Authors: Christine Warren
Ella jerked and nearly fell off his lap. Kees merely tightened his grip.
“You don’t understand—”
He cut her off. “I understand perfectly. You think that the magic inside you killed your parents. You think that you bear responsibility for their deaths and that because of that, you are an evil person. It’s all nonsense.”
“I did kill them,” she ground out, her hands fisted as he held her implacably on his lap, ignoring any attempt to move away. “I was there. I remember. Everything was fine until I lost control. I’m the reason we crashed, and I’m the reason they died.”
Her conviction echoed in her words. She truly believed herself to be a killer, some sort of monstrous creature capable of killing even those she loved the most. He remembered her reaction to the death of the
nocturnis
and wanted to laugh. He had never met a human—met any creature—as far from murderous as his little human. She had the softest heart and the tenderest soul he had ever encountered.
That fact helped explain why she carried such guilt over the deaths of her parents, and why she had woken in the night screaming. Tonight, she had seen another human die, and once again, she blamed herself. Taking a life must have dredged up all her painful old memories and only confirmed the opinion she had of herself.
Kees understood completely. The only question was if he could convince Ella.
“You know that I have slept for a long time,” he began slowly, “and I admit that my understanding of the way human authorities operate is not necessarily complete, but I believe that vehicular accidents like the one you describe are routinely investigated. Are they not?”
She nodded, clearly wary of his train of thought.
“Then did the human authorities conclude that you caused your parents’ deaths? And that of the other drivers as well? Were you blamed? Did they tell you the accident was your fault?”
“They didn’t need to. I lived through it. I was the only one who lived through it.” Her voice held a wealth of bitterness, and not the slightest hint of forgiveness for the little girl she had been, nor for the woman she was today.
Kees bit back a sigh. So stubborn, his little human.
“Tell me what they said to you. When they found you, and later after they completed their investigation.”
She stiffened and shrugged awkwardly. “It was a long time ago. I don’t remember everything.”
“You remember some things. I know, because I saw you reliving them. You remember the accident, little Ella. You told me you were in the backseat, trapped, it sounded like, while you parents had died in the front of the car.”
She shuddered. “Yes.”
“Then how did you get out? Who came to rescue you?”
He watched her pretty mouth turn down in a frown. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
“The police, I guess,” she said after a minute. “No, wait. I guess it must have been firemen. I remember those suits they wear, with the fire retardant material. And the suspenders. I’d never seen a man wear suspenders before that.”
Kees nodded encouragingly. “They must have had some trouble getting you out, if the car was so severely damaged.”
“They did. They had to cut through the metal with some big machine.” Her eyes went unfocused as she looked backwards into her memories. “I guess when I think about it now, it was probably the Jaws of Life, or whatever they call it. I remember the noise it made cutting through the metal. At first I thought it was a monster or a devil coming to eat me and take me down to hell.”
Kees wanted nothing more than to tell her he’d seen hell, and that it was no place she would ever have to fear, because nothing went there but the foulest of demons. Not even a vengeful god would be cruel enough to send a human there. And certainly not this sweet, sad woman.
Instead, he just nodded and gently prompted her. She was bringing back the memories now, and as painful as he knew they must be for her, he needed her to see them through the eyes of a logical adult, not a frightened, injured, grieving child.
“Do you remember them talking?”
“I remember the sounds of their voices, but not a lot of what they said. I didn’t understand a lot of the technical and medical things they were talking about.”
“Didn’t they talk to you? Let you know that they worked to save you?”
“They told me they were coming for me. They said I was being brave, and that everything would be okay, but I knew they were lying.”
Even then, she had stubbornly held on to her own beliefs, no matter how foolish. Why was he not surprised?
He changed strategies a little. His human required a slightly less gentle nudge, it seemed. “Were the firefighters the ones who told you the others were dead?”
“I knew my parents were dead. No one had to tell me.”
“But you couldn’t have known about the others. You couldn’t see everyone, could you?”
“I could see Mom and Dad. They were covered in blood and so pale and … crushed looking. And the driver of the other car. He’d … he’d come through his windshield and partway through ours. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He didn’t die right away, though. I remember his face. It didn’t even look human. It was all bloody and half-caved in.” She shuddered and closed her eyes. “God, the smell of blood still makes me sick. Blood and cheap beer.”
Kees went still.
“Cheap beer,” he repeated, careful to keep his voice low and even despite the desire to shout at her to open her eyes and remember the accident instead of reliving it. If she could just give herself a little distance, maybe she would finally start to see the picture she’d just painted for him.
“Oh, but it stank. Almost worse than the blood. Just yeasty and sour and horrible. Like the floor around the cheap seats at a baseball stadium.”
She still didn’t seem to understand, but Kees had heard enough. He’d also had enough of her torturing herself. It had been fifteen years of guilt and self-disgust. Even if she hadn’t just proved herself innocent, he thought she’d paid a sufficient penance. She just needed to let go of the past and realize it.
Easier said than done.
Kees sighed. He’d tried leading her to see the truth on her own, but that clearly wasn’t going to work. Perhaps this called for more drastic measures.
“You are a fool, little human, but worse than that, you’ve made yourself into a martyr.”
His harsh words and unforgiving tone seemed to snap Ella out of the prison of her memories. Her gaze flew to his face, at first confused, then hurt.
“What?”
“You heard me. You just told me that your parents were killed by a drunk who lost control of the vehicle he operated. Even if you haven’t yet allowed me to drive a car, I have the intelligence to understand that for a human to dull his senses, slow his reflexes, and depress his awareness with alcohol before driving would be a suicidal, or in this case homicidal, decision. Yet you try to take responsibility for what happened. I am disappointed by such selfishness. Why do you believe the world is centered on your actions and yours alone?”
