Fallen thorns, p.32
Fallen Thorns, page 32
“Shhhh.”
I felt a sharp stab to my neck — realising a moment too late what was happening. Once the black blood started to mix in my system, my eyes grew fuzzy, and as the plunger was released and thrown to the ground, I too collapsed to my knees.
Michael.
The Sun.
No. No. No.
My eyes grew hazy as I grasp at the ground. My legs failed me, failed Arlo. I crawled as best as I could over to Casper’s blurry form and pulled myself up by his shoulders.
“Casper.” I tried to shake him awake. I tugged on his body a further two times before—
I’m back in the light, my arms pulling my body up out of the hole. At the last moment, something grips my ankle and I turn back around into the abyss. What looks back up at me is a mirror, or more, my reflection. That thing inside me, lying dormant until once again it can swallow me whole. It has no real form, but it is part of me now. Forever.
And consume me it does. Pulling my body back down until I am falling, falling, falling, into an endless pit of darkness, as if thrown into an icy ocean, the rippling light growing smaller and smaller until I run out of breath and my consciousness fades, once again.
Welcome home.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Marianne
All my life I had done what I believed to be the right thing. I lived whilst everyone around me moved on or died. I watched the very world fall apart, but I had always done what my gut told me to. Protect people, no matter who or what they were. We all deserved a chance at redemption and freedom, but some just never listened.
The minute the church came into view, it was twelve years ago again. Beaten and bloody and high from his death, I rattled the door open to see his sinister work. Bodies upon bodies buried in plain sight. His pride.
I hadn’t even suspected it. He’d been doing this right under my nose and I’d been blind to it. You didn’t see me coming.
Sometimes, they say evil wins. Sometimes, no matter how hard you may try, there is just no stopping such cruelty, and this world stands testament to that. But I thought I’d won that time. I thought he was the worst threat we’d have to face.
I was naïve, even with all those years behind me. I let my guard down and started a war from my own stupidity.
Maybe I let my personal rage get in the way, this was my lapse in judgement, after all. Ever since I found Isiah in Carmen’s house, my world tipped itself on its head. Learning to trust again after something like that is something I admit maybe I’ve never been able to do.
And of course Lucy knew about my life before. That name, Jerome. I had not heard that name in decades. He was all but a ghost story to me now, but she knew how to push me over the edge. She knew I had faltered time and time again. That I was weak.
And now, once again, I led my Thorns into hell and all I could think to say was sorry. Sorry for not being who I believed I could be. Who I always used to be.
She thrashed at my neck, a swift blade of nails. How did I never know of her existence? And why now. Had they been planning this together all along? Killing and killing forever and ever until they were the only ones left? What had they been doing before, together? How many people had suffered because of them?
“Surrender,” she hissed her demand as I managed to trip her, causing her to stagger back, eyes never leaving my face.
“Never.” I lunged forward again, and her teeth latched onto my arm. Foul play, just like her brother. I grimaced and released my wounded arm, throwing it behind me, defending with the other.
She was behind me now, and I turned to block another bloody bite.
It was at that moment when I spotted Carmen, staggering up stealthily from behind Lucy. She shouldn’t be here, I thought. I would never forgive myself for putting her in danger after all I did to protect her. But she would not have it. She never would. It was out of my control.
Part of me wanted to Manipulate her to turn back, but then what would that make me?
So I distracted Lucy as best as I could and prepared myself to be ready for what was to come.
“You will never win this,” I spat as we sparred around, waiting for one of us to strike next. I kept her in line with Carmen as best I could. “I’ve killed your brother, you will be no different.”
“Oh, but my brother was always the weakest of us — begged me to turn him in the end. He was never like me.”
“That means nothing.” I was lying, but I just regurgitated whatever words first came to mind, as the next second, Carmen pounded up onto Lucy’s back and with all her might, plunged a blade into her chest, screaming out every piece of anger she’d saved up.
But she missed the heart; it did not go in deep enough, and in the next instant, Carmen was thrown to the ground.
I saw my chance to strike, leaping up and pushing a wounded Lucy to the sludge of the earth and I pushed down, watching the blade sink deeper and deeper as the blood oozed out from her sternum. It was nowhere near her heart, but I did what I could. Her eyes grew wide in pain and she lashed out with her arms and mind.
I worked quick; barricading Carmen’s open gates as best as I could. Keeping her down on the ground and semi-unconscious.
‘Protect her.’ Alvin Wood’s final words to me as he lay a mangled corpse on the floor next to his dead wife. His daughter clung onto the arm of the sofa, nails biting down and eyes as wide as headlights. Protect her — a promise I could never break.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” Lucy gargled up at me as blood pooled in her throat and began to seep through her teeth and flow out onto her face.
You will never win.
For a moment I believed I had her. Her eyelids fluttered and her mind faltered, arms slackening from around my arm and neck.
Then her voice rang out and I thought then, that I would forever remember those two words. Words that bit down into my very soul and tore me apart from the inside out.
