Chapter Twenty Four
Theodore
The Paradise Motel’s neon vacancy sign is outdated, as are the motel’s occupants. We arrive in a scream of shadows on an unused stretch of driveway, just underneath the flickering light of the sign. I pull my hand from Morrigan’s grip as soon as my feet hit solid ground, raising my chin to study the buildings that were once my prison and would be again.
It’s warmer here than on the east coast, though the clouds threaten a storm. Not my doing, or at least not intentionally. Morrigan likely knows about my display with the rebels, but if she doesn’t, it’d be to my advantage. Slim chance, but a chance all the same.
Dull white paint covers the three buildings under her jurisdiction, one of which being the lobby where ill-informed or desperate humans can spend more than they intended for an extended stay. She bragged to me once about this place being a sugar trap for humans willing to barter their souls. Like most traps, I’m sure she catches more than insects. How many well-meaning people have stopped in off the freeway, looking for a respite and finding her instead?
I’ve never seen the no illuminated, and not for a lack of traffic.
Two buildings loom over the lobby, one on each side. The doors are green now. They weren’t before. She doesn’t care much to renovate; a cleaner and more modern appearance would attract the wrong kind of clientele— if there is a wrong kind of clientele to her. If she wouldn’t swipe the soul of anybody unfortunate enough to land here.
But, I realize with a start, she doesn’t do that. True that she’s cruel, merciless even, but she still abides by the laws she’s laid. She makes deals, then makes good on them. The people are here because they agreed to stay, because she offered them a boon and they accepted, giving their soul in return. The ones who suffer her attention agreed to suffer it. She might manipulate the terms, find a loophole or otherwise conceal the true consequences of their decision, but she doesn’t break her own rules.
I do, though. I break her rules. And my own, the most relevant of which being that I would never let her drag me back here.
Our arrival, it seems, is expected. Though Mortae, especially the ones under Morrigan’s supervision, don’t maintain a regular sleeping schedule, the anticipation of the crowd gathered in the otherwise empty parking lot points to a special occasion. They want to see me punished, the animals. As if she’d let her temper slip in front of them. No, the worst of it will be humiliation. The physical blows will come later.
If they angered her, she wipe the lot clean of them. She won’t kill me though, even though I’m the one who deserves it most.
The crowd parts as we approach, then collapses behind us like a palm closing. I keep my chin raised, searching for a flash of red hair. Elias or Gemma— one would be a relief and the other a confirmation. If it was Gemma's word that led me back here, I’ll—
I’ll what? Strike her down for her betrayal? Let my hands slip around her neck and not pull away this time? As if I could manage it.
And this is what Morrigan does to me. Beyond the water she pours into my lungs and the scars she doesn’t let live on my skin, she makes me doubt. She makes me small.
Whispers from the crowd float to my ears. I absorb them the way my mother wants me to absorb souls, letting them carry me to the motel lobby, the office beyond, the basement below.
Flesh-born. Usurper. Messiah.
“You could quiet them,” Morrigan murmurs. “I know you know how.”
So she does have spies among the rebels. I expected as much. “You’ve encouraged their hatred against me, and now you want to punish them for it?”
“I want you to punish them for it.”
“And the praise?” I tilt my chin up. “Would you have me quiet that, too?”
From the corner of my eye, I catch her lips tick up. “I’d have you by my side, as you are now but half as obstinate.” Her hand finds my shoulder. “Come. Your pets are waiting.”
She leads me into the office, down a set of stairs and into a familiar room. Phantom bile rises in my throat. If the tiled white walls could speak, they’d scream. I imagine that they do, echoing my building panic. Chains are strewn across the floor, thick and silver and attached to the wall farthest from us. Once I’m in them, they’ll glow a searing blue.
In my head, I begin counting, determined not to lose track this time. It’ll be different this time.
Two figures are huddled together in the corner, one on his knees with his back to me and the other in a steady squat. Neither of them look up when we enter. Gemma’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. Probably that it’s my fault they’re here, and she’s not wrong, even if Elias won’t believe her.
I rush towards them, abandoning any pretense of composure. My shoes slap on the unstained linoleum, but they don’t notice my approach. Sloppy, and I should chastise them for it.
A foot away from them, I collide with what feels like a brick wall. With a trembling hand, I trace the barrier. It’s made of wind, conjured to swirl around them so quickly that it acts as a shield. A cage. Not my doing, but I place my palms flat on its surface, trying to wrestle the energy creating it into submission. It’s like gripping a mud-slick rope. I could do it if I concentrate—
Behind me, Morrigan clicks her tongue. “Not yet.”
I drop my hands and whirl to her, slipping into a defensive stance. “Let them go.”
She frowns and nods towards the chains. “Let’s make this simple.”
