TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE. MURDER. SUICIDE. DEATH.

Author's Note: 

For anyone that would like to skip this chapter, I have provided a vague summary of the plot points you'll need to know at the bottom. Or if you'd prefer, please message me and I'll send you the summary that way. 

Much love, Miss Bonnett

#

I had been awake for a while with my eyes closed, listening to Edward get ready for the day. At any point the sounds came too close, my body tensed. His scuff of shoes blasted my eardrums the way muskets sounded before they shot birds out of the sky.

Edward sat on the edge of the bed and I froze, readying myself for anything. His breath scattered across my bare skin like dozens of little spiders and I swallowed a whimper. His hand dragged through my hair and I could feel the edge of his nails.

"Henry," he whispered, putting my charade to an end. I let him say my name again, a bit louder. 

"Henry..." A third time was too dangerous to test.

"Hm?" I hummed and stretched out my limbs, performatively. I opened one eye at Edward looming over me. His smile was a good sign. The chokehold around my heart slacked a little. No more pain for now. I could deal with that. "Are you leaving already? It's not yet dawn."

"I have some business to attended to before dawn, but I'll be back before you know it..." Edward said, dragging his finger back and forth across my bare shoulders and back. "I was thinking," he said in a way that made my chest clench. This would be phrased like a suggestion, but it was nothing except an order. "It was quite nice to hear that during my last trip you stayed in this room. Makes me feel like I know where you are...."

His finger left a trail of goosebumps along my skin. "It's how I know you're waiting for me. So while I'm gone, you should stay here. Agnes can bring up your food."

I fixed the smile on my face, avoiding any tremors or twitches, despite my heart beating so fast it threatened to burst out the middle. "That does sound lovely," I said, making my voiced despair sound more like exhaustion. "I think I'll stay in bed."

Edward bent down and kissed my temple, keeping his lips close. "I'll join you, if you're still here by the time I get back." He made a promise I wished he wouldn't keep and kissed my lips next, turning the acids in my stomach rotten. But I kissed him back and when he got up from the bed, I turned and pretended to find a comfortable place to go back to sleep. Waiting for the sound of the door to close, my heart dropped when I also heard a click.

Throwing the covers off, I ran to the door, but I knew better than to try to open it. Edward could still be close. I counted my breaths. My hand on the doorknob. Even without clothes, I needed to know.

With my weight, I twisted the knob and found resistance. "Dammit!" I spat, slamming my hand against the wood, but the fury was still festering inside me like a wild animal biting and scratching its cage. I kicked the door, threw my shoulder against it, until the door got the better of me and I stumbled with pounding muscles backwards. Catching my breath, I collapsed onto the floor and tried listening to the outside world.

He was trying to lock me up forever.

But I was meant to see Nicholas today.

Climbing back to my feet, I rushed to the window. The glass was cool with the explosion of winter outside. It was almost too bright to look out into. With a little prayer, I tried that too. It still wouldn't open. I struggled with lock more, my stomach dropping as I realized the plight of caged birds.

Not a single part of me thought Edward was kidding. He meant it. This was him finally locking me away as if I were another one of his acquired paintings or statues. To gather dust. And then, be forgotten. 

"Henry!"

I yelped, flinging myself into the window and drawing the drapes around my body. "Jesus, Iggy," I gulped in the air and pressed my hand over my heart to keep it from escaping. "Don't scare me like that."

Ignacio's red smoke still lingered around him as he approached. His eyes wide and face ashen. My horrible feeling had suddenly, somehow gotten worse. "Henry," he called my name like a dying man and I reached for him, wishing to save my friend.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." for the first time, Ignacio's eyes were wide in fear as he reached for me. "I'm sorry."

"What is it? Tell me what's wrong."

Ignacio dipped his head, pressing it to my chest. "I understand if you never forgive me and I don't want to make excuses because I'm on your side but... I can't go against or lie to Edward. So when he asked me..."

When I found the floor, Ignacio joined me, head still bowed in shame. "Tell me."

