Henrys pov
Name one hero who was happy—you can't.
So I settled for playing the villain instead—for her, for us.
I should've—I should've known she'd try to play the hero.
I could feel the grief on her lips, could taste the rage on her tongue. I could feel the determination in every roll of her hips, could feel the motive behind every touch of her fingertips—could feel the intent as she dragged it along my skin.
I let myself believe in the possibility of her needing me the way I need her-but no, she had just made sure to memorize every inch of me in case she'd never feel it again.
I like that you won't be able to forget me, she had confessed moments before etching our love onto my skin—moments before she had asked me to tell her a secret. Moments before I had asked her to marry me. It wasn't grand, planned, or even legal. But she had said yes before I slipped the ring on my pinky finger onto her ring finger—had smiled when it had fit perfectly.
I should have known. When she didn't fight it, didn't ask any questions—I should have seen it coming. Jane Ivers was a worrier. She'd often expect the worst, often saw it coming. Even in my hold, even when I hid her between my arms, even when I promised her happiness, she was worried. I should've known she had something planned, shouldn't have let myself get swept up in a happy ending that was never mine to have. Why must I be so naive? Why must the tarot always read the fool?
From the moment I saw her, from the moment she uttered her first word—I knew. I knew by the way my heart skipped beats it never had that she'd be the beginning of my end, knew by the ache it caused that she was a bottle labeled poison—but I was an alcoholic, god dammit, and I drank her empty.
And now I'm hungover.
I was fourteen the first time I went up against Jane Ivers. Years of disinterest, years of boredom, of grays and blackouts —and then she came along and caused a ripple in my existence. Only then did I understand why the poets wrote poetry.
There on the opposite end of the table, playing for the opposite side of the ballot, did I fall–hard. I fell when she still hated me, fell when she couldn't bear to look at me, fell when her only thought of me were ones of distaste. Her hatred was warm, and I was freezing—I stood no chance. I fell for her mind long before I started paying attention to the shade of her eyes, the curve of her lips. Her mind is a weapon that's often double-ended, and yet, she knew how to use it to her advantage. I had always known the very thing that made me love her would be the same blade she'd later stab in my back, be the very thing that drew first blood–killing me with it.
I should have seen it coming.
But now blood is running over the rough skin of my knuckles in tight fists, and Xander—Xander has a matching bruise on his cheek. I can't focus on his words, can't focus on anything other than the ripple of her absence.
"I didn't know," He swears, the cracks in his voice tearing at his throat–making it hoarse. I can hear the panic in his voice, the fear in it. "I'm sorry, I didn't know, please, I swear I didn't know—"
"What did she talk to you about?" I ask him, my hands shaking with the need to kill someone, to hurt someone. I could wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze, could shake her so hard, could could could kiss her—kiss her until she couldn't breathe, as if it were a sick compulsion from the sanity leaking out from my brain. "In the bathroom after she threw up, what did she tell you?"
Xander sways. "I didn't know."
My hands are shaking, they're shaking bad, so bad and I can't close them, can't flex them, can't can't can't can't do anything but grab the collar of his shirt."Goddammit, Xander," I curse, fisting the material harshly. "What did she say?"
"She said she was pregnant," He mutters, and he makes no effort to push me off. "That it was a surprise. That she needed to contact a trusted doctor. She said she didn't want you to know yet. It was supposed to be a surprise." He looks up at me, as if realizing his faults–as if reading my mind. "There was no baby, was there?"
I let go of his shirt, and he slumps down. My hands shake as they rake through my hair, shake as they take the phone from his stretched-out hand, shake as they look through his recent calls. The history had been swiped. I looked through his text messages—no recent ones. Then his history—cleared. Everything is gone.
I break the damned thing before making my way to the door. I can hear Xander shuffle from behind me, can hear his voice croak as he asks, "Where are you going?"
"It's hard pretending to be so good—exhausting even. Besides," I murmur. "I quite missed all the talk around the infamous reaper, don't you?"
