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𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 : 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒

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The ride to the barn was outside of the gray. Time went by as normal, as if Reed and the others knew exactly what I was trying to do for them and how we needed the world to spin and tick away so Crow could do what was needed.

The barn stood exactly how I had left her, minus the fires in the back from a body too disfigured to identify in police reports. Still unnamed, still unmarked, body still missing. It was now a pile of crunchy ashes in the backyard of Crow's cabin. In the backyard of our home. It made me wonder if Hex was still wandering around the astral or if he'd passed on. I hoped he passed, I didn't necessarily want to hear his side of the gruesome story.

I parked the car and wasted no time getting out. There was old police tape around the backside but nothing more. The police knew better than to keep that investigation from leading anywhere other than stagnant. Too many of them had been paid off by either John or Crow through the years, they were more than corrupt. They were more than just what they were now. I pushed open the barn door, the air not as stale as it had been before when I'd come with the ouija board. I didn't need that now, they were already here and waiting.

The gray came naturally and with no pain. The three men took me by surprise, standing and waiting for me, but it wasn't their presence that shook me but rather the lack of one. I should've known he wouldn't show his face quite yet.

"Took you long enough," said Michael West, hands in his pockets of his monochromatic blue suit. Even in death, he still had style, save for burns that still marred his skin from our little run in together. "Thought you would have figured out all this shit by now."

"Give her a break," muttered Andrew Stone, moving to sit against the old stacks of hay. "A lot has happened since we last saw her." His long hair was pulled back into a messy bun against the nape of his neck so he could wear his beanie over his ears as if the astral was too cold for him. "I'm sorry about your friend, the one you had been looking for."

"I'm surprised you remembered," I said with a sigh.

"Hard not to when it's the only thing we can watch happening from here," he said with a shrug as he looked around for emphasis. "Which means there's only one reason you're here and wanting to speak with us."

"Blame it on curiosity," I muttered before glancing towards Reed who'd been quiet. "I wouldn't have thought twice about you all if it hadn't been for him showing up."

"Wow, send the party parade," muttered West, clapping slowly. "You finally got the balls to show yourself."

Reed scowled and scoffed, looking away with his arms crossed. "I'm not the only one here, Michael. You could've been the one to step forward but no. You've been sitting on your ass trying to look pretty through that busted fucking ego."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cooed Stone, holding his hands up to urge them to quiet. "You're forgetting that I could've gone to her too–"

"Stoner piece of shit–"

"You lazy fucking bum–"

Stone chuckled and sat back down. "We all could've made more of an effort but we didn't."

"I'll say it again," snapped West. "You're a lazy fucking bum–"

"And you're a self-righteous asshole who can't lift a finger to help unless it's manicured!" snapped back Stone, with more fire than I'd ever seen him with. "Leaving it to Jeb is one thing, but my god, man, at least put in a little effort here."

"She's here now," said Reed. "Isn't that enough?"

West scowled and threw a hand in the air. "It would've been enough fucking months ago!"

"She was busy," came a new voice and my blood went a little cold at the sound. He appeared out of nowhere like a blur coming to light, his hands in his pockets and with a laze stare to his eyes. The same as always, still just as frightening when he'd cornered me in Blondie's guest room.

"Wow," drawled out West. "Nice of you to finally show up."

"Where the hell have you been, dude?" asked Stone, standing to face Aiden Tobias.

He was the most recent of them all and the one that still terrified a piece of me. I could've sworn the scar against my side throbbed with his presence. It beat with the fear in my heart and I fought the urge to press a hand there to silence it.

"Getting answers," he said, his eyes falling over me. "Understanding more and coming to terms with what happened and what was going on. Why?" He was sneering now as he looked back towards the men. "What have you been doing?"

"Fucking nothing, that's what," replied West as Stone said, "Waiting for her."

"She killed Blood," said Reed, changing the subject. "You saw her do that, didn't you?"

