the years with my mother I had missed out on. I thought of the past months I’d spent nearly hating her. I thought of what she’d done to save me and my sister and how much she’d suffered because of that choice.
I thought of my father. How he’d taken care of me all my life, of how he’d shown me the meaning of commitment and sacrifice. I thought of how he’d taught me to survive and not to be a quitter. In the end, he’d traded himself for me, too.
Then I thought of Derek. A mixture of complex emotions flooded my heart and mind. I didn’t know how much of our relationship, if any, had been real, though I desperately wanted to believe that it was. It felt real to me, still did, and maybe right now that was enough.
I knew that I’d never see any of them again. If I killed Grey to save my mother, I’d be condemning Dad and Derek to eternity in the Darkness. Yet, I couldn’t stand idly by and watch my mother die right before my eyes. The only choice I had was to try and make another deal.
I called out to Fahl. I knew he would be nearby, watching.
“I’ll give you my life for hers. No one has to take it. You’ll have us both, me and Grey. She won’t have to kill me and I won’t have to kill her,” I shouted, my voice ringing out in the night above the moans and grumbles of the dead.
Like it was coming from miles away, I heard my mother scream, a shrill and panicky, “No!”
And then I heard a familiar deep voice, a voice that I literally felt from head to toe like the brush of velvet against my skin.
“Carson, don’t!”
I turned and saw Derek emerge from the woods to my right. I could tell he was trying to run to me, but it looked like he was moving through tar. With each step he struggled all the more to put one foot in front of the other.
Then Fahl appeared, looking just as he had that first night. His black hair danced around his head weightlessly in the light breeze and his black suit was as ill-fitting as ever. He looked like death. And rightly so. He’d come for me.
“A new deal means the other is broken,” he advised pleasantly, as if we were discussing the NASDAQ over coffee.
“I know, but Dad and Derek still go free, and my mother, too.”
“And you’ll reap for me in exchange?”
“Whatever you want, just let them go.”
With a smile that would’ve given the devil pause, Fahl whispered, “Done.”
As soon as the word left his thin lips, I heard my mother gasp, drawing in a huge breath. I turned toward her as she sputtered and coughed. I held out my hand to touch her, to make sure she was alright, but my fingers met with nothingness. She fell through the doorway, into the house and disappeared.
I stepped forward to follow, but the threshold sealed after she passed through, the barrier once more firmly in place. I leaned my head against the invisible wall and breathed a sigh of relief. Even though I wasn’t sure where she’d gone, I was comforted by the fact that she was no longer in any immediate danger of being suffocated or eaten.
Tears burned my eyes when I felt the air thicken at my back, my tormentors closing in around me once more. I turned, back pressed to the barrier this time, to face the gruesome dead head on. My fate was sealed and I was trapped, by my own design, forever. But it was my decision and I was going to go on my own terms. Fahl wasn’t going to get everything, tied up nice with a bow.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I exhaled, all my turbulent emotions drained out of me. There was no fear or heartache or regret or sense of loss, just acceptance, the sense that I’d done what needed to be done, that I’d made the necessary sacrifices to ensure the safety and wellbeing of my loved ones. Most of them anyway. Leah was a whole other matter. She’d already made her choice. She’d sealed her own fate.
I looked toward Derek. He was still trying to get to me, but the look on his face assured me that he knew there was nothing he could do. He looked crushed. He’d given up so much for