Page 26 of Cardinal House
The blue dot stops on the map, and we get closer and closer, the blue marker still unmoving and I don’t know whether I’m close to screaming or vomiting.
Thorne stops near the edge of the docks, the blue dot blinking in the same spot for the last few minutes, and despite the pull in my wounded chest, I’m tearing my way out of the vehicle without thinking of any consequences. My brother barks my name at my back, the sound of the other car doors opening and closing loud in the echo of the rain. Thunder claps directly overhead making me flinch, my shoulders hunching up around my ears as lightning lights up the river ahead.
I swipe an arm across my face to clear the rainwater from my eyes, and find her slumped in the shallow water.
My heart drops into my stomach, tears filling my eyes and pain bolts up my thigh bones as I rush towards her, my knees crashing to the wet ground. There’s so much blood and flesh and tangled black hair. I’m not even sure what it is I’m looking at. She looks mangled, the way her body is positioned. Long limbs twisted together, blue scrubs torn and stained with large dark patches, thick, raven coloured hair strewn across her pretty face, plastered wetly to her icy skin.
A sob catches in my throat, hitching my chest, and I don’t breathe as I crawl forwards in the shallow water, weakly dragging myself closer. My backside hits the gravelly riverbed, water seeping into my clothes. I’m pulling her up into my lap, smoothing down her hair, kissing the crown of her head as I cradle her in my arms.
The storm rages overhead, but I barely feel it, the cold air whipping around us, the pelting rain punishing my skin, the thunder cracking and lightning flashing.
The weight of her feels different than it did just last night, when I dragged her into my lap at the hospital, whispering words over her lips. She was light and stiff, but she wanted to give in, the way she rocked slightly into me, as though it wasn’t intentional, didn’t realise she was doing it. She felt the pull between us too, the tether.
She feels a lot heavier now, like the entire world is weighting this dead girl's body.
I can’t strangle the sounds that fall from my throat, rocking back and forth with her in my arms as I cry. Sobs ripping their way out of my bleeding heart, choking their way up my throat. Luna’s body is floppy, her head heavy on her shoulders, and as if to punish myself, I bring my fingers to her throat, holding my breath, closing my eyes, I still the jerky rocking movements and feel for a pulse.
Long seconds pass and there’s nothing. I keep my fingers pressed to her neck, denting her beautiful pale skin with the pressure, but I don’t feel anything. Panicking, I lift her up higher, shushing her pointlessly as if to calm her as I rest my ear over her heart. I clench my eyes shut tight, holding my breath once more, desperately praying to anything that will listen to let her come back to me.
Give her back to me.
The cry that spills from my lips is that of a wounded animal when I still get nothing. I’m curling her up into my arms, bundling her limp body into my chest, and crying into her neck.
I’m not sure how long I sit in the water, rocking back and forth with Luna’s body, but my brothers stand guard around us on the shore. Even though it’s raining, even though the longer we stay here the more at risk we are of being spotted. But none of them rush me. Not until the sun is just lifting behind the dense black clouds still spilling mourning tears, and Archer drops into a crouch before me, his booted feet in the river too.
I’m quiet, still clutching her to me, trying to warm her freezing body up, but my own teeth are chattering now, my skin like ice, rain and river water soaking me through to the bone.
“We’ve gotta move, Wolf,” Archer rasps, his voice thick but gentle. “Let’s get you both into the car, yeah?” I’m nodding as he and Hunter help me up by gripping my elbows, our footsteps splashing, nobody tries to take Luna from me as Thorne leads us all back to the car.
Hunter threads the seatbelt around us both, being careful to move the strap so it doesn’t press against her as he reaches across and buckles us in. Thorne drives once everyone is seated, and I am silent. Barely hearing the murmurs from my brothers’ hushed conversation, I blink, staring unseeingly at the back of the headrest in front of me. I can’t bring myself to look at her again.
“Take me home,” I manage to get out, my voice strained. “I want to do this myself.”
Nobody argues with me as Thorne flicks on his indicator, the ticking of it like a hammer to the head. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and listen to the static humming in my ears. My hands hold onto her so tight I’m sure it’d bruise, and I loosen my grip for just a second before I realise it just doesn’t fucking matter anymore.
Grief strangles the heavily thudding organ inside my chest cavity like barbed wire pulled taut. And in this moment, I’m praying for the healing bullet wound to open back up. Let my blood ooze and spill, and my soul leave my body to find hers.
It isn’t fair I only just found her and now she’s gone.
It hits me like an artic lorry smashing into me at high speed, I’m the one that got her killed. If I hadn’t pulled her into my lap in that lift at the hospital, if that man hadn’t seen us when the doors opened.
I should have followed her. She was scared, we could all see it, but I let her go.
‘Because I'm not free.’
Archer’s words roll around inside my head next, ‘Don’t fuck up by walking away, Wolf. It feels like the right thing to do because you’re a good man. But you’re also a fucking Blackwell.’
But I already did walk away.
I am a Blackwell.
And I’m not a good man.
I think of dinner earlier tonight, nearly the whole family together, all of us around the table, eating steak and ale pie whilst this girl, this perfect, perfect girl was beaten to death.
There’s pain in my temples, a pulsing ache in my forehead.
This is all my fault.