Chapter 21

I waited until she had fallen asleep against him to wake him. It wasn't the nicest thing I'd ever done, but...dead men told no secrets. At the very least, Garrot knew what she could handle better than I did. He looked up at me with dark, blurry eyes.

"I'm gonna go take care of this," I murmured. "I'm taking Manny and Catrine for backup. We'll be home later."

He looked at me like I was insane for a moment before nodding. He was so drugged up that for a second, I thought it didn't even register. He clasped my hand tightly and squeezed, "Good. Because I won't die until you come back to them."

We weren't so different after all. It was a constant balance between selfishness and selflessness. He expressed the latter while I expressed the former, but the both of us were guilty of both. I leaned in and gave him a squeeze, just in case. He wound his fingers in my shirt, but I felt him shaking. I felt the weight of his arm around my back and knew. The paralysis was spreading up. He was forcing it now. It might've been weird, but honestly, at this point, I didn't care. I kissed the side of his head like he was the brother I never had. "Thank you," I murmured into his ear.

"Take care of them," he replied. "You're the only man I'd trust."

Rochelle was dead asleep against his shoulder. I couldn't tell if he didn't want her to wake or couldn't feel it, but I knew. I squeezed the opposite, pleased when he smiled in slight pain. His twitchy fingers slid to my shoulder, clasping it as best he could. "Go be a hero."

"Stay home and be a guardian," I murmured. He just smiled in that intuitive way, like an old Zen master who knew. Maybe that was what life was, knowing everything just before you die, giving off wise words like Johnny Cade. Except Garrot's last words would probably be something totally ridiculous about how he got to Rochelle first anyway.

The sun was just coming up as I stepped out of the house, my weapons in tow (if I could even call them that.) The leaves were glossy with dew, light piercing them entirely so you forgot the illusion of a totally emerald green leaf in favor of the pale lime one that really sat on the branches. I didn't have anything else. I didn't need it. I slid my arms into my jacket on the front step, patted my pockets and wandered down the sidewalk.

We could've had a better plan. Instead, we decided to meet up at the school and let Catrine take things from there. Granted, she was kind of a second generation spy, it still felt like a half assed plan. I took my time getting there. I wanted to remember every detail, just in case. The thought of sixty-three degrees and cloudy from the Pearl Jam video Veronica liked flashed across my mind and steeled the resolve in my chest. I slipped into the still-foggy quad and found my way over to the memorials. Her picture sat like a timid sentry, surrounded by wilting flowers, cards and possessions she might've liked. I wondered how the dorm room looked, whether it was still covered in Opal's blood and the scorching of the incident. I was tempted to walk into the stairwell to find if they had left a trace of her behind, or if school would just resume without hint of her. The least she deserved was a plaque or something in that hall. Her death had been on her own terms. She withstood what he did to her, but she knew she was dying, so she ended it herself.

"You've got balls," I muttered to the picture. When she smiled shyly the way she was in that photograph, you couldn't tell every tooth was a razorblade or that her tongue was like a snake's. But you also couldn't tell she liked to lay in empty fields and watch the stars, or that she loved the smell of leather. That she dreamed of having the guts to take a nice car for a joyride and feel that thrill of doing something wild. Her favorite color was green, not black, and she hated pop music because she understood the sound of the outcasts. Opal dashed into the scene with open arms, ready to forgive and forget and become something they had never been, but Ronnie...

I stopped breathing. Everything was silent. Not a bird, not a bug, not the shift of the wind. Slowly, I turned to him. Heavily bleached hair, dark-circled eyes. He didn't look natural. There were scars everywhere on him and I didn't know why I didn't pay attention to them before. I pushed myself up to meet him face to face. "How long did you watch her?" I asked, taking the more mature route over so they put Humpty Dumpty back together again after all.

He looked over my shoulder at them both. There was almost regret in his eyes. I didn't believe it. When an animal was trained to kill, it became their release. It became their pleasure. I didn't believe for a second that Pitch had the balls to be sorry for killing either of them. "How long did you watch them? Know them and watch the inevitable?"

