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Perrie
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Follow him? Perrie wasn’t sure where in hell Vale wanted to lead them. She hadn’t budged, and neither had Nev. But then Maisie took the first steps forward.
Vale’s powers were much stronger than any of theirs, and Perrie wouldn’t let Maisie go with him alone. Nev seemed to have the same thought as her as they both followed them back to the house they’d started in.
Perrie came to a stop on the front sidewalk beside Vale and looked up and down the street. “This is where you wanted us to come?” she asked. “A damaged street?” A deep, crooked crack ran up the pavement, seeming as though the earth was being pulled in two different directions. Small craters, resembling pockmarks, were scattered throughout.
Vale searched across the street farther down, his gaze focused on a brick house with all its windows broken. “We are not alone.”
Perrie stiffened.
“Come out,” he called, a light breeze rumpling his hair.
Perrie wasn’t sure if they’d made the right choice in following him. She didn’t know who or what was going to slither out from his call.
A loud swooshing sounded, cracking like thunder from the direction of the brick house. Perrie threw her hand up, trying to get her electricity to stir—it didn’t. After his little paralyzing spell, he’d never returned her power.
The heavy beating turned louder as a shadow took shape, rounding the corner and heading straight in their direction. Not slithering, but flying.
“What the hell is that?” Nev asked, his chest heaving.
A strong gray body with cracks marring its flesh, as if it were made of stone, stormed toward them. Paper thin wings, covered in thin veins so dark they looked black, beat heavily against the wind. The creature’s face appeared human except for its pointed ears and flat nose. Gargoyle.
Maisie, Nev, and Perrie backed up as the creature came closer. Vale lifted his hand and the gargoyle froze midair, its wings continuing to crank.
Perrie squinted her eyes to get a better view of the male gargoyle, her heart beating erratically. Bright blood caked its chin and razor-sharp teeth jutted out from its mouth. A protruding spine detailed the middle of its back so tightly that if the gargoyle bent any farther, the thin skin looked like it would rip.
If Vale held any fear, his nonchalant persona did a fucking good job at covering it up. “It is only a gargoyle.”
“You mean a wicked soul inside the gargoyle,” Maisie pointed out.
“Yes.” As though bringing two long-lost lovers together, Vale gracefully clapped his hands in front of his chest, their sound almost musical.
The gargoyle was there one moment and gone the next.
With wide eyes, Perrie scanned the street, not seeing any sign of the gargoyle. “Where the hell did it go?”
A hint of a smile touched Vale’s mouth. “Back in a display at the Glass Vault.”
“And what about the rest of them?” Nev asked, glowering.
This time when Vale slammed his palms together, a loud boom pierced her ears. Her hands automatically covered them, but nothing seemed to change.
“What did that do?” Perrie narrowed her eyes with suspicion.
His smile grew a tad bit more. “All the corrupt souls are back at the museum now.”
Maisie’s mouth was open in awe, while an inner battle on what to think stirred inside Perrie.
Nev didn’t appear to buy it. “You’re telling me all you had to do was clap your fucking hands together, and everyone returned back to that shit hole? How are we still here, then?”
Oh, he has a damn good point. Why didn’t they return there too? A chill ran down her spine, and she silently pleaded for Vale not to clap his hands and send them back to the Glass Vault. Nev should’ve kept his mouth shut.
Vale’s smile slipped. “As Perrie knows, Bad Vale didn’t have all his powers earlier because the Glass Vault hadn’t consumed enough souls, but as more have gone in, the stronger he got—I got. That is how he was able to locate you. I cannot do everything, but since they are connected to the Underworld, I could send them back.” He slammed his hands together in another explosive clap. “And I can do this.”
Perrie panicked for a moment, feeling her arms and chest to make sure she was still whole, then to see if she’d been transported somewhere else. But she was still here. Her stunned gaze remained on Vale, words trapped in her throat. Maisie and Nev stood quietly beside her.
“No questions?” Vale asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
A part of her wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. “Well?” she finally said.
“I took away everyone’s powers and restored their memories.” His smile this time was only for her, and it was a captivating one. She felt drawn to it for a moment but shook her head to clear it. Did he want her to thank him? Bow down to the demonicness?
“Again. How do we know you aren’t making this shit up?” Nev folded his arms across his chest. “You already took away our abilities, and we already remember everything.”
Maisie perked up, pulling back her shoulders. “I believe him. So is everyone not immortal anymore?”
Perrie couldn’t manage to think straight. Too much was going on, way too much had happened, and too much had changed in the last few days.
Vale grimaced. “Now, that is the problem. There won’t be any more destruction, but since all of you died within the Glass Vault, it is not something that can be reversed.”
