Dylan lay quietly in Tristan’s arms. They were on the sofa in the living room, the door to Dylan’s parents’ room firmly closed. It was dark, but neither of them had gotten up to switch on the light. Instead, the room was lit by the glare of the television. It was turned to a sitcom, but Tristan wasn’t paying any attention to the actors on the screen and he knew Dylan wasn’t either. It was on simply to provide comfort, to cover the silence so that neither of them would have to speak.
They hadn’t phoned for an ambulance, or for the police. They hadn’t called any of Dylan’s family, or knocked on any of the neighbours’ doors. They hadn’t done anything about the two bodies lying in the flat’s master bedroom.
Dylan refused to. They weren’t dead, she said. The Inquisitor might have taken their souls – temporarily – but their bodies weren’t dead; they were simply waiting for their souls to be returned.
And Dylan was adamant that was going to happen.
She was going to trade her life for theirs; trade Tristan’s life, too.
That was why the television was on. Why the silence between them was so thick, so heavy.
The dials of the clock on the wall told Tristan it was well past midnight. They needed to go to bed soon and get some rest, especially if they were going to be thrust into the unforgiving landscape of the wasteland once the Inqusitor returned, but Tristan held off. He knew what he’d see as soon as he closed his eyes: Dylan, begging the Inquisitor to give her parents back. To take her instead. If she’d had her way, they’d already be back in the wasteland. Instead, the Inquisitor had given them the night to think about it, to be sure.
Which meant, unless Tristan convinced Dylan otherwise, he only had mere hours left to hold her and know that they were safe, alive and together. Because once they were in the wasteland, all that would change.
Dylan suddenly sighed and sat up, surprising Tristan, who thought she’d been fading into sleep. She reached over and snagged the remote from the coffee table, muting the television.
“You think I’m making the wrong choice,” she said quietly. There was no accusation in her voice, only the hollowness of grief and a hint of disappointment, as if she was upset that Tristan didn’t see things the way she did.
“I do,” he said. There was no pretending otherwise: he couldn’t support anything that would take Dylan away from him. Or anything that would take her life – a life that was just beginning ‒ from her. She’d fought so hard for a second chance; how could she give it up now?
Dylan made a frustrated noise. “It’s our fault,” she said. “You heard what the Inquisitor said. All these things that have happened, they’re because we’ve messed with the balance. We’re the ones who are responsible, we’re the ones who should pay the price. Not my parents.”
“If you asked them, what choice do you think they would make?” Tristan asked.
“I can’t ask them, can I?” Dylan snapped. She caught herself, deliberately pulling in a calming breath. “They didn’t get a chance to choose, and that’s not fair, but I do.”
“They would never choose this.” Tristan stared at her, daring her to suggest that her parents, either of them, would ever steal her life so that they could live. She didn’t, accepting the truth of his words.
“I won’t take their happiness away, Tristan. I won’t.”
“Do you think they’ll be happy, without you?”
“They’ll have each other. They deserve a chance to be together. You don’t know what it’s been like for my mum, being alone all this time.”
“I have some idea,” Tristan said solemnly.
Dylan opened her mouth, already ready with her next argument, but she paused. Really looked at him for the first time in their conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, her voice cracking. “I offered you a chance at life only to take it away again, but I have to make this choice. Can’t you see?”
“You think that’s why I’m upset?” Tristan asked, astounded.
Dylan gazed at him, genuinely puzzled, and for the first time it dawned on Tristan that Dylan truly didn’t understand the deal the Inquisitor was offering her.
“Do you realise what will happen if we take your parents’ place in the wasteland, Dylan?”
“It’ll be risky, I know,” Dylan agreed. “But you got me to the line once, you can do it again.” She reached out and grabbed Tristan’s hand. “I have faith in you, you’ll get us there. Both of us.”
“I would,” Tristan choked out.. “I’d get you there – and I’d leave you there.”
One, two, three heartbeats of silence.
“What?”
She didn’t. She really didn’t understand the bargain the Inquisitor had offered.
“If we go back to the wasteland, we’ll go together.” He swallowed. “But we won’t stay together. I’ll be your ferryman, you’ll be a soul again. And when we get to the line, I won’t be able to cross. You’ll have to go on without me.”
“No.” It was a whisper of denial.
“Yes.”
“But—” Dylan shook her head, hair flying across her face. “But it wouldn’t do that. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
“It would,” Tristan disagreed. “Especially after the trouble we’ve caused. You said yourself, the problems in the wasteland are our fault.”
