Chapter Forty-Two (Newell)

The scream left me before I could stop it.

Unimaginable terror and pain sliced through me as I watched Svenival appear behind Xed. I didn't even have time to open my mouth to warn him before Svenival had plunged his fist through Xed's chest, effectively removing his heart. Xed looked startled, caught off guard. I'd never seen him look so confused and surprised at the same time. He didn't even have time to defend himself or do anything, but glance down at his heart in Svenival's palm.

Before Svenival tore it back out through his back and stepped away. Xed fell to his knees, mismatched eyes still open, but they were completely blank. Another scream hit me as I tried to catch my breath. I managed to get my legs working, running over to Xed and falling down in front of him to catch him around the torso, holding him against me. He felt heavy, but not as heavy as usual. His body slumped against me, his head resting on my shoulder. My vision blurred and stung as I struggled to push Xed up so he was in front of me.

Svenival stepped back, watching with narrowed eyes, remaining silent as I scrambled to keep Xed on his knees.

"Xed? Xed, don't do this!" I shouted, giving him a shake, but his head just fell back and forth before slumping forward. His eyes were empty, the life in them gone, blood oozing past his lips and falling in thick tendrils to the ground between us. I felt a painful lump in my throat and swallowed hard, trying to find words to shout at him to wake him, but instead, a sob escaped my throat.

It hurt, it burned.

Everything hurt.

My heart felt like it was shattering into tiny pieces and was falling into the pit of my stomach. I felt sob after sob come up my throat as I tried to hold Xed up, but he was just too heavy and he slumped on his side onto the pavement. I pushed him onto his back, another scream tearing up my throat as I stared at the damage done to his chest.

His rock solid chest, smooth and perfect for nipping and snuggling. It was complete torn open. A gaping hole remained, gushing blood through the bottom, staining the pavement a deep black color from the amount of blood. His heart lay just a couple feet away from him.

"Xed! Xed, stop doing this! Wake up!" I choked, giving him another shake, but he said nor did anything, staring straight up at the sky in death. I clenched my fists in his shirt, body shaking as I tried to gain control of myself.

This wasn't me. This wasn't something I did. I hadn't cried since the day of my birth. No one had ever seen me cry, only my mother and she was dead. I never cried. I never cared. I never loved. I never cared. I'd been tortured all my life, by my father, by my allies, by my so-called friends, and even by myself. Both physically and mentally.

And yet.

There was nothing this painful.

Nothing had ever hurt this worse. I felt like someone was ripping me apart from the inside out. It was too hard to gain control over myself and it only seemed to hurt me further to try and choke down the sobs that racked my body with tremor after tremor. I clenched my teeth, feeling hot trails coming down my cheeks. I reached up with a shaking hand to touch my cheek and pull my hand back to stare at the wet salty tears there, which only made me cry harder. I dropped my hand down on Xed and gave him a weak shake, but it was no use.

Xed was dead.

He wasn't breathing. He wasn't staring at me like he always did when he thought I wasn't looking. He wasn't smiling or scowled or making hand gestures. He wasn't kissing me or pulling me close to his body for protection.

He was gone.

Dead. Lifeless.

While the rational part of my brain knew this and that I had to kill Svenival, the grief was too much. I'd never experienced such an agony. It was tearing me apart. I couldn't even move as Svenival approached me, taking out a gun and pointing it at my head. I didn't care. If it meant I could see Xed again, it didn't matter to me.

I couldn't do this anymore.

I'd been alone my entire life. No one cared about the pathetic son of Edward Calhoun Drakon. Everyone used me and threw me away as if I were nothing. People sneered at me, curled their lips, called me a demon, spat at me, tortured me, destroyed me. I had tried so hard, knowing there had to be something, someone, who actually gave a damn about me, a purpose for someone like me in this world. There had to be something.

Surely I wasn't born to just die.

To be hated.

To be scorned.

There had to be a reason to live.

And Xed was that reason. Even when I was in the pathetic body the gods had cursed me with, he still loved me and still protected me. He lasted the longest. He fought to protect me and hold me, even when I spat on him and cursed him for it. He spent decades by my side. He rescued me when things got hard.

He was the one dream that I had been to afraid to have.

He was mine.

And now he was gone.

Everything was gone. There was no reason to be here anymore. There was no more reason to fight. It was all over. And that thought succeeded in breaking me as I sobbed, shoulders heaving as I tried to suck in sweet oxygen, but it only tasted like poison to my clenching lungs. I couldn't stop. There was no way to stop it. Everything came pouring out as sobs and screams of agony.

Svenival put his finger over the trigger and a gunshot went off, but it didn't hit me. Svenival froze, a dark hole buried in his forehead before he stumbled back and hit the ground. I didn't turn to see who had done it.