“What’s the real answer?” Perrie asked, tightening her grip on the skirt of her silk dress. Maisie chewed on her thumbnail. Nev just looked confused and pissed. Her heart kicked up again, her nostrils flaring.
Vale rubbed the back of his neck, then gripped it. “You can stay here and remain immortal, or I can deliver your soul to the Glass Vault. When I return to send the souls from the Underworld back to their rightful place, yours can go where it would have eventually gone when you died.”
Horror hit Perrie, and her hand slammed over her mouth. Maisie gnawed harder on that nail of hers.
“So, we are dead.” Nev moved toward Vale, his face inches from the demon. “This is all your damn fault!”
“Sorry I was born.” Vale stared him down, even though Nev hovered above him.
Maisie pushed forward, splitting the guys up while Perrie silently thought about what Vale had said. She knew they’d been slaughtered in the displays like it was their own personal horror movie. But she’d thought that maybe since she felt real and still had a heartbeat, she wasn’t technically totally dead. I mean, I suppose immortal isn’t dead, but it’s not something I’m sure I want. They still had a heartbeat when they came out...
“Wait!” Perrie shouted. “Why did we still have heartbeats? When yours came back, your memories returned to you, but our hearts never turned off. They still continued to pump as they always have. Why?”
Vale stepped away from Nev’s glare, and Maisie tugged Nev to her side. “I am a demon.” He shrugged. “Demons normally do not have heartbeats. You, on the other hand, were born human, even though you are immortal now. Without a heartbeat, you would perish, your existence snuffed, and that is why I believe you all were able to remember. With no way to turn off your hearts, the loss of emotion was only temporary.”
Perrie let his words seep through her, trying to analyze them. It made sense ... even though it also didn’t. This was a damn disaster—a horror movie gone more than wrong. She peered out at the glass statues lining the street and raced toward them. Maybe their souls could be returned too.
She slowed to a stop, placing a hand to her chest. A glass child who was maybe about five with hair just below her shoulders, her mouth open in a scream, stood before her.
“What about them?” Perrie asked when Vale pulled up beside her in a split second.
In answer, he clapped his hands together once more. She expected nothing to happen. Or she didn’t know? Maybe the clear glass would morph into human skin, a live little girl appearing in its place.
Something did change, though, and it wasn’t what Perrie was hoping for. Like snow on a blazing hot day, the glass turned to water, crashing down to the concrete, where the clear liquid pooled around them.
“What happened?” Perrie shrieked, searching the street. The other statues were no longer standing either, only puddles of water soaked the cement in their places. They’d become nothing but liquid, too.
Vale said nothing.
“What did you do?” she screamed. All she could feel was the little girl’s warm water brushing her bare feet.
“I had to send them away,” he answered, his voice soft, sad.
“Away where? Back home?” Perrie pushed at his chest once. She shoved at it again. Then she bulldozed him to the cement. She straddled his hips, and pinned his shoulders to the ground. He gave no resistance, only stayed lying there, watching her. His defenselessness only made the anger within her roar.
Perrie got right up in his face, her nose a centimeter from his. Her heavy breaths struck his skin, and he still didn’t say anything. “Where. Did. They. Go?”
Vale’s gaze drifted down to her mouth, holding there for a moment before sliding back up to meet her eyes. “The souls were taken. The bodies turned to glass. It is not how it was in the Glass Vault where glass can turn to skin. This happened outside of it, so they are only glass. That is all of them that was left.”
Before he could say another word, Perrie slapped him across his cheek. The sound echoed throughout the broken neighborhood. She pulled her hand back to strike him again, but before she could contact his face, Vale managed to roll her to her back. He held Perrie’s arms above her head against the cement, his body on top of hers.
“Stop,” he said gently, his expression pleading.
Perrie thrashed and tried to kick, but he didn’t budge. She was going to murder him. It didn’t matter if he was Bad Vale or Good Vale. She needed to know what happened to her family. “Tell me!”
“I am trying to, but you keep lashing out. Allow me to finish. Please.”
“Fine,” she said between clenched teeth.
He released her arms and took a deep breath. “The souls were sent to the Glass Vault and were prisoners there, feeding their energy to me. They cannot return here, but they are no longer trapped there either. Before you start kicking me again, they are not in the Underworld either unless that is where they were meant to go. Otherwise, they have moved on.”
Tears pricked at her eyes. She hadn’t known if they’d be able to come back, but she had hoped since the glass was left behind. Now her dad really was gone forever.
Vale furrowed his brow. “Did you want them to stay trapped? Now they are not hurting anymore. I can guarantee you, your family is okay where they are now.”