Tobias nodded. "He never made it to where we are."

My brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"He was doomed from the start," said Tobias, looking around the barn with distaste. "He couldn't handle the pressure and sought out different resources..." Like John. "He wasn't made for that world, nor this one. He was gone the second your blade pierced his skin."

"He crossed over," clarified Reed. "Went straight back to hell where he originated from."

"Sad," muttered Stone. "He was a good drinking buddy before he fell for John's whimsy." I ignored the way he said whimsy with a smile.

The gray flickered a few times, as if they all knew they were trying to bring Crow to us with bodies and temptations of new life.

"Well, it doesn't matter about him," I said, feeling uncomfortable as the gray settled back in and the barn felt more like a portal than an actual barn. I didn't need any other ghosts coming in to visit with the promise or expectation of new life. "What does matter is you four and if you're looking for a one way ticket off the astral and back into the land of the living."

Reed smiled, genuinely and truly for the first time since I'd met him hiding in the back seat of my car. "We've been waiting for you to ask us that for a very long time."

"The great necromancer," murmured Tobias with a little chuckle. He startled me by dropping to a knee, submitting. "Summoner of spirits and demons, the great reanimator, the demon slayer–"

West fell into line next. "The soul catcher. The demon's blade."

"The devil killer," finished Stone with a little smile as he dropped to his knees. "The desecrator, the cursed, the witch, the–"

"The one the prophecy foretold," said Reed, coming forward and dropping to one knee before me. They bowed their heads all together and when they looked back up, it felt as if I was staring into all their eyes at once as Reed added, "We know what coming back means and we're here tonight to tell you that we want to. We want to be a part of the world you're creating and protecting, we always have been." Behind him, Tobias looked guilty. "Archer wanted us to teach you how to survive, that not everyone should be trusted and that the only way to fight back is to kill."

West continued for him in a low voice, "We knew it was wrong not coming to you first, to explain the reasoning but you know better than us you wouldn't have believed it until you saw and experienced it with your own two eyes. We fought you to train you, and you won."

"And you weren't just going easy on me?" I asked with a weary glance.

"We fought you tooth and nail," said West, "and maybe we let you get the upper hand once but you needed the motivation. If we beat you too badly, you would've been demoralized. A sad, pathetic, necromancer who cries when she doesn't win isn't what we needed fighting for us."

Fighting for us.

"What they're trying to say," muttered Tobias, shifting on his knees, "is that we swear fealty to you, like we did to Archer when he first recruited us. We will not harm you. We will not fight against you."

"But we will fight for you," finished Stone. "We will protect you against John and his forces, and we will give you our last breath when it comes down to the end."

The gray flickered again and headlights were slowly making their way down the stretch of road to the barn. An hour had passed and Crow worked fast. This could potentially make up for what he'd hidden from me but...there were other things I could get from him to equal an apology in the end.

"Swear that I can trust you," I said, bringing my knife from my bag. Ghosts couldn't bleed but humans could. I would need to use a different knife when they came back, it'd be awkward if I exorcised them for a second time by accident. "Swear that there will never be a moment where you're hiding from me again. Only the truth when it comes to our situation and John."

They echoed their response to me as the gray shifted and breathed. "I swear it."

The gray broke and I only had to wait five minutes before Crow truly did arrive. His car, accompanied by a church van parked behind the barn where I opened the big doors for them. Macabre got out of the van, which I had expected as much, and greeted me with a grim smile. He didn't seem optimistic that his old friends wanted to come back but he didn't know or hear what I did.

Crow gave me a kind smile and it was easy to give one of the same in return. I was still upset, but it was getting easier and easier to forgive him. I could see it from his perspective, even if I didn't want to sometimes. It would all be easier if we were on good terms, with the end of our lives on the line and whatnot.

"Who's here?" asked Macabre when I approached to look into the van. There were four caskets, just as instructed.