Ignacio looked up at a loss. "He knows about Nicholas and I'm pretty sure he's on his way to kill him. I'm sorry. If it wasn't for me-"

"Stop," was all I could say after the air had been sucked out of me. His words landed like punches. Edward's punches. The kind that lingered and bruised. "Don't say that. You are wonderful." I smiled, but the tears poured anyway. "You're the only friend I've ever made and I'd never take that back. You can make it up to me later, but first I need to get out of this room."

"Right..." Ignacio tried pulling himself together as I quickly put on some clothes. I didn't bother with most buttons or straps, hoping the heavy coat I owned could make up for it. It was almost impossible to move my fingers when they were completely numb. I had no thoughts other than Nicholas. All I could see was his smiling face and wish that it would never end.

Ignacio disappeared in his red haze and I heard the door unlock. I didn't wait. Running at full speed, I kissed Ignacio again before taking off.

"Please, be careful!" Ignacio yelled after me.

It was the closest I had ever felt to flying, my feet barely touching the ground as I ran through the castle. Breaking into the winter air, the cold ripped through every layer, through my skin, and down to my bones. I could feel the wetness in my eyes freeze. I snuck into the stables and stole a horse, begging this sweet creature to take me into the village as fast as possible.

My stomach wouldn't stop turning. Vomit at the very edge of my throat. No thoughts. Just fly. Keeping soaring. Yell at people to get out of the way. Speeding through and jumping off the horse as soon as I made it to the bar, where Nicholas had a room on the top floor.

The owner, Tobias jumped back as I grabbed him. "Jesus, Henry! What are you doing?"

"Is Nicholas home?" I yelled, drawing all the attention directly onto me.

"No, he's at his brother's house. Is everything alright?"

The moment Tobias said Nicholas's brother's house, I was back on the horse and off again, using all my weight to drive forward. Tobias called my name, but my vision was narrowed. The ride was a blur. Only images of Nicholas on the ground flooded my mind. All the ways Edward could rip him from this earth. Him bleeding. Nicholas might already be dead. My heart dropped. I saw the small house in the distance, the little farm behind it. The horse barely stopped before I jumped off again, stumbling and landing hard in the snow. It soaked my knees. Or maybe I split my skin open. I didn't care. This entire day was like trying to run inside a nightmare.

The door opened just as I found my way upright.

"Henry?" Nicholas was there, his brow flying up his forehead. He flung himself off the door, meeting me halfway in the snow. The moment he touched me, the tears exploded from my eyes. I could breathe. He was here. My hands could grab him, ground him to me. No sign of Edward's touch.

I made it in time.

"You're shivering." Nicholas cupped my face, and I relished the warmth from his rough hands. His brow pinched together. "And what are you wearing? Henry, let's get you inside."

"It's Edward," I finally spat out, the words clawing up my throat. "He knows Nicholas. He knows about us."

Nicholas slammed the door behind him. He tried pushing me towards an armchair by the fire, but I wouldn't sit. I couldn't. 

"Let me get you something warm to drink," Nicholas said and I stalked him across the room.

"Didn't you hear me? You should be throwing your entire life into a bag and running."

"You're wobbling," Nicholas said, kneeling in front of me. "You hurt your ankle and your knee is bleeding."

"Nick!" I shouted, joining him on the ground. Holding his face, I forced him to meet my eyes and for a moment, all I could do was look at him. I loved him. I loved him so much. "Edward is going to kill you and I can't let him. You need to grab everything you can carry and go."

"Come with me," Nicholas whispered, grabbing hold of my arms. Turning his cheek, he kissed my palm. Everywhere I touched him, the ice layered over my skin was slowly melting. "My brother bought land on an island named Sagewick. It won't be the same as you have now. I don't have a castle full of servants to tend to your every need. I can't put Thomas into a fancy school, but I'll love him and I'll love you and we can raise him in a house full of family and laughter. That's all I have to give, but I still want you to come."