“KILL HIM!” she cried in a ferocity so chilling and demonic.
Ben.
Stunned, my own arm stupidly relaxed for less than a human heartbeat. But enough time for her to remove the blade and shit.
I fell back, hands reaching for my now deeply slashed throat, blood bubbling and pooling down my neck, soaking into my clothes.
No.
Arlo
They awoke: all three of them reanimated at once. She released them. She has grown weak. I glanced around to find Marianne with Lucienne Dumont beneath her knee. Then I looked back to the scene before me, Casper scrambling to his knees and running over to Ben who was still held tightly with a blade to his pale, exposed skin.
Casper begged and clawed to free his partner. Ben gave it all he could to reach out, although his arms were pinned down.
Help him.
Shut up.
“Let’s get out of here.” A hand found my shoulders, and that voice of velvet whispered so elegantly in my ear.
I nodded. This was no place for us anymore.
No.
Everything changed when that voice screeched out across the field.
“KILL HIM!” she demanded. Lucy.
Ben.
I whirled around, the henchman performing his sole duty.
He kicked Casper backwards, the inhumanly strong thrust sending him flying into the sodden dirt, he would not have stood a chance.
The instruction was swift, a clean impale to the abdomen and straight up the sternum through the heart, insides spilling out. The blade in his other hand cut clean across the back of Ben’s neck; severing his spinal cord. A fatal blow.
Ben was dead in an instant.
A crucifixion.
No. Please.
I didn’t think she would do it. I have spent too long in this realm.
I…
Casper screamed, birds startled out of the trees and fled in terror. It was as if everything transpired in slow motion. He threw himself forward to stop Ben’s body from thudding angrily to the ground. They fell together: one alive, one not. Casper rocked the lifeless soul in his arms, hands trying to stem the blood flow as if it was still possible to save him. Ben’s head unnaturally bent over his fiancé’s arms, limbs limp at his side, scraping against the ground.
We are above this.
No.
Yes.
My Star. Oh, my Star. I stand behind him and watch as he turns away. I can feel him. My Star.
I need not move.
He is reborn.
Marianne
I lay on the frozen grass, propped up by my failing arms, head heavy and eyes weary. My throat had already started to clot, and I felt the skin stretching to close together, but I’d lost too much to stand. Lucy’s body still slumped before me, the winter sun glowing around her like a mocking halo.
I heard Casper’s despair, even from my distance, and my chest seized up. Ben.
I could barely lift myself.
The battlefield did not cease entirely, but it is obvious that people from both sides were curious to see what just happened. The scream that escaped Casper’s lungs. My eyes brimmed with tears. My boy.
I would have never considered myself a maternal person, it was not in my nature, but The Thorns were like my children. My equals. Mine to guide and mine to protect.
I had lost a child.
Sweet, sweet Ben.
And it was all my fault.
I tried to keep my arms steady as my view swam into focus. Lucy lay weak in front of me, Carmen not too far behind, standing but exhausted. Everything had stilled, as if even nature itself yearned to mourn.
But then came the fire.
At first I didn’t understand what was happening. No one did, but then I saw him.
Carmen jolted around and I knew what I must do. She would thank me after, if I survived.
Run. I told her. And she did. I sent her to find Rani, to take them both to safety. Run. Far, far away. Hide. If only I could do so myself.
The creature in Arlo’s body strode forward, fire burning in his eyes. I watched from the floor as a few from the opposing side attempted to block his path, but they were met with his unnatural strength which tore away at them all. He stopped for nothing.
The closer he got, the taller he appeared. Bigger. Grander. A god.
“Arlo, no.” Mars. They ran up to him with begging arms. “Don’t do this. Please.” They frantically attempted to pull him back. He did not lash out this time, but shrugged them away with great strength. He’s still in there. Just.
Mars, get out of the way. Please. I beg you. I could not call to them though. I was too weak.
Arlo continued to move. His face now readable, even in my state. His brow was tight and eyes blood red.
Everyone… run.
The blurry outline of a battered Lucy stood up to greet him with open arms, her pride somehow in tact. He took none of it.
I will never learn how much of my life she knew. But there was one thing for certain, and it all hit me at once. She brought up my past for a reason.
Weeks ago, I had been struck with the realisation that Arlo reminded me of someone I once knew, but I brushed it off in an instant, thinking it wholly impossible and near insane. But as he stood before us all now, only one name came into my mind.
Jerome.
My old friend.
The man who first destroyed my ability to trust.
The man I thought I may have even once loved like a brother.
How is this possible?
With Mars still watching from behind, and the fighting stopping entirely so that everyone could turn to the scene… he took his first blow. Struck her down with the back of his hand. I think I heard her laugh one last time before black claws plunged down and removed her jugular entirely. Everyone stood frozen in place — his Manipulation — as he hacked away brutally, snapping and pulling and biting; completely ripping her apart. A massacre, and he would not stop.
