Chapter 72
Between me and them was a bathroom…where I stopped to vomit because it rattled me so much. Hearing his voice made me so sick, so scared, made me feel like a child on the inside. Like I could still be controlled by him until I remembered that I was older, that I was grown up now, that I was big. It was so fucked up to think about.
The acoustics in the house were weird, while I thought they had been arguing in the living room, I investigated to find Paul in the kitchen (big fucking surprise) with Mark and they were shouting at each other. I didn't see Paul right away, but I could see Mark, standing on edge, looking torn, for maybe the first time in my life I'd seen him looking terrified, even though he was trying to hide it. He turned his head to me in the doorway, looked out at me. His mouth hung open, then he turned quickly away.
"Just get out," he shouted, and pointed towards the door. "Paul- just get the fuck out of my house right now!"
Paul's whiny fucking voice kicked in, made me feel like I would be sick again. "Why? Because you can't accept the truth?"
"Because I hate you, you aren't wanted here, just get the fuck out."
I did my best to swallow back all the fear and stepped into the room finally, intervening. I didn't look right at Paul, turned to Mark first. "What's going on in here?" I asked, trying to have strength, trying to have authority, even though I had a feeling that my world was about to turn upside-down. Paul's breathing was ragged and old…it made me remember that he wasn't just some all-powerful obese man, remember that I shouldn't be afraid of him anymore. Remember that he was old now with failing health. Slowly I turned to him.
"Kane…" he said. For once in my life, probably in his, too, he sounded…nice? Remorseful? Not evil?
When I saw his face I knew why he was being nice to me. Saphrin had left a few good marks on him. One eye was permanently swollen, half shut, his upper lip swollen the same way. This eyebrow was broken and cut by scar tissue, a purple, reddish slash that went up his forehead, a matching one going over his bumped nose and down across his cheek. His nose was one of contours now, complete with that lump that people often get from breaking their noses. So many things were rushing through me then that I couldn't feel anything.
"What? Why are you here?" I asked him, trying to stay calm. Mark flipped out, grabbed a can of food from the counter where we'd left them a few hours prior and hurled one at him, missing him by inches. It was a quick, lazy gesture, his hand following through on the toss to tangle into his hair. I could tell he was stressed by this.
"Kane, I-"
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Mark screamed. He was shaking. It made me so scared to see him that way, worried. I didn't understand why Mark, fucking MARK of all people couldn't do anything about it. If this were anyone else he would've beaten them into a stain on the floor by then.
"Calm down," I said under my breath, looking at my brother. Paul was standing on the opposite side of the room, so sad, so pathetic, so wounded. Being nice to me, I didn't understand it, I couldn't tell if it was one of his schemes or not.
I think Mark's powers must've been at their height when he got emotional because instantly he just said: "Of course it's a scheme, Kane, don't fucking trust him!"
Paul stared at me, didn't pay any mind to Mark. "Kane…I'm…"
"DEAD! YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!" Mark screamed, and threw more things around the room. "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER! GET THE HELL OUT!"
"…sorry," Paul finished, shaking. Mark was scaring the hell out of him, perhaps as bad as Paul must've been scaring Mark. And for once, for once in my whole life, I seemed to be the one in the middle, the calm one, not left behind and confused, even though I didn't know what the fuck was going on.
"Kane, I'm dying," he said. He put a hand on his enormous stomach, brow creasing. "I have cancer, Kane."
My heart clenched. I turned to see that Mark was staring at me and wondered if he was influencing me to be this way, to make me hate him this much. I was going to get mad when I realized…that I already did hate him that much. I turned back to Paul and spit in his face. "Good. Now what the fuck are you doing here?"
He was shaking. He lifted his hands to his face and wiped the saliva away, held his temples. "We need a talk, the three of us. Because there are a lot of secrets going around and I'll be damned if I never see the two of you brats again and this never gets straightened out," he said. All that niceness vanished…I wasn't surprised. He probably wasn't even dying. But I didn't care, I just hated him so much.
I saw that when he said "brats" Mark flinched.
My fucking God this was awkward. My heart was pounding, I felt so scared. I didn't want to be any part of it, my head swimming with memories. It hurt me, physically, to think of these things, to the point where I was dizzy, where I wanted to pass out. My knees started to get weak as I stared between the two of them, not sure who to side with if I should side with one at all. Paul had that effect on me, I couldn't help it. I felt like a fucking child, seeing him, feeling so helpless against him, scared on the inside. Between he and Mark I felt all the pain those two had ever caused me.
