May 10, 2023

Queen

The doors opened, taking away the barrier that muffled the sound in the dining room and my gut twisted. I can't do this. I stepped out of view from the door frame instantly and Syn looked in my direction. I couldn't find the exact words to say as my heart beat out of my chest, but it was like he already knew.

He stepped through the doors as if Saint or I weren't right outside and clapped his hands together loudly. "Shit, I'll be right back," he said. "I forgot Saint..."

"How are you going to forget your child?" I heard Caspian say coolly in his accented voice. The sound brought back a nostalgia that brought a smile to my face and I shook my head.

"Right," I heard Cleo say. "On his birthday too."

Out of all the voices in the room scolding and teasing Syn for his neglect to bring Saint...hers hurt the most to hear. It brought me back to a time when she was the only person I spoke to after Syn was gone. I remembered how she held my hand in the hospital and told me everything would be okay when I was giving birth to Xavia...How every night following that day, she made sure I never spent it alone.

If it wasn't for her, I wasn't sure I'd be here.

So how could she above anyone in this world believe I had it in me to cheat on Syn? She personally and up close with no rose-colored glasses saw how destroyed I was after he died. Was there something I did or didn't do in my time of being best friends with her that changed her view of me to that point?

"I'll be right back," I heard Syn say.

I leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath as Saint looked up at me curiously. I wondered if he understood what was going on. Did he think I was a coward?

I began to remember the reason why we were here in the first place and my heart tore into pieces. This wasn't just some reunion for me to come and patch things up.

It was his birthday.

His second birthday and I was over here keeping him away from his family because of my personal issues.

Syn walked out of the room and his eyes landed on me in the hall. Before I could speak or try to explain myself, his hand was on my arm and he snapped his fingers. We were back in his room immediately and I shut my eyes to stop the minor dizziness. Saint giggled in my arms, thrilled by what just took place and I sighed.

"What happened?"

I opened my eyes to look up at Syn and I shook my head. "I thought I was ready to see everyone again, but I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry for making you come all the way back—"

"Don't apologize."

"Syn, you were so excited when I mentioned seeing them again. It has to hurt you that I just...didn't."

"What hurts me," he started, his eyes trained on mine, "is the possibility that you may have only come home as to not disappoint me."

"That's not it," I assured him. "I'm so...beyond excited to be back here with you. It's just everyone else that's making this so hard for me. I'll get over it, but it may take me a minute."

"Get over it," he repeated under his breath, letting out a huff before running a hand through his hair. "Fuck, I hate when you say that."

"I'm—"

"If you apologize again I'm going to lose my mind," he whispered. Shit...I kept my lips shut, not knowing what to say anymore and he looked back down at me. "You...are entitled to feel as angry as you want...for as long as you want. You don't need to get over it for anyone besides you, and that's only if you want to.

"I know you, Princess," he continued. "And if you forgive anyone before you're absolutely fucking ready...it's going to come back and bite everyone in the ass, including you."

"Is that so?" I smiled slightly. "Because if I recall, you were quick to accept my forgiveness."

"Well," he shrugged. "I'm more selfish than most people when it comes to you."

"Wow," I whispered, trying my best to act nonchalant as butterflies flew throughout my body. "I don't know how you manage to make the most toxic things sound so..."

"Sweet?"

"Sexy."

He raised a brow before looking me up and down with a charming smile tugging at his lips. His eyes suddenly landed on Saint and he cleared his throat and looked away from me. "Don't be so vulgar in front of my son."

"I'm sure he's heard worse from being around you," I teased. "You have a dirty mouth, Syn."

"You've never seemed to mind it before."

My cheeks heated at the secret behind his word and my stomach fluttered. It was insane how after all this time he was able to get such a reaction out of me. A few years ago, I couldn't imagine the thought of being someone for the end of time...but he made me excited about it.

I cleared my throat and looked down at my feet before peeking back up at Syn. "You both should head back down," I said. I lifted Saint in my arms and smiled at him. "Tell daddy you want to go see everyone," I whispered, tickling his small arm as small giggles flowed from his mouth. I laughed softly and looked back up at Syn to see him watching us with a faraway look on his handsome features. "Are you alright?"

"We can go."

"What?"

"We can leave," he said. "I can say something came up and—"

"No," I said quickly. I felt like shit already. I didn't need to hold the weight of ruining everyone's preparation. "It's okay. You guys go ahead and just come back to me later."

I held Saint out for him to take and he sighed before pulling him into his arms. "I was really looking forward to us finally spending one of his birthdays together."

"We will," I assured him. "Just come back before midnight." He sighed again but before he could protest, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his jaw before grabbing his arms and ushering him out of the door. "Just go. I'll see you both later."

When he was out of the door he raised a brow and leaned against the doorframe to stop me from closing the door. "You're in such a rush to get me out of here," he said. "Is there some other man coming over?"

"Nope, it's a woman."

His teasing smile dropped. "I'm not into that."

"You'd be into it if it were a man coming?"

"Don't play with me."

I laughed. "Syn, go!"

"I'm going," he whispered before turning and walking down the hall with Saint in his arms.

"I love you!" I yelled after him.

"Who doesn't?" He shot back over his shoulder before rounding a corner.

"I could name a few people," I scoffed under my breath, heading back inside.

"Heard that!" I heard his deep voice yell. At the sound, lightning snapped into my legs and I rushed back into the room and closed the door.

Letting my breathing calm down a bit, I slowly leaned back against the door and looked around the bedroom. It all looked the same. Syn wasn't the decorating type, but I figured after I left he'd switch things up. He didn't.