Perrie understood what he meant, but she still wanted them here with her. Her dad, Aunt Krista, and Uncle Jaron. Aunt Krista’s huge birthday celebrations with all the leftover food would no longer happen. Uncle Jaron with his laid back and funny personality wouldn’t joke anymore. Perrie’s dad, who was always there for her, with the power of being two parents after her mom left, would never hug her again. All gone.
“Do you think I wanted this?” Vale paused, his eyes glassy. “You aren’t the only one who has lost something here.”
Perrie was unable to hold back the sob—it started out small but then she couldn’t control it. Vale hauled her into his lap in an instant, letting her cry against his chest. She helped do this, destroy the world. The one thing keeping her from breaking and falling to pieces was the fact that she wasn’t the one who’d killed her family. If that had been her, she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself.
Perrie circled her arms around Vale’s waist, latching onto his warmth. The guilt of everything clawed at her, making it hard to breathe. The tears wouldn’t stop—they sang their own melody ... for him, for her. Their alters had destroyed life around them, shattering the world as they knew it. And somehow, despite everything, they were meant to go on, to continue breathing.
At that moment, she realized survivor’s guilt was a true thing.
Vale’s arms held her tight as his chin rested on top of her head. Perrie remembered a time with August, back in an orchestra closet that felt so long ago—the day she’d thought a real friendship had started. Vale tenderly lifted her chin so their eyes met. His soft fingertips brushed across her cheek, wiping her tears away.
Perrie’s breath hitched, and she leapt out of his arms, on the verge of running away. She stopped herself, and only stepped back a few paces. Heat flooded her cheeks, embarrassed, for crying in his lap when she didn’t really know this Vale at all.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do all that.” The words came out in a rush.
He nodded and smiled shyly. “It is okay. I know you do not understand or truly know me, but through it all, I was there with you, just tucked away. I do not want to see you hurt ever again.”
“Thanks.” Perrie turned away from him, not wanting to hear any more. And yet...
She then froze when she spotted Maisie and Nev. How had she forgotten about them? She’d been too lost in her damn emotions.
Maisie flung herself toward Perrie, and Nev seemed to fight against an invisible barrier.
It took Perrie a split second to realize what was going on. She spun to Vale, who was already snapping Nev out of his temporary state.
“Why did you do that again? Please don’t do that anymore,” Perrie said. It was too weird.
“I wouldn’t have, but I needed to tell you everything, and he was already trying to come and hit me again.”
“Damn right,” Nev seethed as he strolled up beside Perrie.
“Why didn’t you run over, Maisie?” she asked, keeping her gaze on her cousin’s solo eye.
Maisie smiled sadly. “I knew there was nothing to fear, except what he needed to tell you, and we all had to listen.”
Perrie pulled her into an embrace and rested her head on Maisie’s shoulder. “They’re gone. They’re really gone.”
“I know.” A lone tear slid down Maisie’s cheek, and her cousin reached out, grabbing for Nev.
He inched closer, drawing them both into him. Maisie looped her arm around his waist and Perrie’s, so they were all cocooned together—they were all they had left.
They stood there for a long while, just the three of them, before breaking apart. At first, Perrie didn’t see Vale, and her stomach plummeted, thinking he may have left them without a goodbye.
But then she found him, sitting nearby, his back against a tree and his knees drawn inward. With his elbows propped on top of his knees, he gripped his hair while studying the grass.
Perrie wasn’t sure what to do or say because everything was so fucked up. She still walked up to him anyway.
“Are you all right?” she asked, biting the inside of her cheek. “I know it’s a stupid question.”
He lifted his head, quickly masking his haunted expression by putting on a smile. But she’d caught the switch. From the memories Perrie had of Vale, she could only wonder how horrific all his past memories must be. She couldn’t even imagine what had taken place. She didn’t know if she wanted to either.
“Not completely, but I feel better with all my emotions back on.” He pushed himself up and fished out something from his back pocket. A silver file.
Her shoulders stiffened, but then he tossed it to the grass. She immediately relaxed—the other Vale worshiped that stupid file. Good riddance.
They stared at each other, neither one saying anything. He was the first to break the silence. “I have got to leave.”
“Where are you going?” Perrie grabbed his arm, then dropped it when he peered down at her hand.
“Back to the Glass Vault. I need to send it back.”
“I’m coming with you.” There was no way he could go by himself and not because she didn’t believe him, but because she needed to see it disappear with her own eyes.
“No,” Maisie piped in. “We’re coming with you.”
Vale chewed on the side of his lip and nodded. “I cannot poof us back there, though, so it will be a few days’ journey.”
Her electricity had started his heartbeat... “That’s fine. But can you give me my power back? In case something happens to your heart again.” Otherwise, they’d be fucked.
The crackle of energy lit up within her, igniting each nerve, flooding through her veins. Sparks sizzled at her fingertips as Vale gave her another warm smile.