And the bile began to rise.
I backed out of the room, stumbled into the bathroom and vomited again, this time starting to cry. They were conspiring, they had to have been. Why was Paul there? What did he want? There were a million questions running around, I didn't know what to do, didn't know the answers, couldn't calm myself down. God, I couldn't stop dry heaving, even after everything was gone. It just made me so sick and scared and upset.
I heard Mark's footsteps coming towards the bathroom and pushed myself up, pushed myself down the hallway, dizzy, the heaves still kicking in me, causing me to fall down on the floor. I could hear The Great Below, on repeat, playing still.
Mark's hand came down on my shoulder, he knelt next to me protectively, talking softly in my ear. "I'll call the police, we can get him out of here, don't listen to anything he says he's just trying to screw with your head, don't let him get to you, okay?" I nodded, but couldn't form words. Mark rubbed my back and stood up, walking away from me. I was so cold, reached out, didn't want him to leave.
Paul was in the living room, where I could see him from the hallway, rotund as ever, shouting and screaming at Mark, though his words were blurring in my head. Mark had spellbound me, was trying to make me completely calm to the point where I wouldn't be able to focus. He cared about me, I knew it, I could feel it from him sometimes, like right then. He was so gentle, so scared. It made me remember that Mark was human, too.
"Kane!" Paul kept shouting as Mark was throwing things at him. I still couldn't understand why Mark wouldn't just kick his ass or something…if only Saphrin had been there to finish the job. Mark cursed at him vehemently, seethed, I swore he was glowing with his anger, yet wouldn't lay a finger on Paul. My stomach flipped, I thought I would be sick again but there was nothing left in my system. The tears caught in my eyelashes just from the pain in my stomach, if nothing else, if not all the noise and all the chaos.
He kept shouting my name, knew it would get my attention. I was trying so hard not to pay mind to him, but finally I looked up.
For all we could have done…and all that could have been.
"Listen to me, Kane," he was saying. I couldn't see Mark, couldn't find him, didn't know where he was.
Ocean pulls me close, and whispers in my ear.
"Stupid Mark, the phone doesn't work, the line is down!" he boasted. "We're in the middle of nowhere, him and his privacy! Where is he going to get help?"
The destiny I've chose is all becoming clear…
I curled tighter into a ball, closer up against the wall, didn't care how weak I looked in front of him, how much like myself as a child I was being. I kept Mark's words in my head and tried not to listen to him, but it wasn't working. "You hate Mark!" he declared. And for some reason…
The currents have their say, the time is drawing near…
My whole fucking childhood he'd abused me, and I'd believed him. Now I was an adult and I was so weak, what did it matter that years had passed? He still had the same effect on me, I didn't know how to get away. He kept talking. "You hate Mark, and I need Mark…"
Washes me away…
"…and so I need you out of the way."
Makes me……disappear…
Everything stopped. I stopped shaking, my heart skipped, my stomach tightened. My tears stopped, I looked up at him in horror, and confusion. The music kept playing but I wasn't focused on it. I looked over Paul's shoulder to see if Mark was there but he was gone. I begged for him to come back in my head as Paul stared me down.
"What?" I asked shakily. Paul looked at me like I was stupid, or like he'd misheard me.
"What don't you understand, boy?"
"No one will EVER love you, boy!!" God, he always used to call me that. I felt like vomiting again but controlled myself.
"What did you say?" I asked him.
He cleared his throat sarcastically. "I said that you hate Mark, and I need Mark, so I need you out of my way."
"What do I have to do with you two?" I asked quietly. He stared for a moment in silence, then threw his head back and laughed.
"My goodness, Kane," he patted his belly as he laughed, trying to emphasize it. "All these years and you're still stupid."
I covered my ears, pushed myself away from him without even standing up, sliding back on the floor more towards my bedroom door. "MARK!" I screamed. "MARK!!!"
"Well of COURSE he'll come!" Paul said, exasperated. "That's what he ALWAYS does, isn't it, KANE? Isn't that what he always does for you? You want him to come and he drops whatever he's doing to make KANE happy? Isn't that how it works?"