“You told me I could bear their punishment. I’m here to bear it. Let them go.”
“What of your punishment? Cavorting with rebels, raising a force against me…" She shakes her head. “I’m not angry with you, dove. Truly, I’m impressed. Glad, even. Still, I can’t let such blatant disobedience go unchecked.”
I flick my eyes towards the door at the top of the stairs. Could I make it? Or better, I could dive into shadows and be away from this place, but to leave them here again would be unforgivable. They wouldn’t survive it this time.
Betraying them would be a betrayal of myself. All I have is my word.
So what choice do I have, really? I move towards the chains, my steps ringing on the tile like a death knell. I can direct Morrigan’s anger. I can take the brunt of it. Even if it’s not what I was born to do, it’s all I’m capable of doing.
But I’m stronger now. It’s evident in the way energy skitters over my skin, urging me to lash out. To fight back. What good would come of it? I can’t beat her, not yet. Maybe not ever.
From beyond the shield of wind, Gemma finally notices me. She meets my eyes and raises her chin. Despite the chasm between us, I know what that motion means.
I tug moisture from the air and collect it around my palm. Like a shattered vase eager to become whole again, it sharpens into an improvised weapon. I thought it would take more energy to hold its shape, but it's as if its natural state wants to bend to my will.
Water doesn't want anything. It can't. But I do.
My mother raises a brow at the icicle shard in my hand.
I flick the makeshift dagger at her. It zips through the air, collecting moisture as it goes until it's as big as my forearm. Morrigan watches it soar towards her, amused. It nearly clips her shoulder before she swats it away. The bright sound of ice shattering covers her huff of a laugh.
"Well," she hums, "it was a fine effort."
Prickling lightning flares on my skin. I expel it, shaping it into a rope— a whip, which I lash towards her, meaning to grapple her neck the way I did Hayes. She catches it before it can find its target. If the popping energy hurts, she doesn't show it. Instead, she curls the end of the whip around her hand and yanks.
I topple forward, landing before her. My determination winks out, replaced by a cold terror. The rope of lightning disappears. My mother grips my chin and forces me to my feet.
Behind me, there's a scuffle— Elias— and an impatient exhale as Gemma undoubtedly holds him back. If I can hear them, the shield must be gone.
"I was content to settle for your imprisonment, but you test my patience." She squeezes, and pain lights over my jaw. "I'd be rid of both of them if I thought you'd accept the lesson instead of using their absence to fuel this misguided plot against me. So," she tosses me away, "choose one. Extinguish the other. That should be punishment enough."
Before I can swing at her again, she dips into shadows and disappears.
In the stillness that follows, Elias' hand settles on my shoulder. I shrug him off instinctively. The weight of my mother's latest demand settles into guilt at my dismissal of him.
"Give me a moment," I murmur.
"You don't need a moment," Gemma says with a sneer in her voice. "You need a miracle."
"Don't speak to me," I snarl, turning to her. "What devious plan of yours landed you here, huh? Where were you?"
She narrows her eyes, for once not hidden behind sunglasses, and rocks back on her heels.
"So?" I prompt.
"Was I supposed to answer? Your instructions were unclear, majesty."
Elias glances at Gemma and then at me. Without preamble, a full-bodied laugh takes him, one that starts in his gut. He bends at the waist and grips his thighs, shoulders shaking. Over his head, Gemma frowns. I look down at him, a question on my tongue, but he holds up a hand to silence me.
"Nothing's really changed," he manages, wiping a tear from his eye, "has it? You two at each others' throats, the looming threat of your mother, even this damned room is the same!" When he straightens, a grin splits his face. "You'd think we never left."
Because we didn't. I did. By Gemma's souring expression, she's about to say as much.
"Where were you?" I ask again, quieter.
"I don't claim you as my savior," she snaps. "I don't owe you an explanation."
"You owe me more than that."
"Do I?"
Elias adds, "An apology might be fruitful." He dissolves my smirk with a pointed look. To me, he says, "I know better than to ask you to say sorry, but a touch of remorse would go a long way."
"I've done nothing—"
Gemma cuts me off with a snort. "Nothing wrong? Really, Theodore?"
"You lied to me!" Lightning whips over my skin. I don't bother trying to suppress it. Elias, usually so docile, stiffens at my outburst. "We could've had a life together, a real life instead of this sham of an existence, and you ran to my mother. For what, Gemma? For her favor? For Uriel? For another day sucking down souls and scrambling to keep yourself upright?"
"I was trying to keep you safe."
A humorless laugh spills out. "She won't kill me. Believe me, I've tried to coax her into it."
"Right. She'll just maim you and let you limp back to your real life." Gemma jabs her finger in my face. "You'll watch as everyone around you suffers, and you'll make another plan to sniff flowers and raise goats instead of doing what you should've done centuries ago."