From his back, I blamed my failing eyes at first, but then there was no mistaking: two tawny feathered wings unfurled and stretched out in the morning sun, extending out to their full span as the light glowed behind him.
Hands bloody and shirt torn, he stood before us in his new form, a cry escaping from his throat as he bared his head back in anguish.
It still sounded like him. His tone cracking ever so slightly into a wail. And maybe he was in there still, pained from the death of his friend. But it was too late. I did all I could to prevent this, but some things are beyond even the powers of our kind.
I caught a glimpse of Mars; their body language reading red.
I had no energy left.
I closed my eyes in defeat, head hitting the cold, hard ground.
I’m sorry, Arlo.
Arlo
How can I stand by and let my friends die. What sort of pathetic excuse of a human lets that happen? And that’s what I am — what I always have been. Never enough.
I think back to his words that night. How I could be so much more…
Is this the only way?
Michael
I take his hand, waiting until he has completed his work before I join his side. A deathly quiet has fallen across the land.
Four dead, all from Lucy’s side — well, except the boy. His partner continues to cradle his body in the melting snow. The humans survived, somehow. Both long gone, running as far as their little legs could carry them.
Mars, dear Mars. I stand aside to see how they react as my Star turns to face them in his new form. Long black claws and his beautiful, beautiful wings.
Mars does not — cannot move. Tears stain each cheek, their mouth fixed in a sorry gasp.
They stare at each other for a moment, so many unspoken words channelling between them.
“Come on,” I finally say, taking his hand.
Maybe he does still recognise them, maybe he always will. But for now, it is not enough. With one final glance, he turns back to me and follows me off into the light.
The Sun, The Moon, and The Star together on earth.
I smile. My work here is done.
Chapter Thirty
2 weeks later
Marianne
When I was a little girl, my mother showed me a painting of an angel.
“Why do they need wings?” I asked.
“So that they can watch over us all and be there for us whenever we need protecting,” she would always reply.
I’ve never been a heavily religious woman; I tended to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself and live my life as I saw fit, not the way someone else decided. But I would always think about the human image of an angel. Our guardians.
As I walked towards the cemetery and looked amongst the headstones, I took note of all the stone angels watching down over the fallen and I thought back to my mother’s words, and how the wings helped them to be there for us always. I wasn’t sure how true that was anymore, not after I watched one do what it had. Angels probably aren’t real, but their image came from somewhere.
Not one, but two stood before me in the forest that day, and when they spoke and acted as they did, I was no longer sure what to believe.
I do not consider myself a mother, but I lost two children that day.
We had not seen him since, of course. Though the weight of Ben’s death hung heavy on us all, so we didn’t go looking. I blamed myself for everything. And I would not let anyone tell me otherwise. I started this twelve years ago and it may never end. Perhaps this was only the second beginning.
Mars stepped into stride beside me, head facing forward, dressed head to foot in a black suit, shiny brogues at their feet. “I brought roses,” they said, holding up a small bouquet of cherry red petals and thorns. “Fitting, I thought.”
I nodded, adjusting the black scarf covering my neck and folding my lips inwards, closing my eyes slightly to withhold my emotions.
When we reached the church, we were greeted by the priest and gently shown to our seats.
I had not set foot in a church, or any religious establishment, in decades. Had had no need to. It was not a place I saw myself welcome — not because of my otherness, but for the mere fact I did not believe in the power supposedly held within religious walls. But I felt it that day, in whatever way it chose to present itself to me. I believed it to be the power of love.
We sat ourselves and awaited the service; a frame stood to the side of the altar with a picture of a much younger Ben printed across it. One of him smiling at the camera: close up with his eyes squinting against the sun. A black bass guitar was propped up below it, a red rose woven between the four strings.
Ben’s mother and father sat beside each other in the front row, perhaps for the first time in a very long time. Katerina and David sat hand in hand, his mother’s lace-gloved hand pressing a pale handkerchief to her face. Sat beside them, taller than them both, with freshly dyed black hair, was Casper. I had seen very little of him or any of the band for that matter, since that day. Casper flew back to America for a few days to be with his family, Lawrence and Fran followed suit and left the city too. I don’t blame them for their distance, nor do I ever expect any of them to return to The Thorns. I had hurt them enough. They did not deserve it.
Casper sat with his back straight, his posture failing to falter. His older brother, Jesse, sat beside him. They must have flown back together; Jesse was always his closest sibling. I wished to speak with them, even for only for a second. I did not need Casper’s forgiveness, but I did need him to know my love for him. For them all. My Thorns.
I failed them all.
Mars squeezed my hand, sensing my drifting mind.
“Don’t think about it,” they whispered. Maybe they were right, but there was only so much guilt I could hold before I exploded.
They were lost in their own silent mourning. I knew they missed them both equally. They got to know Arlo more than any of us did, and I think they loved him, in a way. In fact, I knew they did. They would just never admit it, especially not now.
