so sorry for the late update!! i had to study for exams these past two weeks and i was so stressed i didn't have any time to upload, but here's the chapter...
apologizing in advance
Chapter Thirty-Six: This Is Goodbye
I spread my arms wide, knowing it will distract my father and buy me some time; letting all the darkness in my veins travel throughout my body.
When I open my eyes, I can feel the darkness clouding in them.
The death of my grandparents no longer affected me, it was like I had switched off my humanity and everything that made me, me.
Malum gasps, dropping his hands, staring openly into my once-bright blue eyes.
I smirk, a new sense of calm washing over me, "you're not the only one that has a story, Malum. I've got one too, and unfortunately this one has everything to do with you."
I see Derek starting to move towards us and fight the impulse to scream at him to stay back. I needed to stay focused and it didn't matter how dark I believed myself to be, because I wasn't willing to let Derek get hurt in the process.
My father glances at me in horror, "I can't read your thoughts, it's-its like you're blocked."
"It's not so fun is it?" I ask him, my voice taunting. "It's called privacy. It's called allowing people to have control over their own thoughts."
I grip the book in my hands tightly, not wanting to let it go. "Things don't have to be this way," I try foolishly, "you can change. You said so yourself, evil isn't a state of being, it's a choice. You can choose to be good. All you need to do is forget about the negativity and all the things that have happened."
Malum shakes his head, laughing at me, "the past has made me who I am. It's why I'm standing here today."
A muscle in his jaw locks and I know he's quickly growing bored, "I've got plans, Skylar, I don't have time for this nonsense. You need to get out of my way, I really no longer care how it happens. You're exactly like your mom, poking your nose in places where it doesn't belong; that's what got her killed, remember?"
I shake my head firmly, taking a breath, "you're not going to kill me. You said so yourself; you need me. Without me alive your plan will never work."
"I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way then," he mutters under his breath, before opening his hand and a knife appears in it.
He withdraws it and turns towards Derek, steadying his hand and aiming to throw.
Right at Derek's lower abdomen.
Where the sacral chakra is located.
I gasp, realization washing over me.
His weak chakra.
Malum is aiming right at it, ready to kill him. He knows what Derek's weak chakra is, and I can only sit back and hope Derek does too.
The sacral chakra was all about learning to deal with your emotions.
But Derek wasn't like that.
All the guilt and shame and confusion that he's had over the past eighteen years is bottled up inside of him, and he hides it instead of seeking help.
I'm not going to let Derek die because of the plan that I have going on in my head. I may be made of darkness but I'm also made of so much love for that one human it almost hurt.
"Stop!" I scream in defeat, making Malum think I've given up.
He lowers the knife in his hand, "just say it Skylar, one word and the knife disappears. Your friends will be safe. I promised you I wouldn't hurt them and I fully intend on keeping that promise; but this is a two way street."
I sigh, looking at the book clutched tightly in my hands. My father raises his arm again, a smirk appearing on his face.
"Enough!" I yell and he drops his hand immediately, although the look of confusion on his face makes me believe he wasn't the one that did it.
"I'll help you," I say quietly, "just please let them go."
He nods, the smirk on his face deepening.
"See," he says, "it's not that difficult. You hand over the book and everything works out the way it's supposed to."
"Skylar!" Derek screams, running towards the barrier and clutching his chest, "don't do it, please don't listen to him."
Aidenn nods, "you're stronger than him Skylar, don't let him manipulate you!"
I shake my head at them, looking down at the book in my hands, "it's too late, I've already made my choice."
"We'll find another way," Aislinn tries.
"There is no other way," I say, "look around you, my grandparents, your uncle, all of our parents; they're all dead. He's just going to keep killing people. He's not going to stop until he gets what he wants. Don't you see? I'm doing what's best for us."
I glance down at the book once more before walking towards my father and taking my spot at his side.
He smiles, the grin sending shivers down my spine as he laughs.
I swallow the bile in my throat, not wanting him to know how much it disgusted me to even be standing beside him.
"Open the book," he demands, his eyes shining.
I do as he says.
Please make this work, please make this work, please make this work.
The book opens gracefully, and to my surprise starts flipping pages. The wind starts to pick up around us, lifting the tips of my hair lightly as magick sifts through the air.