"Which is?"
"Whatever the fuck she asks you to!"
I swat her hand away. Elias jumps between us with his palms raised.
"Least productive apology I've ever heard," he mutters. "Did none of it matter?"
The resignation in his voice makes me pause. Gemma stops short too, her mouth a thin line.
I slide my eyes to the silver chains on the ground. Last time I ended up in this room, it was Gemma’s fault. She knew I’d be punished if she told Morrigan about my plan to flee, and she did it anyway. She did it after gripping my hand in the dark and whispering promises about a life far from here.
Wicked as my mother is, I’d never experienced cruelty like that before. I’m not sure that I have since.
But I loved her once, or tried to. Before Elias, back when we thought it would be the two of us for eternity and a day, we clung to each other the way a drowning man holds a fading breath. Was I man or air? Could I have been both?
“I wish I never met you,” I say and mean, I wish you never met me. They heard Morrigan’s order, same as I did.
Gemma takes a half-step back. She may not know how to decode thought-energy, but she knows me. She knows which of them I'd choose.
"Of course it mattered," she says. "It mattered too much. Now he'll condemn us both to preserve his conscience."
"This isn't about me."
"It is. It always has been."
Before the conversation can again devolve into bickering, Elias blurts, "The girl."
With effort, I tear my attention from the chains and turn to him. "What?"
"Gemma didn't want to hurt the girl. That's why she ran. That's why we're here." He nudges Gemma. "Tell him."
"Uriel and I had a disagreement," she says, monotone. "He wanted her scared. I wanted her dead."
Like a fuse lit and racing towards its end, I slip into the fighting stance Marcella taught me. Gemma tips up her chin, not fully baring her throat but close.
"Stop it," Elias cries. "Stop— She's lying! Look at her!"
Her shoulders are drawn back. She’s holding her breath. Without her sunglasses, the watery green of her eyes is stark against the determination beneath. The thin line of her mouth twitches as I study her. She’s nearly as good at keeping herself composed as I am.
“You are lying,” I hum. “Why?”
"Does it matter? Believe me a villain if it'll help you sleep at night."
"You want me to kill you?"
"No." She sets her jaw. "After everything I've done to stick around this long? Of course not."
She just doesn't want me to kill Elias. We both glance at him. In this, at least, we agree. He's the best of us. If anyone should survive, it's him.
Elias shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Theodore…"
"You mean to call her bluff," Gemma says. "That only works if she's bluffing, and we know she's not." She curls her hands into fists at her sides. "So go, then. Run away. Leave this place, and us. Again. Turn your back on the suffering you've caused. Curse us for not knowing better than to involve ourselves with you."
Her voice cracks on the last word, and beneath it is decades worth of agony. What she did is unforgivable, but I find myself softening anyway. We held each other once.
I step forward and put my palm on her cheek, gentle like I used to. She blinks at me, furious tears wetting my fingertips. How long has it been since she's been touched like this? I know Uriel's temperament.
She has suffered, and it was her own fault, but maybe I played a role, too. A small one, but a role all the same.
"It wasn't worth it," she whispers.
I don't know if she means the time we spent together or betraying me or becoming a Mortae in the first place, but I nod. She closes her eyes. If there are words to comfort her, I can't find them.
She knows I'll choose Elias. She'd choose Elias, too.
"The truth, Gemma. Please."
She sucks in a shaky breath. "I was better at hating you than loving you, but I've done both, and simultaneously."
"You were excellent."
Her eyes open and find mine. "I have no regrets about what I've done. I only wish it would've set you on the right path. But I didn't hurt the girl. I couldn't."
Beside us, Elias begs, "Don't do this."
The brightest of her memories nip at my fingertips. A campfire and a clearing, a bottle of wine swiped from my mother's stores and the three of us, not drunk but well on our way. Elias' head in my lap and her mussing his hair. In another life, we kept running. In another life, I stayed.
"Torment me forever," I say. "Never leave me alone."
She slips into a grin. A true one, not the persona she's adopted. If only for a fleeting moment, we are allowed to be as we are, as we once were, as we can never be.
"You can count on it, majesty."
"No!" Elias cries. "Please, take me! Take—"
The deafening roar of a thousand souls overtakes his protests.
I expect anger. Instead, I'm met with hunger. Her desire for life is unmatched by even my own greed. There are others, souls she's pilfered and stored within herself, but they don't put up half as good a fight as she does. The others sink within me, leaving only a thin residue.
Gemma forces me to look.
I'm in a plush bed. Sunlight struggles through shut curtains, painting a thin line on the stone floor. A thick blanket is pulled up to my chin, covering a wet cough. Outside of this memory, I can't recall what it's like to be ill. Even my eyes hurt.