—
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
All of it—every second of every minute, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day—all of it was borrowed time. And she knew. She knew the perfect ending would never come, knew this whole time she had her days were numbered, knew the timer was ticking, knew it would cost her. Knew that I'd empty the pockets of myself and every person in this world to pay for her five-story house, for the floor to ceiling windows, for the pool and white picket fence. She knew I'd bargain every drop of my blood if they had just asked. So she didn't tell me.
She didn't tell me she was being haunted by distress, didn't tell me the gears in her head were turning, didn't ask me to oil them as they rust. She didn't tell me the meaning behind her random questions, her errands, her sleepless nights.
I didn't tell her about the dreams in fear that she'd leave me, and she didn't tell me she already knew of them in fear that I'd talk her out of it—like I always did.
I used to not believe in it because I thought it was stupid, childish. But now I don't believe in it because how could our love be so poisonous? How could this girl that I could swear was made for me, sent to me from heaven—be so wrong, so dangerous?
I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't allow it. She was mine, and I was hers—and our souls were entwined, tangled in too many knots, and even now, I love her as much as I loved her in my first life. I fear that I'll continue to love her for many more.
I also feared I'd die of hypothermia outside this church before I ever get to ensure her safety, because I swear I can see my breath—could swear my nose is pink from the cold wind that rushes against me as I walk down the streets of Manhattan, the same street I walked down with her the other night, all in search of my wife—a term I catch myself using so often, in fear I won't be able to say it for long.
It's mid-january and the only thing I have to defend myself against the climate is the thin long sleeve, meanwhile, Xander searches behind me a few blocks with a jacket on his back. I almost want to scream at him, to shut at him—and for what? He didn't know. I know he didn't, I know I shouldn't blame him, I know it's not fair–and yet, I can't. I can't help myself from turning to the nearest thing to me and blaming it rather than myself and my own blindness, my own faults. I suppose I'm a lot like my father in that way—a lot like him as I take out my second packet of cigarettes of the night. Yes, a lot like him indeed.
My heart wasn't taking it well. It wasn't beating as it should, but then again, is it ever? It races when she's near, a dangerous amount—and right now, without her, I can feel it slow down, a dangerous amount. I can feel my lungs cave, can feel my ribs breaking under the pressure of, well, this terrible thing called love. It pains me, confuses me, and blinds me—blinds me so well efficiently that I don't notice the faded poster above me, don't notice the names in bold lettering; Lilith and Lilian.
I stare at it as I blow out the smoke, stare at it as I drop the cigarette to the ground and begin to squash it, stare at it as I hear Janes distaste for littering in my head, stare as I go back to pick it up and place it in a nearby trash can. I stare at it until it finally fucking clicks, and a gear begins to turn in my head.
The fortune tellers.
Under the names, under the doodle of a crystal ball—an address.
What are the chances....and just like that, another gear moves. We've been down this street before—the other night, the night of the play, the night of our walk. A short, humorless laugh rumbles through me. The fight we had—about the patient, about freeing them, about running away....this is what caused it. "Nguyen?"
Jane Ivers was a planner, I was the schemer. But she had played me at my own game, and I don't know whether to be proud of her or curse her for her damned morals.
"Yes, sir?" I hear Xander croak out behind me.
I point to the address on the poster. "I have a lead."
—
The door slams shut in front of my face before I knock again. "Fifty thousand," I bargain.
"Please leave," a voice tells me on the other side. "I don't even know a Jane Ivers, you have the wrong address."
"A hundred thousand."
"I don't want your money," She replies–the door muffling her voice.
I groan. "Then what do you want?"
"For you to leave." She snaps, and I hear a sigh on the other side. "I don't know what you want from me—"
"My wife," I breathe. "Do you know where my wife is?"
My question hangs in the air in a long pause, and I almost knock on the door again, almost check to see if they're still there before she mumbles a question so quiet, so small, that I almost don't hear it. "You married her?"
"So you do know her." I stare at the door, stare at it as if waiting for it to open. It doesn't. "Please, you have to help me—"
"Why would you marry her?" She asks. "She's not normal, she's not human. Aren't you—aren't you scared of her?"