"That's all?" A miserable, shaky laugh escaped my lips. His face. I never saw him this scared and it wasn't even about Edward. I shook my head. "Don't say that's all. You just described my dream."

"Is that a yes?" He touched his forehead with mine.

"Yes," I whispered and he swooped down and kissed me. Wrapping an arm around my back, he dipped me just slightly as his kisses tasted like tears and a future that I wanted to have more than anything. Everything good about me, about this life was inside of my hands.

"We have to leave," I insisted and covered his lips.

"Let's go get Thomas."

"Do you have a weapon?" I asked, my chest still constricted and small.

"I have a dagger." Nicholas gave a little embarrassed shrug. "And a lute," he said as a joke, but I couldn't bring myself to smile. Nicholas grabbed his cloak and what looked like his purse with all the money he had on hand. He grabbed my hand like it was all he needed, before smiling and quickly pecking my lips.

Nicholas opened the door.

A hand jutted out, the glint of a sword blinding me as it drove through Nicholas's stomach and out through his back. I screamed as Edward pulled his sword back through, grabbing onto Nicholas as he was falling and throwing him into the snow. He raised his sword again and I took Nicholas's lute, smashing it over Edward's head.

He stumbled back, giving me a small window. "No! No! No!" I sobbed, trembling as I came to Nicholas's side, pressing my hand against his bleeding wound. If I could just put it all back. Just put him back together. Nicholas was groaning and his crimson blood was spilling between my fingers just as fast as the tears were falling down my face. This was all too much. Too big of a mess to clean up. I didn't know where to begin.

"Nick, please, no." I bent over, pressing into his heart and craving the sound.

"It's okay," Nicholas whispered. "You're going to be okay."

"Don't leave me," I begged. "Please, don't go. I can't do this without you."

Edward's boot crunched in the snow. I had spent enough time measuring distances between him and I that I knew he was coming towards me. I grabbed Nicholas's dagger and cut through the air, finding purchase in Edward's hand. His blood splattered into the snow.

"You fucking bastard," Edward hissed. "Why don't you do as you're told?"

"Just leave me, Edward. You can't do anything worse to me. This was a punishment? Right?" I kept the knife trained on him. My other hand still slick with blood. Underneath, I could feel all the movement in Nicholas slowly stop. "How could you? He did nothing but love me."

"Love you?" Edward laughed and when he took a step, I straightened my arm. He would still need to reach for his sword. If he did, this dagger would find his back. "Love you? I loved you. I gave you a house. Gave you everything you could want."

"You never loved me. You don't know what love is!" My shouting was sucked inside the desolate void around us. Nothing but white all over the ground and covering the sky. Just nothing. It made it so I could hear our labored breathing. Just Edward's and mine. "All you know is pain and anger. God, Edward with everything you have, why are you so angry?"

"Everything I did, I did for you. I gave us the perfect life and yet, you still betrayed me."

"The money? The power? All that was for you. Not me. If you wanted me to be happy—"

"I'd give you to him?" Edward said like the words sat like poison in his mouth. "This worthless, nameless musician? I don't like people taking things from me. Once they're mine, they stay mine and that includes you."

He held his bloody hand out to me to take. To go back with him. "You're coming home with me and I will keep you locked up for the rest of your life so no other man or woman or thing will ever see you again."

"No."

Edward shook he was so angry. "That man is already dead! Henry, Come!"

"No. You never had me," I declared and flipped the dagger. "And you never will."

#

IGNACIO

While waiting for his master's next command, Ignacio could live weightlessly in the air. He could listen to conversations and spectate the world from a distance. He watched from above Edward, Henry took his dagger and drove it through his own stomach.

"You miserable little bitch!" Edward lunged for his sword to finish the job.

Ignacio saw red.

He appeared, his feet hitting the ground and without thinking, he plucked the bloody sword from the slush of snow before Edward could. Blacking out, Ignacio blinked and found he had slashed Edward's neck. Edward gurgled, reaching for the wound as blood poured from it and spurted to hit Ignacio's face.