He was walking towards me and I kicked him, too weak to stand up, just trying to get him to back off a little. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?" I screamed. Paul laughed at me more, pointed one of his round, stubby fingers at me.
"Leave him alone," Mark said calmly. I looked up and saw him standing there, I could tell he was trying not to cry because I knew him so well, though I don't know if Paul picked up on it. Paul stood between us, I was still curled up on the floor like a fucking baby. "This is between you and me, Paul, leave Kane out of it."
"I WILL NOT LEAVE KANE OUT OF IT!" he shouted, and stomped a foot on the floor. I slipped back still, pushed myself down the hall and finally hit the wall, watching them from a safe distance. Mark seemed pissed off, and wouldn't look at me, and was glaring at Paul, who finally stopped hovering over me. "NOTHING CAN EVER BE BETWEEN YOU AND ME IF HE'S AROUND!"
My heart pounded. "What are you talking about?" I asked. I couldn't disguise my voice, it came out cracked and scared. Mark glanced at me, worried, as Paul pivoted to look at me, glaring, not laughing, not calling me stupid, just pissed off at me.
"Don't you get it? Don't you see it, Kane?" he demanded. "YOU HAVE POWERS, TOO!"
All three of us were silent. My body went cold.
I can still feel you…even so far away…
A million things were going through my head at once. I looked to Mark for some kind of guidance, begged him to explain it to me, begged him to help me like he always did. He lowered his eyes to me, dark expression in them, not evil dark, just…troubled. Sad. As sad as I've been my whole life.
I felt a shock go through my body, starting right in my stomach and charging up into my head, a dull throb through my skull. I closed my eyes, hugged myself, saw things through Mark's eyes, things he was sending me, new powers of his that I never even knew he possessed.
I couldn't feel my body, and didn't feel any pain for a moment, just flickering heat, which stung and burned like fire for pieces of seconds, hurting incredibly, then going away. I closed my eyes, saw just blackness, then a flash, then blackness.
Mark's memories were in my head, subliminal torture, so fast that I didn't see what they were at the moment but then could remember them as my own. I clutched my chest, tried to stand up, balancing against the wall. Mark was staring, sending these images, Paul was looking back and forth between us, undoubtedly clues of our connection.
"What the fuck is going on?" I asked, choking. Something sliced through my body, making me wobble even though I was only just standing, not even walking. I reached up and held my head. I was seeing horrible things.
I can still feel you …even so far away…
Fire. I saw our house, burning, flames eating it inside out. The flames weren't outside, just blazed within. It was like a living creature, an invader, pulsing, so that you could see it from the outside through the doors and windows, inhabiting the whole building. The only part that left the house were orange hands, wispy fingers tapping on the windows, taunting, licking up against the house, begging Mark to come and play.
I could hear Mark screaming, except that I was seeing it as him, there were his memories, not mine, that I could feel. It felt like I was the one outside watching, but it was him.
Mark, paralyzed there, for some reason he couldn't move, his limbs were locked metal, he couldn't move his joints, was frozen there only to scream, scream my name, then scream for himself. He was crying, and it was so hard for him to cry, because the last time he cried…
Interrupting the images of the fire came a different memory. Mark crying, opening his eyes and sobbing and seeing a body that Paul was in the middle of embalming.
"Stop crying," Paul scolded, and Mark was trying so hard not to, but was so scared of Paul and for himself that he couldn't stop. Paul leaned over the body and slapped him across the face, and it hurt so much, in so many ways. He grabbed Mark by the back of the neck and pulled his face down towards the body…
Then he went back to the fire, passing through these thoughts of not crying and why he hated crying, staring up at the house and not knowing what the hell else he could do. His head started to throb. Slowly pulsing in his head, like an old movie, was…me. Him wanting to help me but feeling this dead weight, intense fear of Paul. He wanted to help me, wanted to love me, and couldn't, and that feeling in his body that was at the fire was all confused and mixed up. It felt like his blood and turned to metal, held him there like it's own skeleton without joints, yet now was being twisted and abused. My face was raw and wounded in this vision, he was being nice to me, and he cared…
Then cut to another image, months later, perhaps, the burns a little healed. He…wanted to help me but couldn't, was weighed down. Because…he knew I hated him…
His thoughts went back to the fire from his premonition, now even more scared because he knew what would happen. And…didn't want that to happen. And he was so helpless still, just a child, couldn't do a damn thing about what was happening.