"Everyone," I muttered, going inside. "Did you choose specifically for them or are these all at random?"

"Random," replied Crow as he came around to us. "John Doe's with no known families or information. One was completely left to the state to decide." He motioned to one of the caskets and I went to that one first, nestled in the back on its own shelf.

I nodded with a little hum, running my fingers over the coldness of the smooth wood. The gray would help hold the bodies in their cold temperature, so we needed to start moving quickly. I glanced around and said to the astral budding beneath my aching fingers, "Who wants to go first?"

"First to die, first to come back," muttered West's voice somewhere not too far from me but still softly and full of the air around us.

The world shifted into gray after I opened the lid. I almost laughed. Pointed, crooked nose. Very bird-like and very much like Jeb Reed from the start. I could almost bet on my life that all four bodies would have some resemblance to their original hosts. We were all mirrors to each other, to the ones floating around us.

I placed my hand firmly on the body's chest, breathing deeply. I couldn't feel any connection left, there was no one else lingering here besides my four ghosts. These spirits had moved on, and quickly it seemed. They knew, just as you did, what was to come.

"You ready?" I asked, glancing back and seeing Reed lingering a few steps off from my shoulder. He seemed...nervous almost.

"This doesn't take something from you, does it?" he asked. "You aren't losing pieces of yourself for this?"

I shook my head. "This was my purpose, this has always been my purpose. If it were to kill me, to strip me completely, then how could I fulfill what the world needs of me?"

He nodded, slowly and stepped forward. He lowered himself into the casket, right against the body and sunk into it smoothly. Gripping the edges, he kept himself sitting up to say, "Archer did what he had to, I hope you know that."

I nodded.

"We did this to protect you, Blaire, to show you what the risks were and what you needed to protect," he explained. "We did this to help you, to make you stronger. That fear? That fear we put inside you? It was planted so it could grow into," he tapped my hand near his, sighing, "the powerful necromancer you are now. If we hadn't done what we did, things far worse than this would've happened, you would've been dead the second John came for you."

There was no response from me as he continued softly, "It helped us too, you know. It helped Archer weed out the strays, the weaker minded men who had already sold their souls. It brought out the true meanings of loyalty."

"And are you loyal?" I asked.

He nodded. "That's why I'm here. It's why I'll continue to be here. If Archer calls, I come running. Always."

I pulled Spiorad from my bag and held her blade in my palm. I cut my hand open and winced slightly at the sting before forming a fist. I let my blood drop against the host's mouth and eyes, smearing it across the body's lips and dripping some down his throat against his tongue. When that was finished, I pressed my bleeding hand to the host's chest and recited the old words, words I didn't think I'd ever have to say again after Brent.

"Recipere animam. Efferte et signate in quod amissum est. Surge. Surge."

(Recapture the soul. Bring it forth and seal it back into what it lost. Rise. Rise.)

I repeated it a second time and a third as the gray melted with blurring color, desperate to fade back into the real world, like a beast breaking free. The familiar buzz bore into my ears like static, like a fevered white noise, itching and scratching across my skin. The buzz turned into a burn over my face and inside my throat, traveling to my hands and fingers, to my feet and toes, deep into my gut.

I could feel the soul connecting with the body, binding itself to a new host through careful deliberation. Joining as one after a polite introduction, a meeting, a welcomed embrace. When the release clenched inside my stomach and the gray melted into color, Jeb Reed stared back at me with two hazel colored eyes and sat up in his casket.

"Brother?" said Macabre, as he would address them all once they returned.

Reed flexed his new hands and then tested his legs. He was wobbly at first and had to clutch the casket on either side, but eventually was able to stand. When he was able to step out of the van, he took Macabre in his arms and the two men hugged.

"We didn't think we'd ever see you again," said the older man with a laugh. "We thought you were lost."

"Not at all," said Reed. "Only needed a little help getting back home."

