here soon. He’ll love you again, the way he used to. You don’t need Ryan any more. And Luc can brook no competition. You know that.
I get instant goose bumps. It’s a law of physics, isn’t it? That two solid objects can’t occupy the same place at the same time. There’s only room for one of them in my life. One of them has to give. As K’el had to give; as Raphael did, in his turn.
Unlike Gabriel, Uriel and all the rest of my erstwhile brethren, I don’t believe that things are pre-ordained, that they will always collapse towards a fixed point like a doomed star. In my view, fate is there to be meddled with. And that will always be the difference between the Eight and me. Why then, does having the right to choose, the simple act of making a choice feel so much like a punishment?
It’s better this way, I tell myself. You’ve only been putting off the inevitable.
Something hard seems to crystallise in me, something sharp. As if my cold heart has been pierced through and is splintering, a piece of it breaking away.
I think I always knew that it would have to end like this; that one day I’d run out of excuses and options. The real world, the unseen world — I’ve felt them converging, drawing tight around me like a shark net, for a long time now. Ever since the day I woke as Ezra after her husband almost beat her to death, and I realised I could do something about it. That I could change her life forever.
Maybe there’s never been the possibility of another outcome, only the illusion.
It may be the last time I ever see Ryan. Grief once more enfolds me in its wings, grasps my borrowed heart in its black talons so hard that I fear it will burst inside Irina’s narrow chest.
I run my fingertip gently down Ryan’s face on the screen. See him frown at the gesture.
How weak must I seem to him?
I remind myself forcefully that feelings are for humans, even though my eyes are stinging and the screen is blurring and Ryan’s leaning forward and saying, ‘Mercy? Mercy? It won’t be long — just tell me where, and I’ll find you. I’m already on the way.’
‘There’s no where, Ryan, no when,’ I reply harshly as my eyes fill, and spill over, and a tear hits his face on the screen. ‘Not for us. That’s past. We’ve had our time.’
‘What do you mean?’ he says fiercely. ‘Are you crying? Why are you crying?’
There’s no answer to a question like that. So I tell him the first thing that comes into my head, because some part of me is still trying to shield him from the truth of Luc’s existence. Ryan doesn’t need to be hurt any more, and especially not by me.
‘Those … people I told you about once?’ I sob, and I hate how I sound. ‘The people that did this to me? They’re coming here. And they’re bringing reinforcements. You know what they can do — you’ve seen it for yourself.’
I see confusion on his face and I shout, ‘Remember Scotland? That “man” who walked on water?’
Ryan’s eyes widen in understanding and I say more quietly, ‘He’ll be here soon — and others just as powerful as he is. They’re coming for me, to move me …’
‘We’ll run,’ he replies breathlessly. ‘I’ll hide you. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from them, to keep us together. We’ll use the darkness — hang out at gaming parlours and cafes, hotels and nightclubs, all-night service stations, diners — crowded places, dark places, places where no one wants to know your name, your business or your history. We’ll keep on the move, keep to ourselves. We’ll change the way you look … if that’s even possible for … people like you. Power and invisibility are mutually exclusive, right?’
‘Not in my experience,’ I sob.
‘You can’t let them just take you!’ Ryan yells, fear in his eyes and his voice. ‘The Mercy I know would never allow that. Don’t give up on us.’
‘It would never be over!’ I cry. ‘And that’s no kind of life for someone like you. You don’t deserve any more disruption, any more grief or fear. Not after what you went through with Lauren. Can’t you see that’s the thing I’d never allow? I’m not worth it, Ryan.’
‘To me you are,’ he says violently. ‘Please. We have to try. Once I met you, my old life was over anyway. Without you, everything’s just grey. It’s pointless. I’ve only known you for a few weeks, but you’re in here,’ he taps at his chest, ‘and here.’ He places one hand against his head. ‘You didn’t just free Lauren. You freed me. It’s like you’re part of me now.’
His sweet words just make my tears flow faster. ‘I’m immortal, Ryan,’ I say brokenly. I see the look of stark rejection on his face, feel my heart splinter a little further.
As he shakes his head in denial, I weep. ‘What else did you expect me to say? Met any other girls lately who can take over the bodies of total strangers? I cannot be killed by bullets, I cannot be killed by weaponry. Our kind may only kill and be killed by each other. Being with me would be like a death sentence for you; you would have no choice but to run, or to die. It would never be over. I would never want that for you.’
Ryan’s eyes are so dark in his pale, strained face.
‘What would it mean, “being” with me, anyway?’ I plead. ‘You’re a son of man. I’m one of the elohim, the high ones. Go look that up on your search engines, your internet. We were here before your kind was even a passing whim in the mind of our creator. Even if I were free of this body, I don’t know if you could kiss me, or hold me, or take me to the movies, like you would a “regular” girl. I’m strong enough to kill you. I’m both matter and anti-matter. I was created to govern and to wreak destruction in equal measure. You and me together equals pain.’
I can barely see the screen for my tears. But through them, I see Ryan hang his head for a moment, looking away from me, and that’s how I finally work up the courage to snarl, ‘You can’t come here. I forbid it. Don’t go looking for me in my next life, because I won’t be looking for you.’
‘No!’ Ryan yells, raising his head. His dark eyes seem to blaze out at me from the screen, because he can read me like I can read him and he knows that I’m lying. In my heart, I will always be looking for him. And a little piece of me will always be wishing and dreaming and wondering.
I hang up on him then, and the screen goes black.
So this is what it feels like to have your heart removed from you while it’s still beating. Now, now I understand.
I wrap my arms tightly around myself to hold in the hurt, but it is impossible. I cry and cry, only dimly sensing the others hurrying towards me, Gia lifting the phone out of my nerveless hands and placing an arm around my shaking shoulders.
I tell myself fiercely there’s no point, none whatsoever, to my tears. I’m crying for something that could never have been. But I can’t stop the tears falling.
My cowardice disgusts me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ryan how I feel about him, or the truth about Luc. About what Luc would do to him if he caught him here, with that look in his eyes — of love, for me. Luc would destroy him. In a heartbeat.
In the end, maybe it’s not really a question of what I want, or what Ryan wants. It’s a straightforward question of Ryan’s survival. I would never forgive myself if something happened to him. I have enough blood on my hands.
So it’s better this way.
Better to have a world with Ryan in it, than no Ryan at all.
11
Gia slips her phone back into a pocket of her leather jacket and gives me a gentle squeeze.
With Valentina following us discreetly, she leads me towards the locked double doors at the end of the corridor, which Tommy now opens with a key he produces from a pocket of his distressed, skinny jeans.
Studio 4 is in total darkness. But before anyone flicks on the lights, I can already make out the layout of the room and what’s waiting for me at the far end of it. Surprise stems the flow of my tears.
There are three clothed human forms standing there in the darkness, all unnaturally still.
The bank of fluorescent lighting above our heads flares into life, giving shape to the large, neutral space that’s dominated by two long wooden work tables holding sewing machines and open wooden boxes filled with