I saw him again, in his house, trying to hard, struggling not to cry…he'd cried in front of me several times and never seemed so torn up. It was all because of Paul.
My head was spinning with this revelation. All this time I'd thought Mark was so strong and so perfect, yet…now I saw he was just as weak as I was when it came to Paul. I didn't know what to do- this was my whole life that now was just some weird theory, yet I never knew it until just then. All these things that I thought were so real- Mark's perfection, his strength, his invincibility. His hatred. He loved me all the time- it was ME who hated HIM. And he knew it, and that's why he stayed away from me.
It made so much sense even though I didn't want it to.
I CAN STILL FEEL YOU EVEN SO FAR AWAY…
How much more of it wasn't real? What the fuck was going on? Was Amber just…some toy? The way all of this was? I couldn't stand the thought. No, no, no. She was real, she was the one person who ever loved me, it couldn't be some illusion the way Mark was…
Mark heard my thoughts, his eyebrows came together, the tears were dangerously close to falling. "Kane, she loved you…" he said to me, over all the chaos. I felt my heart swelling on the inside, everything painful, didn't know what to say or do, didn't know if he was telling the truth.
"How can you believe him, Kane?" Paul demanded. I was taken back, looked between him and Mark for an answer. More of Mark's memories were coming clear to me, even though he wasn't sending them to me. As they came into focus I felt sharp pain in my stomach, and held myself, doubling over.
Paul…
All I could see was him, verbally abusing Mark worse than he'd ever done to me, Mark missing our mother as much as I ever have, knowing how I felt and not being able to help me because I hated him. Slowly that was fucking his head up, making him hate me, but he was trying so hard not to. He kept remembering Mother's words, his promises to her to protect me, yet was getting so confused by Paul, so manipulated. Paul was trying to channel his powers, doing everything he could to break Mark, screaming at him, torturing him, hitting him…touching him…
I hated Paul so much, as much as Mark ever had.
He'd hurt us both so equally and in such different ways. He was the reason why Mark hated me, he was the reason why I hated Mark, our parents would've still been alive if he hadn't screwed around with everything. I glared at him, seethed, thinking of a million ways to rip him apart.
Even so far away…
"How can you believe him??" Paul repeated. "You'd be stupid to believe everything he says, Kane! He only says what you want him to say, he's just a puppet of yours!"
"Mark…" I stared at him, begged that he would tell me the truth. "Mark, you wouldn't lie to me…" I said it like a statement, couldn't even ask because I didn't want to question it. He lowered his head, I saw what he was feeling right then, felt that same paralyzing feeling through my body, what he was feeling, what he had felt since he was a child. I fell back against the wall, sobbing silently, just giving up.
"I have a power, too?" I asked, tears clouding my vision. Paul didn't bother making fun of me, was so pissed off and aggravated that he just screamed.
"YES! YES KANE, YOU DO!!"
"So why didn't you use me the way you used him?" I asked him, weak. He stomped his foot on the floor in frustration.
"BECAUSE YOU'RE USELESS! YOU'RE USELESS, KANE! YOU HAVE MARK AT YOUR FINGERTIPS AND THAT'S WHY I SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE! I NEEDED YOU OUT OF THE WAY!!"
My hands were shaking so badly that my wrists started to ache. I looked up at Mark, so scared, not knowing if I wanted to know the truth. I was hit again with his memories, Paul hurting him, doing terrible things to him, telling him that if he didn't take credit for setting the fire that things would only get worse. And that was why…that was why…
I dry heaved more, turned away, leaned my forehead against the wall.
"No," I mumbled, and pushed through Paul, past Mark, into the living room. "No, no," I repeated, shaking my head. I collapsed on the floor, falling to my knees, leaning against the couch. As much as I had always hated the fact that Mark started the fire…I didn't know how to just change all my memories, how to rewrite my history with all these secrets that I never knew.
Mark came over, stood between me and Paul protectively.
"Mark…" I cried.
Ocean pulls me close and whispers in my ear…
"Tell me what's going on, tell me the truth…" I begged of him.
The destiny I've chose is all becoming clear…
Paul followed us, shouting at me. "She never loved you, Kane! And you know it! She used you, and you know it!" he was saying to me. With each thing he said I curled up tighter, cried harder.
