I hated myself for giving everything to a boy who didn’t realize the gift he’d been given. I hated myself for loving him. I hated myself for dying for him—so much so that I tricked myself into believing a lie for my entire afterlife. I hated myself for continuing to give him power, for spending so many useless years hating him when I should have spent that energy loving others, loving myself.
“Places,” Mr. Stark hisses from a few feet away.
“I was sorry. If I could feel, I’m sure I still would be.” And then Romeo turns and walks away, but I can’t seem to move.
I should have been loving myself. Myself. Can that really be the answer? Could that even be what my soul specter was trying to tell me? Something so simple and stupid-sounding and—
“Come on, Ariel, don’t freak out on me now,” Mr. Stark says, urging me toward the edge of the wings. I go, shuffling like a zombie, lost in the tick-tick-tick of the pieces falling into place inside me.
Is it stupid? Is it really?
I’ve lived inside so many people, and I’ve never deemed one of them unworthy of love. I’ve tried to show them that they are valuable and their lives worth living. I’ve urged them to forgive themselves and the people who’ve wronged them, to choose a loving future over a bitter past. I’ve even done it with Ariel—wanted her to see that she’s beautiful and worthy of respect, felt pity for her that she can’t see the truth.
And all this time I’ve been just as lost. I’ve never granted the girl I was forgiveness. Forgiveness for being naïve, for the mistakes she made. I’ve never given her the compassion she deserves. Given myself the compassion I deserve.
I’ve failed at many things, but Nurse is wrong, I haven’t failed at love. Loving Romeo, loving the people I served, loving Ben—none of them were mistakes. It doesn’t matter if they loved me back or were grateful or if they even knew my real name. I’ve loved them and it was good. I am good. I am worthy of adding my own name to my list, of letting go of the regret and shame that have poisoned me for so long.
So I do. I let it go, and know peace. It’s like a door has been opened inside me, revealing endless, bright, airy rooms I’ve never walked in before.
I hear Mr. Stark making the welcome announcement, listen to him dedicate this performance to Nancy, and urge everyone to keep her and her family in their thoughts. And then the opening music surges inside the theater, lifting me up along with it. This is it. This is the freedom Nurse talked about. I know it, the way I’ve known every other truth in my life. The way I know I love Ben and it is perfect and wonderful for however long it lasts, the way I know mistakes don’t have to be forever and love can be as powerful as evil.
When I step out onto the stage, there’s no fear left inside me. Only excitement. Anticipation. For the fight, for the future, for the chance to look into Ben’s eyes and tell him that I love him even more than I did last night. I love him more because—for the first time in seven hundred years—I love myself.
“The Sharks are gonna have their way tonight.…” I sing each song with more enthusiasm than I’ve sung anything in my life, not caring that I can barely hold a tune with both hands. The audience doesn’t seem to care either, and I wish Melanie were here tonight instead of tomorrow. But still, there are over two hundred people filling the seats—teachers, students, parents, friends—and they are with us. With me. I can feel it in their applause as the Sharks rush on and off the stage.
Even hearing Romeo sing about love in his divine, soul-twisting voice can’t dampen my enjoyment. I am alive for the moment. There is no fear or worry, only this strange assurance deep inside that everything really is going to be all right. I can’t wait to tell Ben. I can’t wait to kiss him until he is as breathless and believing as I am.
One scene flows into the next in front of sets that would make any production proud, and then we’re nearly finished with the first act. The fight-scene music trills through the theater, ominous, but beautiful, skin-tingling. I join the other Sharks onstage, creeping through the spaces in the flats, slinking from one pool of light to another. Then the Jets are there and the fistfight begins. Left fist, right fist, careful not to touch, careful not to hurt. It’s all part of the dance, perfectly contained violence boxed in by choreography, clean and safe.
And then Romeo is there and the knives come out. The music rises, pounding faster and faster as we jab forward and back, hitting the marks we’ve learned in rehearsal.
Shuffle to the right—swipe. Shuffle to the left—jab.