"Long enough," he finally replied. His eyes flickered to me. "You know what's funny? You loved her so much...and we were just alike."

"I never hated you until you did this to me!" Fury boiled over, scalding the inside of my veins. "You could've just left well enough alone, Pitch! You never had to hurt them!"

"I did! You were the only person worth a damn! The rest of them...you're worth the whole damn lot put together. And you left me. You abandoned me, your own brother, for getting up some whore's skirt and going to parties with the wretched and divine."

I forced my emotions back. I kept myself in control. That was what he couldn't count on; Pitch never had any control. One of us had to stay logical. "You are my brother, more than anyone has ever been until now. You're my brother and I love you."

His eyes narrowed. "This Gandhi bullshit they taught you isn't you."

"You didn't have to kill anyone," I persisted, trying to continue.

"No," he replied. "I never needed to kill them. I should've killed you."
His tactics were something I knew painfully well. He charged, I blocked. I threw him back. He rolled aside, leapt up and struck me with his pieced-together arm. The sharp crack of stone on stone reverberated through the empty courtyard and I slammed my shoulder into his chest. Fists balled, I went back for more. One sharp strike after another, cracking, smacking in a sound that shouldn't have been possible from the collision of stone. He hit back, snapping my head aside. I kicked him in the balls and slammed my knee up into his face. He stumbled back, giving me the chance to pull out the stone breaker. With it clutched in my hand, I remembered my parents. My dad and Prim's kids. I slammed my foot into his knee, listening to a sharp, reverberating crack, and then I slammed it into the other. He cried out and toppled. I thought of Ronnie, laying limp in my arms with her own venom in her veins. How she soothed Garrot. How much he suffered now. I cracked my elbow into his face. He snapped around and I took my open shot. I placed the drill-bit looking thing against his chest and hit the button. His eyes went wide.

Crack.

The stone across his chest fractured in a short, concussive blast. All the lines that had come together over his face began to crack again. He grabbed my hand. It cracked. But then I noticed his knees were healing.

"I'm a basilisk, you moron," he replied. "You're going to have to do a lot better than that."

He snapped my wrist. I slammed my knee into his crushed chest.

"Granite!" Catrine yelled. "The vial!"

I dropped the smash box and grabbed the vial out of my other pocket. I looked up at her as she came running in, singed and clearly upset. "Give it to him and get back!"

I took the fastest route, cracking the glass in my hand and waiting until he was about to speak to throw it into his mouth. It burst. He let out a sound of absolute evil, slamming my back into the concrete. My skull made a sharp snapping sound, but thankfully, it didn't go dark. There was hot, sticky blood rushing down my neck, though. He held my fractured wrist still, drawing up to his full height to slam his sharp nails into my chest.

The stone wasn't reformed enough to fight off the stake that was shot from Catrine's crossbow into the center of his chest. He looked down for a moment before crumpling backward. Pain flashed through my arm, my skull...relief made my pounding heart all the more exhilarating.

"Granite!" Catrine ran over. I shifted slowly, clasping my hand over the back of my head. Shit. The puddle of blood that had already come out was pretty big. I pulled myself up as best I could and took hold of her for support. She was tiny, she didn't provide really any. My eyes, through no fault of their own, wandered back to Pitch. Blood streamed out of his mouth, black blood. Vampire blood.

"You are so fucking stupid," she said, trying to haul me along.

"You read," I teased. I was gonna go. I knew it. Shit, my head was pounding and I felt weak. It only took Manny hitting the ground in front of us, slamming down as hard as I did, bloody and scorched like a half-cooked hamburger, for Catrine to drop me. I crumpled down next to him. He looked a lot worse than I figured he was; I could tell he was breathing. But Catrine readied herself for a shot and let it go. The muted glint made me proud; iron arrows. It slammed into the chest of Pitch's cohort. He looked down, scaring us both for a moment, before he exploded in a shower of demonic gore.

"If you weren't my best friend's girlfriend or my girlfriend's best friend..." I muttered. Even if I wanted to finish the sentence, I couldn't. It was dark before my head hit the ground.