It was the same process with West and Stone, their host bodies surprisingly in tune with who they had once been. When it was time for Tobias, he didn't appear as quickly or as eagerly as the others had. I nearly had to coax him out of hiding.

"It's not bad, if that's what you're worried about," I said, looking down at the body of his new host. Handsome, still, but it would never be his original host.

He pressed his lips together, running a finger over the host's lips as if he could feel them on his own. "I don't deserve this."

"You're getting a second chance," I said. "Don't waste it."

"They don't want me to come back."

"Well, you did try to kill me."

"I thought I had too." He looked up and found my eyes, ones that had once scared me. "I'm sorry, for what I did."

"I know," I whispered, "but we need you to come back. We need your help."

He nodded, but kept himself still just out of reach from the host. "If I die again, don't bring me back. Let me...let me cross over."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded again and finally climbed into the casket, lowering himself against the body. "I don't think my place is here anymore and once my time serving you is done, I'm ready for the next life."

"When you die, come to me and I'll make sure you go where you're needed." I sliced my palm with Spiorad, over the same ruined wound, and let it bleed over him.

I would bleed for them all, which was a terrifying realization. I would bleed out for every single person I'd ever met if it meant we'd get through this, that they'd all come out on the other side alive. My blood was my vow, my sacred promise, and our only tether to this world. My lifeblood was theirs.

I was theirs.

When it was done, I watched Aiden Tobias take his first steps as a new man and be embraced by the men waiting for him. He'd made mistakes, we all had, and he was forgiven. He was taken into their arms and told how glad they were he was home. They were home.

It was how we all ended up at the cabin thirty minutes later, elbow deep in beers and cigarettes on Crow's back porch eating pizza he'd ordered and watching the men roast marshmallows over the open fire pit. It was so mundane, so inexplicably normal, that it made me wish I could live in these moments forever.

I leaned against the railing on the porch, watching Macabre explain something with his hands to Reed and Stone as West attempted another smore and getting marshmallow and chocolate over his fingers and Tobias trying to hide his grin. Oh...how different everything had become.

"They can't all stay here," murmured Crow, drawing my attention. He rested his forearms against the railing, clutching abeer loosely in one hand. "They'll go home with Macabre so they can contact their families in the morning, he has more guest rooms than we do."

"Why not contact them tonight?" I asked, reaching for his beer. He handed it over willingly, watching me as I tipped it back to drink.

"Better to deal with things when the sun is up," he said with a shrug. "I think they always knew this day would come, one more day of rest wouldn't hurt anyone."

I tapped his bottle on the railing. "You should have told me."

"I know."

"I'm upset with you."

"I know, honey, I'm upset with myself too."

I shifted with a sigh, watching West smack Stone's hand away from his marshmallow that was oozing over his fingers. "Don't do it again."

"Trust me," he murmured, sliding a hand over my waist, "it'll be the last thing I ever think to do."

"Good." I drank the rest of his beer in one long sip. "I won't be so forgiving next time."

"Really?" he whispered. "You going to punish me?"

There was a darkness in his voice that sent an excited shiver through me as I met his near black eyes. "Maybe," I said back in the same breathless voice, "but you really want to be ruined by someone like me?"

"Darling," he said, "there's no one else I'd want."

"Stop giving her 'fuck-me' eyes and get over here!" laughed West. "These fuckers are saying I can't out drink you, come on, old man."

Crow rolled his eyes but gave me one last smile as he said, "Who am I to say no to a challenge?"

I grinned. "Knock 'em dead."

Crow squeezed my hip as he brushed past me, already laughing and shouting, "I'd like to see you try, Michael! I have, what? A century over your ass?"

"More like five, you big 'ole fuckin' geriatric asshole!"

"You hear that?" laughed Stone. "Those are fighting words, boss!"