Swipe, jab, swipe, jab, and the music pulses louder, faster, louder, and he comes for me with his blade to end the first act, to send the audience out to the soggy lobby for the lemonade and popcorn the seniors are selling to raise money for the graduation dance.
The one Ariel might have gone to with Ben if he weren’t being sent away. The one she might have gone to with Gemma—just to say she’d gone—if they’d still been friends. But now she won’t go, and she might not even be alive to mourn the lost chance.
I see it a second too late—the lights reflecting off a blade too shiny to be plastic or retractable. A blade made of steel and sharpened to such a fine point that it slides into my stomach like I’m made of butter. Soft, warm things inside me burst, giving way without a fight as Romeo shoves the knife deeper and deeper, using his hand on my shoulder to urge my torso forward as he guides my body to the ground.
My head hits the stage floor with a sound that echoes in my mind. Above, the lights glare bright gold like the glow from an Ambassador-enchanted mirror, illuminating Romeo’s curls. He is a dark angel sent from heaven to hear my confession, leaning close while the rest of the actors dance away, sticking to the steps that will take them into the wings, seemingly unaware that the knife—and the blood spilling onto the stage—is real.
“This is better,” Romeo whispers in my ear. “Better to die than to be turned or stolen away to the mist.” His voice catches and something damp falls on my neck. “You can rest now, sweet Juliet, and perhaps that heaven we haven’t dared believe in will be there for you after all.”
And then he’s gone, running off the stage as the music fades and the police siren sound effect blares through the theater, warning the Sharks and Jets that their rumble has been discovered. The audience bursts into applause that crashes over my face, making me flinch and tremble.
It seems Romeo has grown a conscience.
And it is just as deadly as the rest of him.
TWENTY-TWO
The lights go down, and for a moment I am blind in the dark. Trapped. Dying. In the dark. Just like the first time.
But I refuse to give up. I’m surrounded by people, and the lights are about to come on again. Mr. Stark will see what has happened and call an ambulance. As long as I make sure Romeo doesn’t get his hands on me again, I can make it through this. Ariel can make it through this.
Moving slowly, carefully, I roll onto my side and then climb onto all fours and begin crawling toward the help that waits in the wings. My Ambassador-given gifts are fading, but I’m still healing faster than a mortal girl. I can feel the torn pieces inside of me doing their best to mend. If I can get to a hospital, if I get help holding life inside this body, then maybe—
A burst of sound cuts through the air and someone in the audience screams. Then another person, and another, fear spreading like a fire through the auditorium. Despite the darkness still blanketing the stage, I think they’ve seen me, the bleeding girl dragging herself across the boards, leaving a gruesome, shining trail in her wake.
But then I hear the sound again and know what it is. Gunfire. Coming from the other side of the stage. Someone is firing into the audience.
With a soft groan, I turn to look over my shoulder. Romeo stands downstage at the end of the apron, gun aimed just high enough not to hit the people running from the auditorium. He isn’t shooting to kill; he’s shooting to ensure that chaos rules, to make sure no one comes to my rescue. Perhaps so that I can die tragically—poetically—by
his hand, as I believed I had for so long.
But he will shoot me if he sees me. He wants me dead. I crawl faster, praying he won’t turn to look my way. Behind the curtain I hear the dancers who’ve just left the stage shouting for everyone to run. That “Dylan has a gun!” and “We’re going to die!” and “Hurry, the back door!”
The back door. Ben. Intermission. It’s time. He’s there, waiting for me.
He’ll figure out that something bad has happened quickly enough. And then he’ll come searching for me, to make sure I’ve gotten out, and Romeo will be waiting with his gun. Ben won’t have a chance. If he sets foot in this theater he’s a dead man.
Biting my lip to keep from crying out, I force myself to my feet and stagger toward the stage door, clutching at the knife that burns in my core, sending flames to lick my spine. My heart thuds dully in my chest, my ears, my brain, struggling for survival. What remains of my healing gifts aside, I’ll be dead within the hour if I don’t get help. I’m losing too much blood, and something feels … wrong. Romeo has hit something important.