The book trusts me, it trusts that I know what I'm doing, because if I get this wrong, there's no going back.
It's a done deal.
I flip to the spell my father wants and hand the book over to him slowly, trying to ignore my friend's protests as they bang on the barrier wall.
It pains me to see them in so much confusion; they think Malum is locking me in and I don't have the strength to tell them otherwise.
My eyes cloud with tears but I blink them away.
While my father familiarizes himself with the spell and starts chanting, I know this is my one and only chance to get it right.
If I screw up, it's over and all the people-our parents, my ancestors, innocent people, children; they would have all died for nothing.
Everything Malum has done up to this point would be for nothing, he'd win and we'd all be gone.
My friends continue to bang on the wall because it was the only thing they could do, but watch me in a deathly silence.
I shakily pull a knife from the waistband of my dress and hold it in front of me, taking shallow breaths.
In front of me, Malum performs the spell gleefully, belting out the words in a psychotic way; completely oblivious to what's going on.
Right when he's about to complete the spell, I feel a shutter in the area. and a ripple pierces through the sky. All of a sudden, moments and memories from my past flash through my mind; memories of my mother and my grandparents and Derek, but once another memory takes its place, I can't seem to remember what the previous one was about.
I stand there in confusion before the realization hits me.
Malum's plan was working.
He was erasing history, erasing memories, and once he was done, everyone would be gone, and he would win.
I shake the memories from my head and take a huge-silently hoping I wasn't making a mistake as I plunge the knife deep into his stomach area.
Tears cloud my vision as I hope I got it right, because if I didn't, this was the end.
I wasn't sure which chakra was my fathers weak one until he was telling me his story, and all the things he did to be where he is today.
My mom was right; once I heard his story, I could differentiate his strengths and his weaknesses.
Malum was strong-willed, and although his intentions weren't pure, he did what needed to be done, that was his strength.
But his weaknesses were just as clear; his need for power and control overpowered his ability to think clearly. He has control issues and is in his power-filled consciousness all the time.
That's what the navel chakra is about; located in the stomach area, it deals with power and is blocked by manipulation and arrogance.
I listened to the way he talked about power, it was as if he needed it- survived off of it. Without his power, Malum was nothing. And he knew that, which was why he always did everything he could to always remain in control.
But he's no longer in control.
All the power and everything I've learned about up until now is lying in the knife clutched in my hand; the one that I stuffed in the waistband of my dress only a couple of hours ago, the one that was now plunged into my father's stomach.
It feels as if the whole world stills, waiting eerily for what's coming next. At some point between seeing the knife and attacking my father, Aislinn screamed. But Derek and Aidenn remained silent and I knew Aidenn was quiet because he'd already guessed what I was going to do before I did it.
After all, he was the one that taught it to me to begin with. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have done anything but stand there and take whatever havoc Malum was about to curse on the world.
But I wasn't that helpless, not anymore.
I didn't want to admit it, but having all the power lying in that knife made me feel good, probably better than it should have.
Because the darkness lived within me now; it was an important part of who I was. I went all the way, just like Aislinn warned me not to do months ago.
By killing my father in cold blood, I had snuffed out all the light left inside of me. Everything that'd ever been good about me was gone.
It's not what I wanted, I never chose to be who I am, I never choose what I wanted to do with it, but I knew what I was getting myself into months ago. It was just the price I had to pay for extinguishing the one thing that'd been torturing us all our lives.
My father.
How fucking ironic.
A look of pure shock crosses over his face, and he drops to his knees.
My hands find their way to my mouth as tears cloud my vision and pour down my cheeks, tasting the coppery bitterness of his blood on my tongue.
Only one thing is running through my mind right now; I just killed my father, I just killed my father, I just killed my father.
But then another thought hit; did I actually?
How did I know for sure that I got the right chakra?
I drop to my knees and look at him as he stares at me through blank, blood-shot eyes.
"How could you?" he whispers so quietly you would've had trouble hearing him if you weren't paying attention.
But I'm paying very close attention, trying to memorize this exact moment for the way that it was- beautiful and terrifying and heartbreaking.
My father and I, heartbroken, and lying for dead in the middle of an empty field; him because of the wound in his stomach, and me because I'm the person that inflicted it.