I tossed out the beer in my hands and grabbed myself a new one from the cooler Stone had dragged out here, one I didn't know we even had. I popped the cap off, hitting it against the side of the railing hard enough for it to split off with a satisfying pop! Taking a long sip, I contemplated going inside just for a moment alone when a tug in my gut told me to stay where I was.

My thigh burned under my pants, where I'd drawn the incantation symbol earlier today. It burned like someone was trying to peel back my skin, to break the spell. I needed to keep myself planted on the deck but I merely ended up turning myself away from the fire and the laughing men. John wouldn't stop until I let him in, so I pushed myself away from the railing and headed into the house. I made a beeline for the bathroom where I could ease myself to the floor and force myself to drop back into John's geata. I wouldn't know until I went, I told myself as I dropped to my knees and sunk my mind into the tugging and pulling.

Dropping myself into my own abyss.

I stood in front of headstones and it took me a moment to realize I was standing in the Rose Hill cemetery. There were flowers laid out beside the grave which was freshly dug, the dirt a soft and malleable brown. There were seven, all overturned and fluffy from a recent burial. I could see more graves further out from me but they were blurry, not quite yet in focus but still present and waiting. What I did notice, more than the slight rain brushing my skin and the graves and the sweet sickly smell of flowers, was how I wasn't alone.

"I didn't think of you as someone who mourned," I murmured, facing the blank headstone. Who did he see? Who did he want me to see?

"I'm not," said John, hands stuffed in the pockets of his dress pants. He wore a black suit, as if coming from a funeral. All of it looked too big on him, like he was smaller here than in life. "But I thought you would be. It's the perfect place to talk, right?"

"While you bleed me out on the other side?" I said with a scoff, shaking my head.

"I'm not hurting you there."

"Yeah, right."

"I promise," he said, coming to stand beside me. "Earlier had been our first real attempt. We're better with contact through dreams, it requires less blood."

"Like when Ace visited me?"

He nodded. "You'll wake with a bloody nose, maybe a bloody mouth." He shrugged. "You won't bleed out with me here."

I rolled my eyes. "How considerate of you."

He shrugged, hands still in his pockets, as he kicked the flowers. "Do you know why I brought you here? Wanted to speak with you?"

I shook my head. I'd assumed it was all some trick.

"I wanted privacy," he said, looking up and further out as if this wasn't all some mirage created for us. "To speak with you alone."

"No one else is listening in?"

"It's only us here," he said as he shook his head. He bent down, splaying one big hand in the dirt and letting it fall from his fingertips. There was something so different about him here, like he wasn't truly himself but an older version. There was age in his eyes, time and restlessness. "Do you like the touch I've done with the graves, though?"

Always a child, looking for validation.

My brows furrowed and he answered for me, "Don't get it? Here, I'll show you," he said as he stood. "Seven graves for the seven of you. Victor, Monroe, Evangeline, Archer..."

I frowned. "But no grave for you?" I was glad he didn't know of our four new additions.

"It's a pity though," he said softly, "that there will be no grave for me here. Would've liked to have been here with you, immortalized into stone. Kinda poetic, don't you think? To be stuck with you even in death?"

We had been stuck with each other since the beginning of time without ever realizing it. Two souls; contrasting, opposites, bouncing off the other until now. The fates had aligned everything too perfectly, setting us up here in this timeline. I wondered if there were other timelines that had failed to force us here together now. How many lives did we have to live where the other lived or died?

"We've always been the same," he whispered with a slight shake to his head. His hair seemed longer, curling around his ears and nape of his neck. "Born and stripped from the same soul. There was never a time we were truly apart."

I felt the slow trickle of blood fall from my nose and I let it drip over my lips. Nothing was real here anyway. Just an illusion to terrify me, even if I was bleeding on the other side. It made me think about what it was doing to him, being forced to play with blood magic. Was it depleting him too? Or was he magically fine?

"John," I murmured, bending down to pick up the fallen rose petals from where he'd kicked at them, "are you happy?" When I glanced up at him, his lips were pressed into a thin line, so I continued with another question. "Do you like what you've become? You can tell me. With how all of this is going to end, are you happy?"