"It's not true," I screamed.
"WHO would EVER love YOU!?!" he asked me, coming up right beside me, kicking me for emphasis.
"Fuck you!" Mark shouted.
It wasn't true, I knew it couldn't have been true. Amber was real, Amber loved me, Amber…Amber. She was my life.
"She loved you, Kane," Mark tried to tell me. I shoved Paul away, clung to Mark, pushed myself up with aid of the couch and stood beside him.
"He's lying, tell me he's lying…" I said to him. Mark stared right into me with his burning emerald.
"He's lying," he reassured me.
Paul stomped his feet again. "Don't believe it, Kane! Remember how he used to treat you? Remember all the things he used to do to you? Don't believe him, he hates you just as you hate him!"
I did remember. I did fucking remember and it was killing me the way it had killed me my whole life. Except now I also remembered Mark's part, how he did love me, how I drove him away, how Paul screwed with his head, turned us against each other. I covered my mouth with my hand, feeling sick, not knowing what to do right away. Paul started speaking but I reached out and punched him before the words got out.
For all we could have done. And all that could have been.
Paul fell back, his hands reaching up to hold his cheek where I'd hit him.
I was rushed with a feeling of motivation, inspiration, something so strong that I hadn't felt since I was with Amber, when I was so driven by love. And now driven by hatred as I glared at him. Amber was REAL. I loved her, she loved me. I wasn't going to let him lie to me about her.
I can still feel you, even so far away…
I stepped towards Paul, hit him again, punched him in the face. Hit him for all the times he'd hit me, for all the times he'd touched Mark, for all the lies he'd ever told, for all the fear he ever put into me. For all these years thinking he was untouchable, thinking that I would never overcome him, for feeling like a child even though I'm taller and stronger and better than he is. He ruined my life.
I hit him for my parents that he killed.
I hit him for my brother that he hurt.
I hit him for my life he'd ruined.
I hit him for my wife.
I hit him for my daughter, who I would never dream of treating the way he treated us.
And then stood over, watching him bleeding, staring up at me with this fear that kindled all the feelings that used to drive me, all the hatred he'd built in me towards Mark, that he would use me with. All the people that had ever laughed at me were swirling in his eyes, everyone who had ever left me. And I was tired of being used.
Standing over him made me think only one thing: I wanted him dead.
Mark stood back, watching in dull awe, probably going through the same things as me…well, maybe. I think he knew all along what was happening to me and never told me. That must've been what was in that letter, that he didn't want me seeing right away. And it made sense, as I pounded into Paul's face.
He did what I wanted him to do, it was true. I saw now. It had never hit me strange that whenever I asked him for something he would wait on me, whenever I really needed him he was there for me. Just like I'd thought the only person who you could trust was yourself…it wasn't him who was being this nice, it was me asking him to be that way. It embarrassed me that he knew it and I didn't, made me angry with him, but I couldn't focus on that while I was kicking the shit out of Paul.
I wanted him to die.
That was why Mark had kissed me, I realized. That was why he had known about Amber's death before the police even had a chance to ask for him. He just knew something was wrong because I wanted him to know, because I needed him and he came to me. He kissed me because I was so desperately in need of someone that he took it on himself, maybe felt that was the only way to show how extreme his love was for me.
We're brothers. We have the same blood. It was his blood in all those memories that was hurting him, making him do that. His blood, and my blood. It was the same and it was making him accommodate me.
For a moment I stopped kicking Paul, because he'd stopped moving. I heard Mark crying behind me but didn't turn to look at him yet, just stared at Paul. He wasn't moving, didn't look like he was breathing, on the ground where I had been kicking him in the gut. It couldn't have been possible that he was dead, in no ways were my assaults fatal. But…
"Is he…?" I asked Mark. I turned to him, saw him sitting down on the floor, holding his head. Mark, so collected, so strong, so wise, so perfect, so immortal. Mark- collapsed on the floor, holding his head, desperate.
Is there hope for me after all is said and done?
Mark lifted his eyes, looked from me slowly to Paul, looked absolutely broken. His lips parted to speak and nothing came out. I walked over, sat down on the couch, near where he was on the floor. I reached out my hand and took his. I could feel the energy passing through us.
"You killed him," Mark said. I'd never heard him so humbled.