A shiver ravages me. I curl further beneath the blanket and whimper, my voice too high. I'm not a child here, at least not in age. I haven't left this bed in weeks, relying on others to wash and feed me.
Another cough tears from my throat, devolving into a fit of gagging and gasping. Once I'm through, I stare at that thin line of sunlight and find myself frightened.
"You're alright," a voice croons from a shadowed corner.
I know that voice, but Gemma didn't recognize it back then.
"I'm not." The words rattle with phlegm. "I'm going to die. Everyone says so."
"And what do you say?"
"It's not fair."
The voice steps from the shadows, becoming a figure becoming Morrigan. The passage of time has gilded her. Thick black hair falls over nimble, pale shoulders exposed by the cut of her gown. She meanders through the dim room, landing in the slash of light. Through the fog of fever, her skin glows like a beacon leading me to ascension, or at least leading me out of this sickbed.
Above the memory, I'm screaming, but I can't keep what's already happened from happening.
"You're angry," she says.
"Incandescently."
"You want more."
"Yes."
She approaches the bed. Her gown swishes against the floor but makes no sound. "I can help you, if you'll let me."
I've been sickly and thus pampered my entire life. I don't know any better.
"All you have to do is walk with me. Can you manage that, child?"
I swallow a cough and nod.
She dips, pressing her lips against my forehead. Her hair tickles my cheeks, and the ache of my body fades. For the first time in weeks, my thoughts sharpen. When she pulls back, I stretch, expecting atrophied muscles and instead finding myself strong. Capable. Better than my best days, of which I've had few.
She offers me her hand. "Come. There's someone I want you to meet."
I take her hand, rising from my sickbed and following her to the door. Over my shoulder, I catch a pale form on the bed with its mouth open and eyes wide. I was powerless, unable to protect myself from an enemy within my own body. I'll never be that weak again.
The memory fades, and I'm left with my palm touching only air. Beside me, a strangled cry erupts from Elias. He dives towards the ground where Gemma stood only a moment ago, gathering her clothes and holding them to his chest. My fingers curl around nothing.
From the floor, Elias sobs, "Tell me there was no other way."
I kneel, careful not to touch him in case he finds sense and flinches. "You know there wasn't."
"Tell me you regret it."
My hands settle into fists in my lap.
"Tell me you loved her. Tell me you love me still. Tell me you wouldn't abandon us to chase a version of yourself that no longer exists. Feed me pretty lies, my prince. Convince me so I might be able to stay by your side and and face my own reflection."
"I…"
He rocks onto his knees, lower lip quivering. "Now you are speechless?"
I reach for the part of myself that was born in this place, the piece of me that weathers punishments with a sly smirk and a shrug. It slips through my clumsy, soul-bloated fingers. Whoever I am now can't be contained by that neutrality, so I offer him a truth in a pained whisper: "I want to go home."
Not Cora's house. Not to Az, and definitely not the motel room where I've been held captive. Home, a few centuries and a thousand miles away. I want to be a child again, and not the way I'm a child here. I want to be rocked to sleep. I want to close my eyes and not fret about the monsters in the dark because someone else is worrying about them. I want a mother, a father, an empty stomach and a lullaby sung anyway.
Elias tightens his arms around the fabric, all that's left of Gemma. "You're becoming exactly who I hoped you'd be, and I find myself unable to bear witness."
I bow my head.
"I'm yours," he says. "I have always been yours, and I…"
In my peripheral, a light blooms, growing brighter with every heaving breath.
"I'm so sorry."
I whirl to him as his intent becomes clear. Searing light builds in his chest, seeping through his shirt and Gemma's.
"No!" I lunge for him, meaning to pin him as if I can stop this. As if I can stop any of it. He lets me topple him, shining beneath me, so bright my eyes water. I won't shield them. I won't look away. "Don't make me go on alone. Elias, please—"
In the moment before he explodes into me, he wipes a tear from my cheek. "You will endure."
His body disappears from beneath me. His glasses skip across the tile until they settle beside my hand with an echoing crack. One of the lenses is shattered. I collapse onto linoleum. His clothing, the only proof he ever existed, softens the impact.
Some time later, I pull myself up. I've lost count of the seconds, the minutes. I fold Elias' clothes, then Gemma's, and place them in a neat pile beside the chains. I slip his glasses into my pocket and consider tearing apart every dingy room to find Gemma's. If I had more mastery over fire, I'd set the entire complex aflame and leave only the sunglasses untouched. If I had less mastery over myself, I'd weep.
I settle into the chains, securing them around my wrists. The metal glows blue, feasting on the energy pouring from me and then redirecting it back inside. My mouth falls open at the sting of pain, and I hit my knees again.
It's not enough. I deserve worse.
I press my forehead against the cool tile, my decision made.