Her mouth gaped open and the confusion faded from her eyes to be replaced by anger. The hurt remained. “Did you just call me selfish? Did you tell me I was stuck on myself? I just told you about the worst thing that ever happened to me, the worst thing that can happen to any child, and you have the nerve to blame me for it? You fucking arrogant prick!”
“No.” Kees remained firm. “I don’t blame you for anything that occurred that night. Why should I bother? You’ve been blaming yourself for fifteen years. Actually, you’ve been blaming the child, your twelve-year-old self, for what reason I cannot fathom. The only explanation I can find is that your arrogance deludes you into thinking your actions have infinitely more power than any human in history could possibly claim.”
“I can’t frickin’ believe you. How dare you tell me I’m arrogant for taking responsibility for my own actions! I’m the one who’s had to live with them for all these years. Do you have any idea what it’s been like? Could you even begin to understand? Losing my parents was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I had to go to sleep every night knowing it was my fault. Knowing that if I hadn’t lost my temper, if I hadn’t gotten angry at my parents for trying to take care of me, my father wouldn’t have lost control, and—”
Her voice broke and he could see the sobs threatening once more. He could see her begin to struggle for breath, and he was not going to let her sink back into that black bit of guilt again. Not now.
“If you hadn’t poured an unreasonable number of beers down the throat of that stranger who hit your family’s vehicle head-on, none of it would have happened. Is that what you’re telling me, Ella?”
“What? No.” She denied it, making it reflexive and sharp. “I had nothing to do with the other driver, but the magic was what made my father lose control. I remember the light filling the car and my parents screaming—”
“It was night. The drunk was driving straight at you. You remember headlights. And screams from people who knew they might not survive the impact.”
Still, Ella refused to cooperate. “No. The magic filled up the car. My mother even ducked, but I couldn’t pull it back. I was so angry with them. I thought they were betraying me, but they were only doing the best they could. They just wanted to help me.”
“You didn’t need help, Ella. You needed training. You told your parents nothing but the truth about what you saw or what you could do. They just didn’t believe you. Maybe they were doing their best for you by treating you for some sort of mental disease, but I can tell you that what they planned would not have helped you. It would have made things worse. Drugs, disbelief, constantly being told you were wrong or insane, that you couldn’t really see or do what you knew you could. Even if they had convinced you, brainwashed you into believing it, you can’t lock the magic away forever. It will always find a way out. They could have killed you.”
She dropped her head and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “But they’d be alive. My parents would still be alive.”
“Would they?” Kees pushed harder. She needed to open her eyes and let go or she would never truly heal. She would never be strong enough for what they might have to face. Together. “If they had left you at the hospital that night and driven back home without you, would they have survived the trip? Or would the drunk still have swerved off his side of the road and hit them? Would they be dead anyway, with you left to the mercies of doctors who neither understood you nor loved you? No one would have been there to advocate for you, Ella. Your chances of surviving that ordeal would have been even lower.
“And if you hadn’t survived, what would be happening right now?”
Ella dropped her hands and wrapped her arms around her own waist. She looked cold and weary and utterly confused. Kees wanted nothing more than to tell her everything was all right and rock her back to sleep, but he couldn’t do it. Not yet. She was almost there, but he needed to push her just the last little way.
“What are you talking about?” she asked wearily.
“If you had been lost to the world because of psychiatric treatments that did more harm than good, or even if you had simply become permanently institutionalized, would you have been at the museum on that Friday night? Would I have woken, feeling a pull toward you that I have never felt in all my centuries? Or would I still be asleep?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” he snarled, startling her into looking at his face. “It matters a great deal. Wardens are dying every day, and the Guild has crumbled. The
nocturnis
gain strength every hour, and still my brothers sleep. The Order is attempting to keep them from waking by destroying those with the power to rouse us. If they succeed, eventually they will have the time and freedom to discover how to destroy us. Once the Guardians are no more, the Seven will rise, and the world will fall.”
She stared at him, her brows drawn together in a frown of confusions.
“You woke me, Ella, and because you did, I have been able to learn of the threat the
nocturnis
already pose to humanity. Because you woke me, we know what we are up against, and we have already begun the task of finding and waking my brothers. With Guardians to counter this threat, the Order may not succeed in their plans.” His voice softened. “You might very well save the world, little human.”
“That’s crazy. We don’t—I mean … We don’t even know for sure that I really woke you. I didn’t do anything to make it happen, I was just there. It was an accident, and we have no way of knowing if I’ll be able to do it again with another Guardian.”
“But you give us hope,” he said, cupping her cheek in his palm. She looked so fragile, her skin milky pale against his dark gray hand, his claws almost obscenely hard and sharp next to her softness. “You have made it possible for us to try to save ourselves, Ella. Without the sacrifices made that night during your childhood, we might already be doomed.”
Ella snorted and bowed her head. “That’s some way of telling me to stop taking responsibility for the car wreck. By telling me to take responsibility for the possible end of the world.”
She shuddered, and Kees drew her into his arms, cradling her against him. Her face pressed against his chest and he felt her tears wet his skin, but no sobs accompanied them. These tears came cleanly, finally bringing not more pain but acceptance.
“No, little one,” he murmured, lowering his head. He wanted to curl himself around her, to keep her warm and safe forever. To show her she was loved. “You are responsible for neither. The accident that took your parents from you was just that—an accident. And while you can help save the world, the weight of that can never rest on your shoulders. The Guardians bear that responsibility. It is the very reason for our existence, why we were summoned, and why we remain in this realm.”
Ella gave a half laugh and pulled back enough to look up at him. “So I’m not allowed to take responsibility for the whole world, but you are, huh?”
Kees felt the corners of his mouth twitch and his heart squeeze and then melt. His Ella was coming back to him.