"Skylar, come with me."

"No." I felt the ground rumble beneath my feet and I turned to see cars barreling towards us. Men got out, and my breath caught as I saw C.C. and Paul mixed in with them.  Lincoln never looked back, so he didn't see them, but he heard me, felt my nervousness, and rubbed my arm. I felt less like we were going to fail spectacularly when he was rubbing my arm. I felt like we were going to fail mediocrely. I've found that in life, and in my death too, if mediocracy is the goal, maybe you should be focusing on running and getting yourself out of whatever crap pile you just fell in.

But in our case, I could hear each distinct step the men took to cut us off from escape in the back. To go forward, we'd have to face Mr. Devil. We could run to the side, but the reinforcements would probably have no problem catching us. It finally dawned on me exactly what was at stake.

No more Lincoln. There wouldn't be someone who understood me and my feelings like he did anymore. There wouldn't be someone to massage my shoulder when I was scared or someone to tell me he loved me when I thought everything was falling apart.

I latched onto his shirt, my knuckles turning white. The men started to entire our line of sight, forming a complete circle around us. I suddenly wanted to cry, but looking at the men, I knew I couldn't. Lincoln looked down at me, and I hesitantly made myself meet his eyes.

"I don't know what to say. I want to tell you that you don't need to be scared, but I don't know."

I forced myself to let go of his clothes, wrapping my arms around him. He let me for a few moments, and no one else said anything, something that while I didn't show it, I appreciated.

"Sky," Lincoln murmured, and I looked up at him. "I don't know what's going to happen, but if something does... if I never see you again, I want to..."

He turned so we were face to face, and I stood up straighter. He put his thumb under my chin, lifting it up. I looked in his eyes as he tipped his head gently to one side, bending down, letting his lips touch mine. It wasn't anything passionate, really, just a sort of confession to each other, a way of saying that we were each other's world.

In science, a long time ago, middle school, the teacher was talking about the world of sprawling stars. We spent a class talking about binary stars. Binary stars are two celestial bodies—stars as the name suggests—that are bound together as they orbit around the same point. I could give you a more scientific definition, but it probably wouldn't be right. Science was never my forte.

When I learned about the phenomenon, I was in the height of my romantic stupidity, longing for fictional characters that were too perfect and too, well, not real. The term binary stars and the way two people in the great romances orbit around their mutual love and dedication forever became linked in my head. The kiss became the point me and Lincoln orbited around. Me and Lincoln became the stars, forever bound together to travel parallel paths, always together in the great void of the universe.

Lincoln held me, his lips demonstrating that they loved me, and I could have been out of the atmosphere, floating in pinpricks of light, but it didn't feel like hell. Someone cleared their throat, declaring their presence to us, as though we'd take that into consideration and change our behavior for their comfort. Lincoln paused for a slight moment, so brief only I noticed, and then we were off again.

He eventually, after seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, some amount of time, he slowly pulled back and took my breath with him. His hand was under my chin again, but this time he just looked, seeming to memorize every detail of my face, as though he were a computer taking an impossibly long time to download the image. It occurred to me that I should probably do the same.

I looked at his perfectly brown eyes, and I didn't see anything else. However hard I tried to absorb his entirety, to create a memory of his features to hold forever dear, I think I already knew that I had enough. I knew how his face seemed to blossom when he laughed. I wasn't going to get that by looking at him. I knew so many things. I knew how his voice sounded describing any random thing to me on the phone. I could remember how cold it was when I first held it up and how it warmed as we talked.

I didn't need anything more. I just needed him.

His arms were around my waist and suddenly he pulled me into him, and we embraced each other as though we weren't about to get knocked far from our shared orbiting point.

"Don't touch the Angel, but get the Soul away from her," I heard the Devil say, my name no longer seeming to be relevant.

I braced against Lincoln, prepared for a rush of hands come to pry us apart. But nothing came except C.C.'s voice.

"Let them have their moment."

The Devil said something in reply, but it was lost as Lincoln whispered in my ear.