The moment Edward's body hit the ground, choking on his own blood, the chains locking Ignacio and Edward together shattered.

The deal had been broken.

Ignacio had never broken a deal before. His insides burned so hot, he swore his bones were melting. He crumbled, dropping the sword and held his stomach. Something inside of him, maybe his own magic was being rejected and Ignacio wished he could just vomit and make the nausea go away. But he swallowed it when he heard Henry's voice.

"Iggy?"

Everything was new. All these feelings. These thoughts and he couldn't put any of it back. The cage surrounding his heart had been broken. Ignacio scrambled to push away this sadness, this earth shattering devastation. He trembled for the first time as he dashed to Henry's side. His hands hovered over the dagger still stuck inside his friend. Something was leaking out of his eyes.

Ignacio touched his cheek.

Tears.

Ignacio was crying.

He still couldn't breathe. And his heart punched the walls of his chest, making him all battered and bruised. It was all so painful. Having this heart had never been so heavy. It was too much. He wanted everything to slow down. To just stop.

"Henry, Henry, can you hear me?" Ignacio asked, trying to meet his friend's eyes.

"Iggy? You're here?" Henry worked up a smile. There was so much blood. On him. Staining the snow. From far away this could look like a rose garden. Ignacio shook his head. He needed to focus, needed to build whatever magic he had left. He could feel it fizzling out since he broke his deal with Edward.

How could he do that?

Demons didn't do that.

Demons didn't cry either.

Demons didn't care.

But Ignacio did. 

"Henry," Ignacio spoke up, trying not to yell. He kept his voice firm like he was losing his mind. "We don't have much time left. Remember how I had a deal with Edward? That's gone now." Ignacio forced a smile and touched Henry's cheek. It was so cold it stung. "You and I can make a deal. Tell me what you want. Anything you want, but I can't save your life until you tell me to. I can't do anything until you tell me to."

"Nicholas... he's..." Henry closed his eyes tight. He couldn't say it, but Ignacio knew. He recognized that glazed overlook on the musician.

"I can save him too."

"You can?"

"You have to tell me. I can't do anything on my own. You have to ask me."

"Save him," Henry croaked. His was so grated and thin. "Make him something less easy to kill. I want him to have a long life."

"I will, I can do that and now, you. Just tell me to close the wound." Ignacio was still smiling, trying to be as encouraging as possible despite his tears. "I'll just leave a scar. That'll be my payment—"

"And make sure Nicholas forgets me."

Everything but Ignacio's slacked jaw froze. His heart broke into two jagged pieces and an ocean of tears flooded out. Henry might as well just slapped him. He dropped his head. "Henry. If you say it, I have to do it."

"Good. If he forgets all about me, he can move on and not get caught up in my messes. There'll be nothing he regrets."

Ignacio took Henry's hand, using it for strength. Ignacio rocked back and forth, his anxious festering now. He could hear the tick of Henry's clock running out. "Okay. Okay. Whatever you want."

"And my brother, Thomas Winslow. He doesn't have a future anymore."

"He can, Henry and he can have you too—"

"Then, whatever you can do to set him up for a good life, please do it. He just needs to be comfortable and on his own. I don't want him to be trapped underneath a master."

"I'll give him a skill. Something. The payment can be..." Ignacio searched the empty sky. Out here, he felt totally alone. "It can be a percentage of profits or something. I don't know. Please, Henry. Please. Just tell me to save your life. It has to be from your lips."

"And Iggy," Henry smiled, a trail of blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth. "Find a way to be happy. I don't know what that looks like, but I want that for my dearest friend."

Ignacio shook his head. "Don't do this. I won't forgive you. Please, Henry. You have to ask me to save you. I can't do it on my own. Please..."

Henry turned. With the last of his strength, he reached for Nicholas's hand laying limp in the snow. But Henry couldn't reach. Soon Henry stopped trying. He stopped breathing. Stopped living, the light draining from his eyes.

"Dammit!" Ignacio cried, bending over Henry's chest. He slammed his fist in the snow just above him and wailed. His crying rattled his entire body as the anger boiled over inside him and he screamed.

