me. I look at it, then up at her, wondering what in the hell is happening.

"Ethan," she hisses impatiently, shaking her hand. "Don't make me drag you."

"You aren't mad?" I whisper.

"Think of what I said, Ethan," she sets her jaw and drops her hand. "You're an idiot. An emotional, dramatic idiot. You're completely blind to the situation you're now in." She fills herself with breath, gritting her teeth as she pierces my skin with cruel words. "So selfish! Have you had a thought about him? About what this could mean to him?!"

"You're not making sense," I whisper, shaking my head. "I haven't thought of myself all day! I've thought of you, and Julia, and-"

"I can't believe anyone could be as stupid as you," she says quietly. It's the quietness that makes me feel like I've been punched. It would be better if she screamed. "You should've been selected against in evolution. Be an adult, not a child. Use your fucking brain, Ethan. Remember things. Remember what I said."

And with that, she shifts and tears into the forest. I call after her, try to mindlink her, but no response comes.

I'm left sitting with her words in my head, trying to puzzle out why exactly she is so upset at me. She couldn't be more cryptic if she had devised a language from the colors on a Rubik's cube.