“You don’t know you won’t be able to cross over,” Dylan argued. “It didn’t say—”
“I’m sure,” Tristan replied firmly. “So when you make the choice, be clear what you’re choosing.”
She was quiet for a moment, staring sightlessly at the bright light of the television screen.
“What I’m choosing?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.” Perhaps it wasn’t fair, putting the full weight of the decision on Dylan’s shoulders, but it was taking everything Tristan had not to beg, plead, convince, coerce… anything to get Dylan to let them stay here, stay alive. Stay together. He was willing to take her back if that was what she wanted, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, do anything to push in her in that direction.
He’d follow her anywhere – and protect her as best as he could – but if she wanted to walk down this path, she had to take the lead.
She took her time, thinking it through. Arguments drifted round Tristan’s head, but he held them in. If he tried to sway her, and then later, she regretted the decision…
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. She kept her head turned away from him, staring at the television so that he couldn’t see her face. “I’m so sorry, Tristan, but I have to. I can’t let them give their lives up for me. I was supposed to die, anyway. If this is the cost of getting a second chance at life, then I don’t want it. I know that isn’t fair to you—” She broke off, her voice tight and high, and Tristan saw tiny tremors run through her frame. “I brought you with me to give you a chance at life, to give us a chance to be together, and now I’m taking that away. But I can’t stay here; I can’t just carry on, living my life, knowing that they paid with theirs to give me the chance. I couldn’t live with myself.” She did turn, at last, showing him a face wet with tears. “What if they don’t make it? Or what if only one of them does? My mum could become a wraith, or my dad. Can you imagine? My mum, on the other side of the line, alone for God knows how long, maybe for ever if I don’t manage the journey when it’s my turn.” She reached for his hand and squeezed, her eyes boring into his. “They’ve only just found each other again. They need to have this time. They deserve it.”
Don’t I deserve it? The question lingered on the tip of his tongue, but he held it in, along with all the other things he was desperate to say. He’d told Dylan it needed to be her decision, and she’d made it.
Now they would both have to live with the consequences.
“All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
“It isn’t what I want,” Dylan hiccupped, fresh tears trailing down her cheeks. “It’s what I have to do.” Her lip trembled but she kept on going. “I need you, Tristan. Will you help me?”
What else could he say?
“Yes,” he promised. “I’ll help you.”
* * *
Dawn – the last real dawn that they would ever see – came not in a blaze of yellow and orange, but with an ooze of slate grey that slowly lightened until the world was revealed. Tristan watched it from the living room window. Dylan lay on the sofa, watching him. Neither of them had slept, which was stupid. Dylan could feel a heaviness in her limbs, grit in her eyes. They were going to start their journey in wasteland bone-tired, but Dylan couldn’t feel sorry about that: she didn’t want to miss a second of this, of Tristan.
When Tristan turned to check on Dylan – as he had every five minutes through the night – she sat up, the blanket she’d huddled under during the night slipping off her shoulders. She gathered it to her stomach like she was drawing on its warmth, though it wasn’t cold in the flat.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey,” he replied. He tried to smile at her, but it was a poor effort and after a moment he dropped the attempt, along with his eyes, and stared down at the carpet. “It’s morning.”
“Yeah,” Dylan said, standing up and stretching out. The sofa hadn’t been comfortable. Walking over to Tristan, she pressed her front to his back and rested her chin on the top of his head, her arms wrapped around his neck. He reached up and wrapped a hand around her left wrist, anchoring her to him, and together they stared out of the window.
Witnessing the beginning of their very last day.
They watched neighbourhood cats stalk along the pavements, watched lights begin to dot the windows of the tenements on the other side of the street as people got up and started getting ready for the day ahead. Then, a little later, they watched weary heads bow as those people trudged out of doors, on their way to work. The odd car turned into a constant trickle as the clock on the wall ticked on towards 8 a.m.
Life, going on as normal.
Just like it would when they were no longer part of it.
“What time do you think the Inquisitor will come back?” Dylan asked softly.
Tristan could only shrug. “Soon.”
Dylan made a face, not liking the vagueness, but the Inquisitor had simply told them that it would give them the night to think about it, to be sure. Now that it was morning, they probably didn’t have much time left.
“Do you want breakfast?” Dylan asked.
Tristan shook his head. “I’m not hungry,” he said tonelessly.
The resignation in Tristan’s voice had tears rising up to sting Dylan’s eyes. Dropping her head to tuck it into his shoulder, she squeezed him tighter. How could she do this to him? How could she throw him back into the empty, endless existence he’d lived before her?
Given the situation, how could she not?
It was an impossible choice.
“Tristan, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I have to.”