I looked over at Paul, saw his body unmoved, curled on the floor. Blood trickled from his nose and from his mouth, a bruise was paling over his cheekbone. But there was also blood trickling out of his ear. My throat went dry as I turned back to Mark.
"What's going on?"
All the shit we'd been through together, all our lives, all the pain and love and hate, and it came down to this. In the span of a half hour maybe I'd found out that my life was a lie, that there was all this shit going on that I'd never known about. Mark looked up at me, looked like a child, and finally wiped his eyes. I took his hand again, stood up, helped him to his feet and brought him into a different room, where we weren't bothered by the body. Into his bedroom, where we sat down on his bed.
"You killed him," he said again, kind of in disbelief. I hugged him, held him against me.
"I saw what he did to you, Mark," I said softly. I felt his body shaking against mine. He was weeping.
"I'm sorry, Kane, I should have never lied to you for so long," he cried. I held him anyway, let him cry, switched roles with him after all this time. "I should have never let him do that to you…" he cried.
Another one of his memories…Paul hurting him, telling him he was going to kill me. Mark being too scared to warn me, or our parents, instead grabbing up some pictures of us and fleeing the house. Putting them in a metal box with a lock.
"What's going on?" I asked again. He pulled away from me, stared for a minute, his eyes getting puffy. I felt stricken with guilt that I'd never seen how badly Paul had hurt him, too, felt like it was my fault somehow.
Even weirder was that apparently I had a power, like Mark.
"Not like mine," he corrected, and calmed down. He stopped crying, wiped his eyes on his long sleeves, stood up and began to pace a little. He wouldn't look at me as he spoke. "Kane…you have a power to manifest, stronger than my power ever was."
"What?" my blood ran cold as he said it.
"You've always had it," he continued. "Always, since you were an infant. If you were having a shit day, things would break in the house, people would just want to help you and not know why. You should've seen Father…him, of all people. He would drop what he was doing, march up to your nursery and just…play with you. For no reason, really. He was so cold, and distant, we both know it. Now imagine him doing that? Mother told me that he'd never done that for me, that it was you making him do it. Did you even notice just now? Paul's ears bleeding? That doesn't happen from kicking someone in the ribs, Kane…"
"What?" my voice was barely a whisper. Chills ran up and down the sides of my body. Mark calmed down even more. He must've been a master of that, since I'd never seen him crack such emotion before. He must've been a god at holding all that inside.
"You asked before what it was like to spellbind," he said, and stopped, leaning against the wall and combing his fingers through his hair. "Sometimes I forget that you didn't know. That's why I gave you a weird look. It just happens, you get it? You want something to happen and it…happens. When I do it, I just play with people's heads. When you do it…everything just goes your way."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Mark's eyes filled with tears again, which he blotted before they could fall. "You didn't want to know."
Anything at any price, all of this…for you.
I was shaking now, not with anger, but…I don't know what it was. I was thoroughly freaked out at that point. "Why do you say that?"
He let out a laugh, maybe at the situation, how weird it all was. "Don't you see how complicated this is, Kane?"
I shook my head.
"I promised Mother I would protect you," he said to me. "And we have the same blood. And when you want something, I can feel it. It goes beyond being able to read minds, being able to see the future. I've always known what you were thinking, even things you didn't know you were thinking. I've always known everything about you, but you weren't the casualty. It was me. Because I had to do everything you wanted."
"And if you didn't?"
He just looked at me, and I felt the pain again. "It hurt too much," he said softly.
I held my head in my hands, pulled my hair, started hyperventilating. "I don't understand," I coughed. I felt so dizzy. Mark raised one of his eyebrows.
"What?"
"It doesn't make any sense! Nothing goes my fucking way!"
Mark's mouth closed, he just stared. I remembered Dr. Smith, her games, waiting for me to keep talking. Mark wanted me to keep talking.
"I hate my life, Mark," I pointed out. "I didn't want any of that to happen! I didn't want Mother to die, I didn't want you to hate me, I didn't want…" my voice got tangled inside of me. "I didn't want…them to die…"
I descend from grace…
I'll never forget the look on his face. So sad, like he didn't want to be the one to tell me, so helpless, wishing that I understood. His eyes darkened, he bit his lip and paused for a moment before finally saying:
"Are you sure about that?"