"Dammit. Dammit." Ignacio shot up and paced back and forth in front of Henry and Nicholas. "Fine! If that's what you want, then fine!" Shooting his hand out straight, what looked like a thunderstorm was building from underneath Ignacio's hands. "I will bring Nicholas back as something nearly unkillable. Even better!" Ignacio snapped and began moving his hands in small circles, one on top of the other. The sky rumbled and the snow fell harder. Around them, a wind tunnel appeared, whipping their hair and clothes, flecks of ice and snow swirling too.

"I'll make him faster and smarter, and I'll make it so he can rise to the very top. I'll give him everything Edward wanted and more."

"And Thomas. I will give him magic. The magic I wanted to give you and it'll be more than what any witch has ever been born with so he can go on to do incredible things and in..." Ignacio could hardly stand. He needed rest. He needed time if he was going to use the last of his power on this deal.

He looked at Henry on the ground, reaching for his lover. He never thought he'd be so angry at Henry, so shattered. Through the tears, Ignacio forced out the words.

"In five hundred years, you'll come back." Ignacio almost couldn't say the rest, another sob stuck inside his throat. "You'll both come back. Nicholas Bellerose and Henry Winslow will come back, and you will come together in matrimony to create a bond so great that you'll be able to take this power from me. To make me mortal so I can never hurt the ones I love again. That is my price or else everything I promised will die. I will make you live."

His spell settled into the bodies and soon, the storm settled and quiet returned to the world.

And only Nicholas stirred. He gasped out, opening blood red eyes and clutched his throat. Writhing, he screamed out in fear and confusion as fangs grew inside of his mouth. He touched them and his face, searching the grounds of the farm. Ignacio took a step back, disappearing, but not completely.

He just couldn't be seen, but Ignacio knew he was fading away.

Crawling through the snow, Nicholas approached Henry and grabbed his body. He gathered Henry's small limp body and stared at it, examining him. Ignacio feared the deal didn't stick. Then, without so much as a second thought, Nicholas plunged his fangs into Henry's neck and drank blood for the first time as a vampire.

And at the same time, miles away at a boarding school, Thomas Winslow received a scroll explaining his new found gifts and what was expected of his descendants five hundred years down the lie. Thomas Winslow was brimming with all kinds of questions, including just who the Bellerose family were.

#

AUTHOR'S NOTE

SUMMARY: Edward tells Henry that he prefers it if he stays inside his room while Edward is gone. Once he leaves for the day. Edward locks Henry inside. Soon, Ignacio arrives to say he's the one that told Edward about Henry's affair with Nicholas. Henry escapes to save Nicholas, but Edward followed him there. He murders Nicholas and demands that Henry leave with him. Henry takes his own life instead, but before Edward can finish the job, Ignacio kills him.

Ignacio breaks his deal with Edward and tries to start one with Henry to save his life. Instead, Henry asks for Iggy to save Nicholas and to make sure Nicholas forgets him. He then asks for his brother to be set up for a comfortable life and that he wants Iggy to find happiness. When he dies, Ignacio is devastated, but heeds the deal: making Nicholas a vampire and Thomas a witch. To make himself happy, Ignacio will force Henry to come back and be with Nicholas in five hundreds to MAKE Henry live. This uses the remains of Iggy's magic, so he disappears.

#

AUTHOR'S NOTE PART 2

I actually wrote this two days ago at midnight. Just crying. I waited to edit it because it just makes me cry and sad. I wanna go over it again later before I put it elsewhere. Also, I hope the summary is okay. What do you guys think? Did I miss anything? Is it still too intense to read? Or is it okay?

It's crazy that we're here. After reading all the theories and guesses to what happened, I've been burning to reveal the truth about the deal. I'm itching to know your thoughts!! Is it what you expected? Are you surprised? Are the Romeo and Juliet vibes too strong, haha? (I wonder if anyone noticed I named Josephine's Club the Verona on purpose (as like a hint)?)