Because nothing else mattered now.

I slumped on top of Xed, wrapping my arms around him tightly, screaming in agony.

"You lied," I sobbed, clenching my fists against him,"You lied to me! You said you wouldn't leave me, but you lied! You bastard!" Xed still didn't react. Just laid there, dead, staring at nothing. Another sob tore up my throat and I buried my face against him, placing my hand over the hole in his chest where his heart had been. I squeezed my eyes shut, choking back another sob.

"I'm sorry I never said it. I'm so sorry," I wept, curling up against him, "I'm sorry I never told you... I love you, Xed. I love you so much. I love you more than anything. You're the only one I've ever loved." I wasn't even sure if Xed's soul, wherever it was, could hear me and that hurt even worse. I hadn't told him before he died that I loved him. The gestures, the mouthing, none of it was equal to the words that I should have said to him. The words he deserved to hear, the words that were meant only for him. The words I had never said to anyone, not even my own parents as a child.

I wasn't even sure I said them right. I kept repeating those three words over and over again, hoping that somewhere, Xed could hear me, but my voice faded into a hoarse whisper before I lapsed into more sobbing.

I hate this. No matter how much I wanted to stop, I couldn't. This was so unreal, so unlike me. I had never loved anyone. I hadn't even wept when I murdered my parents.

Why did it hurt so much?

Why me? Why Xed?

He was so young, I realized in agony. He was younger than me. He had left his world because he wanted to find a world that was more exciting and more meaningful. Isn't that what all young people wanted? To step into a world of wonder compared to their world of shelter? He could have gone somewhere. He could have found safety after Edward was killed. He may not have been able to return home, but he could have returned to where he belonged-- the sea. He could've found a smart, pretty young mermaid and started a family. He could've had children. He could've lived out his days in peace and quiet.

But now he was dead, and it was my fault.

Oh god, it was all my fault.

If I hadn't of let him follow me... If I hadn't of started the Stratius in the first place... If I hadn't of started Zephyra or killed my parents. I should've just killed myself when I had the chance and Xed would have never known this kind of agony and frustration.

Xed was dead because of me.

And now I had nothing.

For the first time in my entire life, I felt truly alone and small. It didn't matter what my body looked like. I was trapped in a world that was collapsing in on me and I felt like I was suffocating.

I tightened my grip on Xed's body, feeling my sobs fade into quiet dry gasps as I clung to him. I didn't care if the humans heard and came out to investigate. I didn't care if they came to take me away and experiment on me or even kill me. None of it mattered.

I wasn't leaving Xed.

I couldn't do it.

A hand touched my shoulder and I managed to peer past my hair up at Hunter, who was bleeding heavily and on the verge of death no doubt. My heart wrenched in pain as he stared down at me blankly. He didn't speak. Just reached out with a trembling bloody hand and touched my head. He rubbed my hair, then retreated, walking past Daimonas, who was sobbing too. Starling had his arms wrapped around him tightly, both of them clinging each other, and even Starling was crying.

Dominik too sat in the truck with a tear stained face, holding D'Nath to him tightly as D'Nath laid against him, still unconscious. I wasn't sure why D'Nath was there and why Dominik was with him, but he wasn't attacking, not that it mattered anymore. I didn't care if I died anymore.

"Xed, I'm so sorry," I choked at last, sniffing and rubbing my cheek on his cold skin, "If I could change this, I would. I'd give anything to have you back." And it was the truth too. I'd give up my own life if it meant I could see Xed one more time.

"Is that the truth?" A voice asked. The familiar was eerily familiar and I jerked my head up, reaching up to wipe hard at my face with the back of my bloodied hand. A woman was coming across the parking lot, her deep red hair was a stark contrast to her pale skin and stormy gray eyes. She wore a long purple tunic and white jeans, her matching heels clicking as she walked toward me.

"Alora." I managed. The witch from San Francisco, the one who had read my Tarots. I wasn't sure how she got there, but I didn't care.

"Did you mean what you said?" Alora asked in a hard voice.

"Mean what?" I demanded, voice still trembling. Alora came to stand over me, her eyes drifting to Xed and sorrow filling her eyes before she looked at me.

"I gave you a gift to use wisely and you did not use it for such. You took advantage of it." She stated, making me look at her in confusion.

"What gift?" I sputtered. How dare she come to me and say such things! I didn't have time for her and her useless gifts! Alora's eyes darkened as if she had read my thoughts.

"If you weren't so racked with grief, I'd take your heart out for that and bury it with your merman's." She said, making me glare at her hatefully.

"Then do it." I dared. She looked like she was half tempted, then shook her head and looked at me in irritation.