He was silent as I stood, eyes still cast outwards and at the graves. All seven. I thought, maybe, one was for him and Ace, that two of us got to live, but if none lived...I didn't want to survive at all. John looked away from the graves and met my gaze and I knew, with awful certainty, he felt the same as me.

"It's how it all has to be," said John finally, a light shrug to his shoulders. "It's been written before we were born. There's never been a life when the other hasn't died and fought...or been locked away."

"It doesn't have to be this way."

"Yes, it does." There was a split second where I believed I could see sadness in his eyes but it was gone as quickly as it came. I would never know John, not really. "To be one step closer to killing God, I must kill you. To kill God..." He chuckled. "Well, to become one you must destroy the first. With your soul, with your powers, and the bridge between heaven and hell finally split open, I'd be able to go home and take back what's mine."

To never be locked in a cage again...

"Why can't there be two?" I asked and he frowned. "There's nothing wrong with multiple gods."

"He took everything from me," whispered John, shaking his head. "He cast me out."

"You're doing the same to me," I said back in the same soft tone. "You're tearing me apart and you don't care."

"I'm not the one who tore you apart first, Blaire." His eyes went dark. "You let Archer take something that belonged to me, don't forget that."

"You've been out to get me long before I allowed myself that pleasure," I snarled back. "He didn't take anything from me when I was the one who gave it to him."

"It wasn't yours to give!" John dragged a hand down his face, trying to compose himself. "He broke the final seal, one that had been meant for me. It's always been this way and he..." John straightened. "He'll die for it."

Although his words stung me, I didn't let him see it as I spoke. "It's a shame, John," I whispered, "that you can't allow yourself to be better than what everyone sees you as." Blood spilled down my chin, trickling over the column of my neck. "You could prove to everyone, to your father, to every God, that you're better than this but..." I shook my head with a laugh. "You'll never be righteous enough to do it. You'll make yourself small before ever getting the chance to be big."

"I don't have a choice."

"We always have one."

"Not here," he snarled. "Not with the fates, with the prophecy, and with God. It was always going to end like this."

"Like what? You and me?"

Once, I would've thought he was handsome, but with the cruelty curling its way across his face...he said, "With you dead and your blood filling my gut and the fucking earth."

I sighed. "Send me home, John."

"There isn't much time left for you, for us."

"I guess, I'll see you then."

I blinked once and I saw graves, I blinked twice and I was staring up at the bright lights of the bathroom and an anxious demon looking down at me. He helped me sit up and grumbled, "Maybe one of us should stay here tonight, you're clearly untrustworthy by yourself."

I rolled my eyes, running my tongue over bloody teeth and sucking. "How'd you know there was something wrong?"

Tobias shrugged, reaching for a wash cloth and handing it to me. "Felt a tug in my gut, like a cramp that something bad had happened."

"It wasn't anything bad, just a much needed conversation."

"John?"

I nodded. "Thought I'd humor him."

"And this?" he asked, motioning to the red smearing over the cloth.

"Just some poor excuse for magic." I blew my nose, trying to get the blood out the best I could before spatting into the rag. "How long was I gone for?"

"Fifteen minutes, maybe."

"Everyone still outside?"

Tobias nodded, helping me stand. "I made an excuse for you, that you were getting us more beer so..."

"And Crow?" I asked, throwing the rag into the trashcan and burying it under old tissues and trash. I didn't need him seeing it and asking questions.

"Having a good time for once in his awful life."

I smiled. "Good. He deserves it."

Tobias smirked, resting a hand against the doorframe above my head to lean closer. "You know, we're not all oblivious like Stone." My brows furrowed and his smirk neared a genuine smile. "Don't play dumb, we all know."

"Know what?" I scoffed, crossing my arms.