"I'm only scared of the things she makes me feel," I defend. "Who is everyone to tell us right from wrong?"
She doesn't reply. She doesn't respond for so long that I think she's left, she's gone, she's—she's opening the door. But it's not the twins I'm faced with, no—but a younger, shorter version of them. Thirteen at most. I blink at her, but she just looks up at me confidently. "A hundred bucks?"
"A million," I promise her. "Just help me find my wife."
She opens the door fully, enough for Xander and I to walk inside. "Where are Lilith and Lilian?" I ask the girl.
"Out," she says. "Now where's the money?"
"Nuh-uh," Xander cuts in. "Jane first."
She sighs, taking out a pair of reading glasses that are tucked in the collar of her shirt and puts it on as she leads us through the house—through a door of beads, burning sage, and crystals. She sits down around a round table, Xander and I following behind as she looks through the crystal.
She seems to just be staring at the thing, simply looking through it–as if to humor me. "Don't you think you should let the grown-ups handle this?" I ask, looking around for any signs of the twins. "We're in a hurry."
She stares at me. "Do you want your girlfriend or not?"
"Wife," I correct, but let her go on.
She looks closer, tapping it a few times, rubbing her hands on it. Xander repositions himself a few times, and the thyroid time—the girl snaps her head to him. "You're kicking the wrong person." He wears a loppy smile before muttering an apology. She goes back to work, but he looks at me.
Is she scamming us? He asks.
I shrug my shoulders.
He frowns. How do we know if she's lying to us?
I shrug.
Does she even know anything—
"I do," She says—without ever looking up.
Freaky, Xander mouths.
I'm about to tell him to just shut up before she looks up, looking directly at me and says, "You're them, aren't you?"
I don't even have to ask what she means. "Yes."
"66732, Birch street–the hospital." She frowns, before looking down at the crystal ball one last time. And just like that, I'm coming for all the monsters under her bed, for all the nightmares she's had. But as I walk out the door, I hear her mutter a quick, "I'm sorry," before slamming the door shut.
—
Janes pov—an hour ago
They never let you be famous and happy.
We were going to be the first, I swear we were going to be the first–
But despite what everyone thinks, I'm not as foolish as I am ambitious. I'd kiss death on the mouth if he promised good.
"This corner," I directed the taxi driver. "The one on the hill."
He grunts. "Are you here to see a boyfriend?"
"Nope," I tell him, looking down at my hands—down at the notebook in my grip, at the matching pen. "I'm married."
I catch him smiling sweetly in the rearview mirror, but I know my matching one doesn't reach my eyes. I saw the journal, heard the warnings, dreamt of our ending over and over again—and still, none were happy. Etched in Henry's journal—Mattheo & Rose: Death by overdose. Elliot & Lily: Death by poison. Kai & Adeline: Death by knife. Henry & Jane: Unknown. Unknown, and yet, predictable.
"The big white one?" He asks.
I nod my head, looking down at the notebook in my hand, down at the words I've already written down–the only words that come to mind; I'm sorry–scratched off at least a million times. And under that, My name is Jane Ivers.
"We're here," The taxi driver says. "That'll be fifteen."
I give him twenty and he drives off before I walk down the pebble road, passing the gardens and up the creaking stairs. I knock on the door once, twice before it opens. But instead of the twins—a little girl answers. "Hello?" She asks, confused.
I give her a smile–but I can't seem to muster up a convincing one. "I'm here to see Lilith and Lilian?"
Just then, the two come up behind the kid. The twins don't look surprised—like they've been expecting me. I play with Henry's ring on my finger as they inspect me, fiddling with it the way I've seen him do so many times. One of the twins speaks up, "If you're here to ask for a way out—"
I shake my head. "I'm here to make a deal."
~~~~
hi luvrs, so short chapter I'm so sorry I kept going over other things to add in it/rewriting it but I haven't been able to think of anything better all week sorry <3 thank you for 1.13 million !!!! ur all insane I love u :)
don't forget to vote + comment <3