She gives me a sad smile. I know she doesn’t believe what I say. But it doesn’t matter. I believe it. And I’m not going to rest until justice has been served. Until my sister—and all of these innocent vampires—have been avenged.
I say my good-byes and continue to the tent, pretty sure the only thing keeping my legs from collapsing out from under me is the knowledge that Jareth is inside, alive and well and waiting for me. That in a moment I can throw myself into his arms and stop being brave. That I can scream and cry and mourn and he’ll be there to pull me close and kiss away my tears.
“Jareth!” I cry, stumbling into the tent.
At first glance I think I have the wrong place—I don’t see him anywhere. Then my eyes fall upon a crumpled, trembling heap in the far corner. I rush to his side, hurling my arms around him. “Oh, Jareth,” I cry. “Thank God you’re okay!”
I wait for him to lift his head. To pull me into a strong embrace. Instead, he cringes at my touch, burrowing farther into the canvas wall of the tent.
“Go away,” he growls in a low, menacing voice.
I back away, staring down at him in shock. “What?” I whisper. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Go away.”
Okay, obviously he’s suffering from some kind of post-traumatic shock. “Jareth, it’s me! Rayne! I’m back. I’m okay.” I decide not to mention Sunny just yet. I don’t want to make things worse. I try to put my arm around him again, but he shrugs it away.
“Please, just leave me alone,” he begs.
“Absolutely not!” I cry. “Jareth, look at me.” My voice cracks as I try desperately to reach him. But it’s as if he’s built a tall stone wall around himself and refuses to let anyone through.
“Go home, Rayne,” he whispers.
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Well, I’m not going back.”
“What? What are you talking about? You have to go back!”
Suddenly, Jareth turns, his bloodshot eyes drilling into me like knives. “And why is that?” he demands in a raw, angry voice. “What is there to go back to? Because of me, the Blood Coven will be kicked out of the Consortium. Magnus will be staked through the heart. Your sister—”
I burst into tears. He gives me a grim look.
“She’s already dead, isn’t she?” he asks flatly. Somehow I manage a nod. He shakes his head slowly. “Once again my actions—my bad decisions—have doomed all those around me. Just like long ago with my own family. Magnus, your sister, the Blood Coven. All these vampires here at the camp. It would have been better if I’d never been born.”
“Jareth, please!” I beg, my heart breaking in agony. “This isn’t your fault! You can’t blame yourself for what Pyrus has done!”
“Not my fault?” he cries, his voice filled with disbelief and scorn. “I’m the Master. The Blood Coven general. The one vampires count on to make the right decisions and keep them safe no matter what. But what I do instead? I let my emotions—my personal connections—color my decisions. I let them cloud my judgment and allow me to make foolish choices.” He scowls. “Magnus told me that he would rather die than see his people harmed. And yet I willfully put them in danger, in order to save his life. Because he was my… my friend.” He shakes his head. “What is the saying? ‘With friends like these’…”
“Jareth, please,” I beg. “I know you’re upset. But you must come with me. We have to stick together. I can’t make it without you!”
He looks up at me with bitter eyes filled with resolve. I shiver under his gaze. “Well, you’re going to have to try,” he whispers hoarsely. “Because after today, you’ll never see me again.”
14
Don’t ask me how I made it back up to the streets of New York City. I wouldn’t be able to tell you. And don’t ask how many days and nights I wandered those streets—without sleep, without blood—with only my grief and anger to keep me company. Those hours are lost forever in a nauseous haze as my mind worked overtime to replay all the could-have-beens. The ones that might have given us all a chance at a happily ever after.
But unlike in video games, real life has no do-overs. You can’t restart from your last save point; you can’t begin all over again. In real life, my sister—my other half, my best friend in the world—is gone forever. And nothing I can do will bring her back.
I try to remember the good times, but truth be told, it’s much easier to remember the bad: the ones where I let her down or messed up her life. Or wasn’t there when she needed me. That first night at Club Fang plays over and over again on a nonstop loop. What if I hadn’t dragged her there? What if I didn’t make her wear the bite me shirt? What if Magnus hadn’t mistaken her for me?
Would she still be alive right now, living the happy-go-lucky normal life she so deserved?
How am I going to tell Mom? Heather? Stormy? How am I going to go back to Vegas and face Slayer Inc. and Vice President Teifert? Will they know somehow that I murdered Bertha? Will they be forced, under Pyrus’s directive, to nano me? And, more important, do I really even care if they do? After all, what is there to live for now? Sunny’s gone. Jareth’s left me forever.
My stomach twists and turns, as if knotted up by rusty barbed wire. I dimly realize I haven’t eaten for days. The hunger inside me blurs my vision as I wander down the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Only a few people are still out at this hour—the kind of people, I note, whom most wouldn’t miss if an empty shell of a vampire made them her dinner.