I never thought I'd have to be the one to kill the person responsible for all this, let alone come to the realization that it was my own father.
I shake my head, tears running down my face. "I'm sorry," I whisper, the words getting lodge in my throat because the reality was finally hitting me:
My father was a horrible person.
He killed people-innocent or not-drove them out of their homes and away from their lives, broke apart their families, caused havoc and torment for hundreds of years.
But he was still my father.
The person that gave me life (even though it wasn't for the right reasons).
The one that was there for me these past few months.
We went to restaurants and talked about nothing, but we could do it for hours. I told him of my dreams of my future and how important Derek was becoming to me, I told him of ex-boyfriends and best friends, the people that I'd encountered over my lifetime and the ones that I'd never spoken to before.
The whole thing was a lie. I know that now, but it still happened and I hated myself for being blinded by it.
"I couldn't let you do this," I continue, "you had to be stopped."
I'm responsible for killing my own father.
Malum's breathing becomes shallower and shallower, and then his body sets itself ablaze and I come to the conclusion that this is what happened when an unkillable immortal, was killed by a wound in their weak chakra.
Then it stops all together; the breathing and the fire and the torment.
I sit beside him through it all, clutching his hand tightly, because no matter how dark I believed myself to be, the loss of another one of my family members still struck home.
I had no one left.
But it was over.
It was finally over.
I rise slowly after he has stopped breathing, and look around. Blood stains the grass, my family's dead bodies litter the ground, but I'm still alive, I did what had to be done.
I look towards the sky, the bright blue of it hiding behind clouds of gray, caused by yours truly.
But Derek's screaming draws me back to reality.
I turn in the direction of his voice but movement on the ground catches my eyes and stops me in my tracks.
Everything that happens after that seems to go by slowly.
My father rises from his spot on the ground although you could tell it's painful for him to do so, his body charred, covered in smoke.
He lifts his hands in the air, circling and balling up energy.
And aims all the power towards me, shooting it right at my heart.
I try to stop it, but it's too late.
He already released it.
I didn't know it before but I figured it out when it was too late.
My father knew.
My heart chakra was my weak chakra.
And it was underactive because I loved to freely. I trusted people even when they give me every reason not to; my father being a prime example of that. I saw the best in him and he killed me for it.
I stare at my chest in shock, stumbling back from the impact, somehow unable to feel the pain.
My father begins to speak, his voice hoarse and scratchy. "If I'm going down, Skylar, you're going down with me. Just I like I promised, you'll forever remain by my side."
Then his voice becomes taunting, echoing even long after he's gone. "I am Malum Midnight! The Original Immortal. You cannot kill me! I will forever remain apart of you, you stupid girl, you won't ever be rid of me!"
Then he lowers himself back onto the ground, squeezing his eyes shut, his posture relaxing completely until he stops breathing for real.
I hold my chest in my hands; the pain slowly starting to show before it becomes unbearable.
The front of my once beautiful white dress is now stained with dirt and blood, although not all of it was mine, and I look down with wide eyes, not being able to think or see anything other than Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek Derek.
The knife slips from my hand, clattering onto the ground.
And then my body falls right after it.
Alongside my father, just like he wanted me to be all these years, our fates intertwined.
I lay there shivering from a newfound chilliness, and thought of all the things I wanted to tell my friends, including how sorry I was for dragging them into this and then leaving them to fend for themselves.
And that I wanted to say how much I loved Derek, but he couldn't hear me.
He would never be able to hear me.
That was the last thing I thought before my whole world turned to dark.
The last thing I remember hearing is Derek's agonizing scream as I squeeze my eyes shut.
And never open them again.
Goodbye.
****
Eeeeek
I'm scared for my life now.
so uhhhhhhh, please don't kill me part what? like seven?
ik i've already ripped all your hearts out but i have worse news; catching feelings is almost over. we have the two chapters that will be out these next few weeks and the epilogue and then we're all done.
I just want to thank everyone for sticking with me this far! I appreciate your votes and comments and opinions more than anything, so please please please please tell me what you think.
and look at the bright side, Malum's dead!!!!!
Yayyyyyyyyy
who else hates him as much as I did?
but donnnnnt kill me now because I've still got a lot more planned.
okay I'm done
proceed in being angry with me