"I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world. I swear—I swear I'll always, and I mean always wish you're with me when you're not. I need you, Sky. I need you so much."

"Lincoln, you know exactly how I feel. You're the love of my life, and the reason I'm even trying in death. You say you need me, but you are the air to me. You are the way I feel when I've just finished a huge tub of ice cream. You, Lincoln Carver, mean more to me than anything. You mean more to me than the rules I was always so afraid to break, the grades I treasured, the life I lived. I love—no there must be a stronger word. I love you to the point that it almost hurts. I love you to the point that I think I'm crazy. Lincoln don't say anything. Just hold me and maybe it'll turn out to be alright. Just don't say anything."

He didn't, but when he buried his face in my hair as I buried mine in his chest, I felt a cold wet. That was it. I started crying into him, the tears coming hot and sticky. I couldn't stop.

"Soul, this is your last chance to step away from her."

Lincoln didn't say anything, he didn't move. I hugged him tighter, and hoped the world would fade away and leave the two stars, caught in a twist of nature, be.

"I'll take that as a 'no.' Don't touch the Angel, but the Soul, I don't care about him. Just get them apart."

I couldn't watch. I smelled the wine on Paul's breath before anything else. His sneering voice followed, and for a moment, I wanted to go back to only caring about making sure Lincoln studied for a test, or how to gently decline pleas for me to drive the drunk friends to their homes.

I felt Lincoln bristle. Then, the Roman's hand was pulling at one of Lincoln's arms. More and more people joined. Then, they had his arms held behind him. I still clung to him, and they seemed scared to touch me, to try to pull me away.

C.C.'s voice came, reassuring in an odd way. I felt his calloused hands gently pulling me back. I held on tighter to Lincoln.

"Glowstick, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about this, but you need to let go."

Need is a strong word. I'm sorry is a surprisingly unapologetic phrase too, but C.C.'s voice was tinged with regret. I couldn't be mad at him, but I couldn't listen either. His hands slowly, gently, surely started to pry me off.

"I'm sorry. I think you two deserve each other and in a perfect world, I would do everything in my power to help you succeed, but I need to look out for myself. I hope you understand that, and I hope you understand that I really am apologizing. I'm not asking for forgiveness, but I just want to say it anyway."

I did understand. I didn't agree, but I understood. I did forgive him too, but I didn't say anything, and I didn't tell him. Maybe I should've. Maybe I shouldn't have pretended I'd gone deaf. Maybe I shouldn't have let myself cry even more, deeper into Lincoln's chest. I wished he'd wrap his arms around me, I wished the men would let him.

I wished I hadn't let myself sag, finally giving C.C. the thing he needed to pry me away. I wish C.C. hadn't been so gentle and all the men around Lincoln so rough. I fell on my butt and cried, my world swimming and my body aching so I didn't want to get up. I hear the sounds as Lincoln struggled, but he didn't win. He couldn't have won that fight, but I understood. He had to feel like he'd tried. That his best wasn't good enough, not that it might have been good enough.

The Devil walked over to me, and he looked down at me, not pitying me. Just observing me. Lincoln snarled out one last line.

"Don't you dare hurt her."

And don't you dare hurt him. I should have said that, but it was all too much. Lincoln's eyes fell on me.

"Sky," he said, his voice tight as he struggled, "don't cry. Please. You'll be alright. Just please don't cry."

I heard the pain in it. The way it hurt him that I was crying on the ground. He couldn't comfort me, soothing as he had the natural instinct to do. I tried to stop, closing my eyes to keep the tears in. I took deep breaths, and when I looked up at Lincoln again, I was just sniffling, and for a moment I pitied myself, and hated the feeling of being pitied all at once.

Lincoln looked down at me, and he pulled towards me, but they held him in place. I felt so weak, which is why I barely objected as the Devil picked me up, bridal style.

"Don't touch her," Lincoln ground out, but there was nothing he could do. I closed my eyes and let myself be moved, taking one last breath as a warmth consumed me, and then I was gone.