His dark sheets were the same color along with the black throw pillows arranged neatly on the king-sized bed. The rustic wooden trunk at the foot of the bed remained, nothing on it except a newspaper and a pair of glasses. A nostalgia set in at the sight in front of me and I smiled a bit. The longer I stood there, the more it felt like I had never left.

My eyes traveled throughout the room, my kind letting memories of us flood through until my eyes landed on a large shelf in the far corner of the room. "That's new," I said to myself, walking toward it.

I ran my hand along the smooth wood of the large bookshelf and I looked through the books sitting upon it. Syn was always a reader, but he tended to keep his hobbies out of his bedroom so as to not create a mess. He strongly believed in that. Books stayed in the library. I found the ideology strange but I didn't question it, it was his space. Not mine.

"What are you reading?" I squinted my eyes, searching the books. There was nothing unusual about them; a few sci-fi books and a couple of romance titles that made me laugh. I ran my finger along the spines of the books, reading the titles. My brows raised in surprise when I landed on one and I pulled it out.

Standing up straight, I looked down at the thick Bible in my hands and bit the inside of my cheek in thought. What was he doing with this? I knew he read it in the past in an attempt to "better know" his enemy, but why now?

I opened the book and my eyes widened to find it hollow, a single item hiding inside. My heart stopped at the sight of the shiny silver artifact that had destroyed my life all those years ago and I dropped it to the floor. I flinched at the sound of it hitting the floor and my head ached.

Why would he have this?

I let out a calm yet shaky breath before crouching down to the floor. My hand hovered over the revolver as if it would cinch me if I touched it. Over the years, I'd seen Cain perfect his weapons...but he always made sure that none would ever reach the capacity of this one. Not again. I was certain it was destroyed after Syn died.

My hand made contact with the cool metal and I gently picked it up. Taking deep breaths, I convinced myself that there was a reasonable explanation for this. It was one thing to have the gun, but without the bullets, that's all it was...

Just a gun.

But that was only if it was empty.

I opened the cylinder of the gun and shook it down in the direction of the floor. After a moment of hearing nothing, relief flooded in me and I closed my eyes before setting it down on the floor.

That was when I heard the sound of a small object hitting the marble floor. Like a quarter crashing to the floor and echoing across the ground before letting stillness fill the area around you. The stillness, however, shot a pang of lightning straight through my chest and I opened my eyes to see one single bullet coated in Cain's carved inscriptions laying in front of me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and my hand instinctively moved to my empty stomach as I recalled the small bullet shooting through me. The scar from it healed itself. I could no longer see it if I looked at myself in the mirror, but it was always there. Like a phantom wound taunting me and reminding me just how easy it was to lose everything in the blink of an eye.

I sat there for countless hours, letting the dark sky of the Underworld get darker and darker. After a while, it wasn't my will that decided to let me stand up, but the dull ache on my ass cheeks from the hard floor. I decided when Syn got back, I'd ask him about the gun but for now, I needed to get myself together.

I picked up the gun, setting it inside the hollowed-out Bible before closing it and putting it on the bed. The only thing I kept with me was the bullet. I didn't know his intentions with the artifact but he wouldn't be able to use it to its full capacity until he told me why he had it. Even then, if I didn't like his answer, it would stay with me forever.

It was petty, but he'd do the same.

I held the small pointed bullet in my hand, not letting it out of my sight as I changed out of my clothes. I grabbed a shirt from Syn's closet and slipped into it, taking a deep breath as his scent swarmed me. Just being here, despite what I had found was the best feeling in the world.

I left the closet, the bullet still dancing between my fingers as I looked around for a hiding spot. Considering Syn cleaned every single nook and cranny of this place, it wasn't like I could pick a place and stash it there. I needed to put it somewhere he'd never go into, which was hard. The man had his hands in almost everything.

Feeling stuck, I sighed, thinking about every spot and eliminating them before my eyes landed on Saint's bag. Syn always carried Saint's stuff inside it, but there would be no reason to if I emptied it, right? There was nothing inside of it besides a few diapers, his clothes, and baby food.

I grabbed it from the side of the bed and set it on top of the bed before zipping it open and taking out everything. I laid them all out on the bed until the bag was empty and I opened a small zipper in the bag and placed the bullet inside. I couldn't keep it in there forever, but it was good enough for now.

Content with where I had placed it, I swung the empty bag over my shoulder to put it away. When I heard the fleeting clattering of items in the bag as they hit my back, I frowned. I moved the duffel bag in front of me and felt it for anything I had missed. My hand landed on a small container in the bag and when it moved, the sound of pills emerged from inside.

I pulled the zipper and opened another part of the bag to pull out a pill bottle. It was half-filled with red capsules and I opened the top before pouring a few into my hand. "What the fuck," I whispered lowly, looking at them in confusion. I'd seen medicine before but it didn't look like anything I had seen before. I checked the bottle to see if there was a prescription or name on it but when I found nothing, I was stuck.

After a few moments, I sighed and closed it. That would have to be added to the list of things I needed to talk to Syn about. I placed it beside the Bible on the table before folding up Saint's bag and carefully placing it out of view in the closet.

I heard a knock at the door from inside the closet and relief set in. I had expected Syn to be gone for a while, but it was almost ten. I sighed, running a hand through my hair before rushing to the door and swinging it open. "It's about ti—"

I stopped mid-sentence and froze as I looked at who I had opened the door for and my gut sank.

He smiled his familiar smug smile and crossed his arms. "It is about time, isn't it?"

꧁꧂

Author's Note

Not she found the pills...Also why do y'all think Syn still has the gun...
Umm and the person at the door...if it's not Syn...who tf is it?!?
Who do y'all want it to be😏
I hope y'all enjoy the chapters tonight lol, the next few are coming in a few days, stay tuned! Muah❤️

Lmk your thoughts✨