"Come on, little necromancer," he cooed, leaning closer. Somehow, this host body was less menacing than the first but still, I could admit he was still just as attractive. He always would have that charm and charisma. "We see the way you look at him."

"So?"

"It's cute. You're all loved up."

"Don't patronize me."

"Hmm."

"What the hell are you doing?" came a new voice, barking out the demand as they entered the bedroom. Probably in search of me if I didn't know any better.

"Nothing, boss," said Tobias, leaning back and standing straight again. Still smirking, like the arrogant asshole he was, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Just making sure your girlfriend was getting us those beers."

Crow narrowed his eyes, didn't correct him, and motioned with a jerk of his head towards the door. "Get the fuck out of here."

"Going now, boss."

I raised a brow and turned to Crow as he approached me once Tobias had left and closed the door behind him. "Boss?"

"Don't try to distract me," he murmured, "when you have dried blood on your chin."

"Just John," I said, swiping his hand away. "Wanted to talk about our deaths, how he'll kill us all, and that we're doomed. You know...the usual."

"You allowed him to have contact?"

I shrugged. "I was curious. Sue me."

He sighed with a slight shake to his pretty head. "I think you love testing my patience."

I smiled "And I think you just love me." I held my hand out to him and watched him take it. "Let's send the guys home, tomorrow...tomorrow's probably going to suck."

"Cassandra won't be happy to meet Tobias, you know that, don't you?" he said as we walked to the door.

"I don't think she's going to like a lot of them, actually," I said behind a laugh.

When we left the bedroom and came back to the boys by the fire, I ignored my impending doom, the horrible fate burned under my skin and into my bones, to drink beer and share a marshmallow or two with the men who tried to kill me.

Funny, how things seemed to change so rapidly now, and I have the sinking feeling it wouldn't stop changing until I finally got to look John in the eyes. Dreams didn't count, nor did miscalculated geatas. When John finally looked me dead in the eyes with no magical barrier to stop us, I had the feeling he wouldn't like what he'd see after all this time. I wasn't the girl he met on my first day of classes but nor was he the same boy.

He was going to be sorely disappointed his one wish would come true. To be immortalized with me in stone, in death, would be the only way he'll ever get to have the satisfaction of having me. Oh, how the fates knew we'd always be bound by death and if only he did too.

He'd never escape me.

We were each other's homes, the one we searched for day and night without realization. Unaware by how tightly we were wound together. Unaware of how if one went, the other would surely follow. If only he knew how home would always be the first grave, that we would never be that far from the other. Unless the fates had other plans, unless God hadn't meant what he did, that Adrienne, the first, knew that passing down her gift would serve a different but better purpose. That these gifts weren't meant for only death and dying.

I looked over the faces of my new comrades and smiled, tilting the beer back and draining what was left. Crow laughed at something Macabre was saying, West was chugging another beer, Stone and Reed looking through the phones we'd gotten them, and Tobias, with his unnerving stare, looking at me across the fire. He'd known when I'd left that something had gone wrong. He'd sensed it, in his gut, that I was hurt. Could the others who I brought back feel the same with the blood oath? We hadn't even properly shared blood besides the process of reanimating him and yet...

Tobias met my smile with one of his own and I thought back to him dying, to his gun going off near my face. We'd all been linked together far longer than I'd thought. It would only make sense that bond would stay through death and now back in life.

I looked at my people and hoped that all this magic bullshit and dying would work our way. There wasn't much else I could do but hope. We could only hope.

feeling conflicted bc this feels like such a shitty chapter to leave yall w!!! ugh!!! but i havent updated in so long...im so sorry omg

ill do better <333

ALSO: thoughts on tobias? the rest of the morticianers coming back?!!?!?

me when deciding what to do writing all of this:

something that reminds me of this book:

something blondie or pandora would've said on a 'normal' day:

pls pls pls comment / vote !!! it'll motivate me to start pumping chapters out again <33