A little sob hiccupped out at the end, swiftly followed by another. Shifting position in his chair, Tristan peeled himself out of her stranglehold and pulled her down into his lap. One arm curled around her back, his other hand going under her chin, lifting her face until she met his gaze.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I understand.”
That just made things worse. Tristan’s face blurred as the tears overflowed, streaking down Dylan’s cheeks.
It wasn’t all right, not at all. She was doing the worst thing possible to the person she loved most. And expecting him to help her do it.
He’d live an eternity without her, ferrying soul after soul; and she’d spend an eternity in the afterlife, waiting for him but knowing he was never going to come.
She was damning them both to hell.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out again.
“Shhh.” Tristan wiped the tears from her cheeks, but more kept on coming. Smiling sadly, he kissed the new ones that fell, chasing them down towards her mouth. Little butterfly kisses turned into longer, deeper ones.
Dylan leaned into him, her hands clutching at his shoulders. Her nose was stuffy from crying and her lungs screamed for air, but she would rather have suffocated than pulled away. If the kiss didn’t end, they didn’t have to face what was coming.
If the kiss didn’t end, they didn’t ever have to leave this moment.
Dylan’s hoped were dashed when Tristan suddenly tore away from her. She whined out a protest, but one look at his face had the sound dying on her lips.
“Is this it?” she asked breathlessly. “Is it here?”
Tristan nodded.
The Inquisitor materialised in the middle of the room. Tristan lurched to his feet, putting a hand on Dylan’s shoulder in a vain attempt to push her into the seat behind him, protected. It was a wasted effort. She shrugged off his grip and stood so that they were side by side. Facing it together.
“Your time is up,” it said.
“We haven’t changed our minds,” Dylan replied. She glanced quickly at Tristan, guilt heavy in her chest, but then she turned back to the Inquisitor, her back rigid with determination. “Bring them back. We’ll go in their place.”
The Inquisitor didn’t look surprised, or disapproving. Or pleased. It didn’t look like it felt anything. It just gave a low “Very well” and raised a hand.
Dylan felt a pitching sensation in her stomach, like free-falling, and she gasped. “Wait!”
The feeling subsided as the Inquisitor paused.
“I have questions,” she said. It waited, and Dylan took that as a sign to ask, continuing, “My mum and dad—”
“I will bring them back,” the Inquisitor said. “That is what we agreed.”
“Will I get to say goodbye? Will I get to see them again?”
Oh God, she hoped so. She needed to see them, alive and breathing, to wipe out the horrible memory of them lying there in their bed, still and lifeless.
“You will see them,” the Inquisitor confirmed. “You will need to, to send them back.” It paused and Dylan frowned, not following.
“What do you mean?”
“You must find them, in the wasteland. They will not return until you do. Touch them, any part of them, skin to skin, and I will know you have completed your task. I will bring them back to the real world then.”
“Wait – are they together in the wasteland?”
“Yes.” The inquisitor nodded. “An exception”
“What if we don’t catch them, before they go over the line?” Dylan asked, starting to panic. “Or what if a wraith gets them?”
“If that happens, you will be too late.”
“But—”
The Inquisitor cut her off. “This is the deal I am offering you. Whether you reach them or not, you will not be allowed to return here. Not again. If you decide to go after the souls of your parents, you forfeit the bargain we made. You forfeit your life, no matter the outcome.”
Dylan sucked in a breath. It could all be for nothing. Hours and hours had passed, giving her parents a huge head start on them. What if they’d already been consumed by the wraiths?
No, she refused to accept that.
They were there, and she would find them.
“All right.” Her voice wobbled, her eyes drawn to Tristan, who stood, stoic, at her side.
He must have seen the entreaty in her eyes, because he reached out and grabbed her hand. “We’ll do it,” he swore to the Inquisitor.
He turned to Dylan, “If this is what you want…” He paused, giving her the chance to tell him that it wasn’t… but she didn’t. She couldn’t. He ploughed on. “If this is what you want, I promise you, I’ll make sure we succeed.”
Dylan offered him a watery smile.
“We’re ready,” he told the Inquisitor, never taking his eyes off her.
The Inquisitor didn’t wish them luck. It didn’t utter any words of encouragement or disapproval, or even of farewell. It simply disappeared.
“Wait!” Dylan cried to the empty air. “What?” She turned to Tristan. “Did it change its mind? What’s going on?” She spun in a circle, eyes darting round the living room. “Why didn’t it take us to the wasteland?”
Tristan closed his eyes, dropping his head.
“It did,” he whispered. “We’re here.”