"I gave you what you had always wanted. I gave you the body you craved, even in your deepest of dreams and darkest of nightmares. You were supposed to use that body to do things you couldn't do before. To help others and to right the wrongs you've done, but instead, you only used it for evil and for impurity. You took the wrong path, Newell Calhoun Drakon. And for that, you have paid dearly." She informed coldly. I clenched my teeth and wanted to tell her to leave, to rot in a hole, but instead, I couldn't find it in me.

Because I knew she was right.

I already knew this was my fault.

And that succeeded in a fresh sob to escape my throat. I looked down at Xed in agony. His body was already ice cold and horribly pale. His dead eyes stared into nothingness and how I wanted to close those eyes, I couldn't bring myself to do it. If I lost sight of those green and brown mismatched eyes, I wouldn't be able to take it.

"I can bring him back for you." Alora said suddenly. My sobs choked off as I jerked my head up and stared at her.

"W-What?" I stammered. Alora gave me a grim frown.

"I can, but there is always a price to pay." She warned, but I didn't care about that. She could bring back Xed. She could bring him back to me.

"Anything!" I managed. Alora lifted a thin brow and folded her arms over her chest as she stared down at me intensely and I was almost through with her cryptic messages when she spoke.

"I want the gift back," She stated, "Give me the years I had added onto your life. Give them back to me and I can use them to bring back Xed." I froze at that. I wasn't sure why I even bothered to consider it, but it went through me like a blade of ice. If Xed came back, I would be the way I used to. He would never be able to do what he longed to do to me all these year. If I didn't, it wouldn't matter because he wouldn't be here.

I would rather live out my days as my past than without Xed.

"Fine." I choked. Alora gave me a curt nod and stepped back, holding her hand out at me. She didn't speak or do anything more than that. She didn't need to do anything else. The first bone in my body cracked and I yelled in pain, cringing and hunching over as my bones cracked and broke, shrinking inside me. My organs all throbbed as one single drum inside me and I moaned in pain, clenching my fists, then opening my hands wide as the bones there snapped and shrank. I watched them get smaller and smaller, tears blurring my vision as everything in me changed. My clothes became larger and larger until my pants weren't even around my waist anymore. I was only wearing the long sleeved shirt that slid off one of my shoulders, the sleeves almost a foot past my fingertips.

I gasped as the transformation finished and I looked up, but Alora was gone. I blinked, confused, before I looked at Xed quickly, but nothing happened. My stomach clenched and I choked, giving him a shake, but still nothing.

She tricked me!

Xed was still dead!

And I was... I couldn't choke down another sob as I grabbed at Xed's arm and shook him, tears streaming down my face and feeling like trails of lava on my cold cheeks.

I was deformed again and Xed wasn't here.

He was still dead. I wailed in pain and slumped back down on Xed, refusing to move, even when Hunter came to touch me on the shoulder again at the sound of sirens in the distance. I wasn't going to leave. I didn't care anymore.

"I'm not leaving him!" I shouted as Hunter pulled on my shoulder.

"He's gone, Newt," Hunter said, voice wet with blood, "And the cops are gonna be here any minute. We don't have time--" I shoved his arm away and held onto Xed tightly, breathing hard and fighting another wave of sobs that threatened to overtake me.

"Then leave! I'm not going!" I snarled at him. Hunter glared down at me, unhooking his arm from around his busted ribcage.

"We don't have time for this!" He stooped down and caught me under the arms, jerking me back from Xed forcefully. I gasped, reaching out to try and grab Xed again, but Hunter just heaved me over his shoulder and I screamed, raking my nails down his back.

"Put me down! No! Stop! Xed! Xed!"

"He's dead!"

"I don't care! I'm not leaving him!"

"He's dead, you little idiot, and the cops are gonna be here any second! We don't have time for this!"

"Noooo! Xed!" I kicked and squirmed, but Hunter refused to put me down as he gestured for the others to get into the truck. Starling and Daimonas got in the back while Dominik and D'Nath took up the front. From the looks of it, either we lost Peter, Walter, Ollie, and Orion, or they had taken off and abandoned us, which only made me loathe them further. Hunter threw me into the truck head first and I slammed into Dominik, who winced. I pushed away from him and went to get out, but Hunter got in and sat on the seat in front of me, slamming the door shut and locking all the doors.

"Let me out! Let me out! I can't leave him!" I tried to move past Dominik, but to my surprise, he pushed me back and forced me into my seat. I gasped in panic, my heart throbbing painfully in my chest as Hunter started the car and we headed out of the parking lot. Xed's body still laid on the pavement and I felt a pained wail escape my throat as I tried to get past Dominik again, but he let go of D'Nath to hold me back as Hunter drove down the road.

And left Xed behind.