Important. I have to get to Ben. I have to keep him safe.
I push through the curtains and aim myself at the exit. Everyone else has already fled. The backstage is deserted and the door closed. No. Open. Opening.
Ben’s face appears in the space between door and building, backlit by that sickly orange. He sees me and I feel his relief, followed closely by his fear. It’s too dark to see the blood, the knife, but he can tell that I’m not walking the way I should.
“Ariel? What happened, what—”
“Run. Dylan has a gun,” I rasp as I reach for him—taking the support he offers, urging him back out the door. He doesn’t ask any more questions, just puts his arm around my waist and helps me out into the night.
I know the second he sees the knife, feel the tremor work through his body, tearing at things inside him. “Oh god.” It isn’t a curse, it’s a prayer, a plea to save something he’s afraid is already lost. “He did this to you.”
I don’t bother to answer. I’m channeling all my energy into moving my feet down the concrete path. He already knows the truth.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m going to kill him,” he says, choking on the words. “I’m going to cut him apart with—”
“Don’t. Please.” I find the hand he’s placed on my hip and squeeze, shocked at how warm he feels. He’s burning up.
No, I’m freezing. Cold. Dying. The thought makes my next breath catch. I don’t want to die and leave Ben, especially not bearing the same curse I’ve suffered for far too long.
“It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done.” I stumble as we veer off the path, through the sodden grass, toward the line of cars parked along the road. The parking lot wasn’t big enough to handle the number of people who came to the show. People who are now running for their lives, streaming out into the night, jumping into cars where they assume they’ll be safe.
I have to make sure Ben is safe.
“Forget about Dylan. Just leave this place. If I don’t make it to the—”
“You’re going to make it. I love you,” he says, a hitch in his voice.
“I love you too,” I whisper. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, but at least the pain is fading, drifting away from my body, an iceberg floating out to sea.
“Please don’t die, Ariel. Please.” He wraps his arm tighter around me, until his hand brushes against where the blood has soaked through my shirt, gluing the fabric to my skin. He flinches, then turns and slides his arm under my knees, sweeping me into the air. The sudden shift makes the knife move inside me. I groan and my head falls back, eyes filling with dark sky.
“Put your hands over it and push down,” Ben says. “Apply as much pressure as you can. I’m going to put you in the backseat and drive like hell to the hospital. I’ll get you there faster than an ambulance could get here and back.” Ben’s voice is strained and breathless, giving testimony to just how fast he’s moving as he rushes down the row of cars. He’s running for my life, and pauses only a split second as we pass a group of sobbing people to order someone to “call the emergency room at Cottage Hospital. Tell them I’m bringing in a girl who’s been stabbed in the stomach.”
“Oh my god, is she okay?” someone asks.
“She’s been shot?” The girl’s voice shatters in the cold air. “He shot her?”
“No, she’s been stabbed. In the stomach. Call Cottage Hospital and tell them we’ll be there in five minutes.” He throws the words over his shoulder, more focused on getting me to the Corolla than stopping to explain things to a bunch of traumatized kids.
Still, his instructions penetrate the fog for someone.
“Five minutes. Got it.” It takes me a moment, but I recognize the voice. Ben—in his attempt to get me the care I need as fast as possible—has made a horrible mistake.
I look over his shoulder, meeting the reptilian gaze of the Mercenary inhabiting Jason Kim’s body. Our eyes lock for a moment and then the man I once knew as Friar Lawrence is gone, moving off into the night. Ben leans down, guiding me into the backseat of the car. I turn to him, a warning on my lips, but the sky presses even closer, smothering the words I would speak. I try to lift my hand, to make some sign that he has to watch out, but my hands are too cold, too heavy.
Freezing. Heavy. Dying.
And Ben doesn’t know to watch out for Jason, doesn’t know about the monsters.
