If he does not die, she will die.
I would like to kill within a rage. I would like to kill without thinking.
But that is not what this is.
I know I am making a choice.
As Laurie watches over the only girl I will ever love, I ram my body into my grandfather, summoning all of the strength that I have. As we flicker, we are not quite human, not quite magic. The only thing we are is kin. He wields his knife, but I grab him by the throat. It jolts him, loosens his grip. I twist his wrist and the knife falls.
“Stephen,” he gasps. But all I can think is that he doesn’t have the right to know my name.
We are invisible again, but I hold on. I am pushing him back, back.
Elizabeth is convulsing. Laurie can’t stop crying out.
I need to finish this.
As I push my grandfather to the ledge, I am apologizing to my mother. She would not want me to do this, although I hope she would understand. I am apologizing to Elizabeth because I should have never met her, should have never let her love me. I am apologizing to myself because if I do this, the curse will never end. But the only alternative is for it to continue filling Elizabeth until she is dead.
I will not lose her. Not for anything.
We are at the edge. My grandfather is struggling but losing power. As we flicker, I see the hatred in his eyes. The disgust for me. For us all.
With one hand, I hold his throat.
With the other hand, I push.
As I do, a surge of power fills him. With a strength I didn’t know he still possessed, he grabs hold of me. If he’s going to fall to his death, he is going to take me with him.
For a moment, we are strangely balanced. I lean away, he leans back, and we hover there in the air, visible and invisible, about to die and still alive, grandfather and grandson, the curser and the cursed.
Then his hold grows even stronger, and I feel myself moving in his direction.
There’s a scream. My grandfather’s scream. And an arm around me. Laurie’s arm.
My grandfather has a knife in his side. He doesn’t have the strength to hold on to me anymore.
He falls.
And as he falls, he disappears.
And as he falls, I disappear.
Laurie holds on to me.
Laurie holds on.
And I must make myself solid to him. Until I see that knife hit the ground. Until I know it is now over, and my grandfather is dead.
I am safe, and I will always be invisible, and Elizabeth will die anyway.
Laurie lets go of me, runs back to her. I am right behind him. She has risked everything to save me. Everything. And I don’t believe enough in a fair world to think she’ll be okay now.
Both of us call out her name. We see the slight rise and fall of the breath moving through her body, and we are infinitely grateful for it. It’s hard to tell if the blood has stopped. There is so much of it, everywhere.
“We need to get her to a hospital,” Laurie says.
I stand up, as if there’s something I can do.
But what can I do? Nobody outside this roof will ever see me or know me or even know I exist.
I kneel back down beside her.
It is the most horrible feeling in the world, to be willing to give anything and to know it’s not enough.
I reach out for her hand and put everything I am into that touch. Every desire I have ever had, any ounce of love I have ever received. I borrow every piece of the future and pull them into the present, bring them here for her to sense, to feel, to know.
“Please, Elizabeth,” I tell her. “Please be okay.”
Miraculously, her eyes startle open.
Chapter 32
“It worked.” I look up at Stephen, visible Stephen, and try to smile through my exhaustion, not knowing why those two small words made him wince.
I try to sit up, but my arms and legs are boneless. Looking down, I see all the blood. Crimson soaks the cotton of my shirt, making the fabric warm and heavy on my skin. It takes a moment, and the salt-copper taste on my lips, for me to realize the blood is mine. Stephen begins to carefully leverage his arms under my back, but Laurie appears beside him.
“You can’t carry her,” my brother tells Stephen.
“Laurie!” What I intended to be a joyful shout comes out as a pathetic croak.
Laurie kneels and takes my hand. “Yeah, Josie. I’m here. It’s all going to be okay.”
While Stephen reluctantly pulls away, Laurie gathers me in his arms.
“Are you sure we should move her?” Stephen asks, notwithstanding the fact that he’d just been about to pick me up himself.
Laurie nods. “It’s not her bones I’m worried about. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
Now that Laurie’s lifting me, those words come to life in my body. With each movement spots float across my vision and my skull feels like it’s been jammed full of cotton.
Though my brother is carrying me towards the door, I try to look around. Moving my head makes me feel sick and my sight becomes increasingly blurry. Closing my eyes against the spots and the nausea, I ask:
“Arbus?”
“Gone,” Laurie says.
I keep my eyes closed. “Gone or dead?”
“Dead.” Stephen’s voice is close. “Off the roof.”
My numb fingers manage to grasp Laurie’s shirt. It was much too close to being my brother who went over the ledge instead of Stephen’s grandfather.
“I think you should try not talking, Elizabeth,” Laurie tells me. His voice is gentle, so I know it’s not a joke.
Normally I’m allergic to obedience, but I’m so, so tired. I lean my head on Laurie’s shoulder, letting the spots expand from little points of darkness to large globules that blot out all the light.
I experience the next few hours in a bizarre, episodic fashion.
* * *
Episode one:
My brother and Stephen wait for the elevator and have a conversation I don’t understand.
“You didn’t kill him,” Stephen murmurs.
Laurie’s arms tighten around me. “Don’t talk about it. Just don’t.”
Stephen glances at me, sees that I’m frowning but looks away. “I have to say it. You saved me. Nothing else happened.”
“I stabbed him,” Laurie answers. “I think that counts as something else.”
I force my chin up so I can see Laurie’s face. He’s wearing a bleak expression that makes him seem so much older than he is.
“You had to,” Stephen says quietly.