I should have told him the truth, no matter how crazy it would have sounded. At least then I … At least then … Maybe he would have …
Dimly, I’m aware of Ben screaming for me to be tough, to fight back. And then the car is running and we’re moving fast. Faster. Faster. The world fades out, then back in again, consciousness slipping through my fingers, life slipping from my—
Something slams into the side of the car and we’re suddenly off the road, spinning in a circle, the smell of wet grass and exhaust filling the car. Ben cries out as we stop turning and begin sliding—down, down, down—careening down a hill so steep I can feel the car wheels rising off the ground, tempted to follow gravity’s urging and go tumbling. Ben screams again. I would too, but there’s nothing left in my mouth. No words, no screams, no breath. Ariel is dying. I’m dying. Ben will be all alone, without anyone to protect him.
The car has barely slid to a stop when faces appear at the window. Two of them—one a pale, evil moon rising in the passenger’s window, the other a sad, miserable mess with part of his head missing. Romeo’s curls are gone on one side, blown away, revealing skin and bone and slick, smooth pink that I don’t want to think about. He’s been shot. By himself or by Jason—I suppose it doesn’t matter which.
What matters is that Romeo is here now, and he’s grabbing Ben’s door, pulling him out of the car.
“No,” I whisper, finding the strength to lift my hand and reach for him, though it does neither of us any good. I see Romeo’s fist draw back and hear the sick thud of bone hitting flesh and know the end is near.
Jason opens the door at my feet and crawls into the backseat, leaning over me, wearing the same evil smile he wore when he was the friar, when he watched me bleed on the floor of the tomb. I want to claw the smug, foul sneer from his face, want to drive my thumbs into his eyes and steal his victory away. I don’t want him to watch me die, to watch Romeo beat Ben to death, but I don’t have the strength to turn my head away, let alone do any damage. Even when he reaches for the handle of the knife and jerks it from my stomach, triggering a fresh wave of agony that bubbles inside me, I can’t do more than twitch reflexively before lying still once more.
“There, there.” Jason’s hands push my hair from my face, gentle in the way of a spider wrapping a fly in silk. There is no comfort in his hands, only terror, torture. If it weren’t for Ben, I would be grateful for the cold closing in all around me. Better to drift off to the forever sleep than go out screaming for mercy.
“
I have a present for you, Juliet,” he says, voice soft, but loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the beating outside. Romeo’s fists continue to fly. I can hear them hitting their target, hear the groans and sharp cries as Ben learns what supernatural strength can do. I feel every sound slam inside me. Ben’s pain is worse than my own. Far worse. I would rather suffer than hear him suffer, this boy I love, this good soul who will never get the chance to be a man. “I think it’s time you experience dark magic firsthand.”
His hands turn to stone around my neck, fingers digging into my skin, making me cry out and my eyes squeeze shut. He can strangle me to death, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of watching the light go out of these eyes, I won’t … won’t … not a second time …
Power squirms inside me. I can feel it flood in through his fingertips, ooze into my veins, race—hot and horrible—into every cell, a ruthless invader that won’t stop until every weak thing is burned away. Heat scalds my bones, cold fire freezes my core. My back arches and a scream bursts from my lips—a sound so raw it tears my insides as it fights its way out.
I am dying, but I’m also being born, melted and re-formed.
He pulls his hands away and I suck in a breath, gasping, shocked to feel my lungs expand without difficulty, to feel the necessary things inside me shift without pain. My hand comes to my stomach. My T-shirt is still hot and sticky with blood, but the skin beneath is smooth and unmarked. He’s healed me, saved my life.
I bolt upright, eyes finding Jason, who has already made his way out of the car. He holds a hand out to me. I ignore it. His healing isn’t a gift, it’s a bargaining tool, a manipulative measure, some new way to torture me that I don’t understand just yet. But I know better than to think this is over, or to believe for a second that he won’t just as quickly take my life as give it.
I scramble out of the car, darting past Jason and the truck that drove Ben off the road, searching for the only person I want to see. The car has been knocked down into a pasture, but it stopped before reaching the bottom of the hill, where the collected rainwater forms a lake. If it had hit the water, Ben and I could have drowned.