Eternal [HS]

Chapter Fifty

THE GATE STANDS BEFORE JO AS A looming giant, simultaneously warding her off and beckoning her closer. It glows and glitters, awakened by the presence of three vampires lingering within reaching distance, like a pitch-black sky illuminated with fields of stars.

The last time she was here, she was human.

It was eight months ago that she hefted herself up from where she and Mitch crashed into the ground during their pursuit of Harry's captors. It was eight months ago that she almost made it through before feeling her friends dragging her away by her arms with her heels digging into the dirt. Yet, most importantly, it's been eight months since the fourth person that should be joining them today was murdered right in front of them.

The wound feels fresh and raw whenever she laughs along to one of Mitch or Harry's jokes and thinks she can hear the ghost of a loud laugh hiding amongst them all, but it's slightly easier now. Like Harry said that day in the shower after he found her digging their friend's grave, they took it day by day. That's not to say that it has been easy, or that it has magically disappeared into the past, because it hasn't, but it does get better. With every second they spend living for the future they could have, not the future they could've had if not for what happened months ago, they find themselves healing little by little.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

The sound of Mitch speaking brings her to reality again.

Wind blows her hair to one shoulder as it flutters between the trees of the forest surrounding their old home. It looks exactly as it did in the memory that has kept this place alive in the months they've spent away.

As much as they wished for everything to instantly descend back into peace after Adeline's death, the truth isn't as pretty of a picture. With Sacrosanct members scrambling for guidance in the absence of their leader, they began getting sloppy in the execution of their murders and dealings with the corrupt political connections carefully forged by Adeline and Issac over the years. Though the reaction to her death by her followers did result in more human blood spilled, the lack of discretion and care in those murders lead her, Mitch, and Harry right to them.

So, for the past eight months, they haven't been able to live in peace without the disruption of the same cult they already overcame. They've spent every waking hour picking the Sacrosanct members off one by one until the few that remained were either dead or had the good sense to drop everything and go into hiding, but that didn't account for the government members with similar ideology.

That is why, at long last, she's allowed to return to the human realm through the gate and visit her family again. The only problem is, she came all the way here and stopped as soon as she approached it.

"I know I'm ready," she says, "I've been waiting to see them again for almost a year, but now that I'm here I'm—"

"Scared?"

She turns to look over her shoulder at the source of the voice and finds Harry looking over at her, leaned up against the thick trunk of the tree nearest to where she stands. And, when she sets her eyes upon him, it reminds her eerily of a moment that has stuck out in her memory since it happened in the early weeks of March.

It was the moment before he was captured. In this world, the climate is permanently meant for their species to survive, meaning that there is never the same bright sunlight found on the other side of this gate. Yet, that day, it shined down through the trellis of branches and leaves to a specific spot on the forest floor blanketed with moss—the exact spot where he was standing before everything shifted into chaos.

Today, it has not been sunny by any means. The wind and cloudy sky blocked it all out on their long trip over here, but the strangest thing happens when she looks at him. The clouds part and release the smallest shaft of sunlight that filters down through the lush forest and onto him, and he has never looked as beautiful to her as he does now. With the warm light shining through his hair, subtle highlights are visible in the brown locks that are now overgrown from months of him neglecting to cut it.

A few days ago, they were laying in the grass beneath the ancient tree that's likely older than he is when she started playing with his hair.

His head was resting on the center of her chest, arms wrapped securely around her waist, and she wasn't sure he was even paying attention to what she was doing when he suddenly said, "I need to cut it."

Needless to say, it didn't take long for her to threaten to shove him into the lake they laid beside if he even thought about doing so.

She's glad he listened to her now as she stares and gets lost in a few seconds of lingering consideration.

"Yes, I'm scared. What if they don't believe the story? What if they see through the glamour hiding my eyes, realize what I am, and don't want anything to do with me? I don't know if I'm good enough at lying to be able to convince them," she rambles.

The story her family will be told is one vastly different from the whirlwind adventure she actually endured after her attack on Christmas Day. It all comes back to her while she contemplates the outright lie they came up with to tell them. They're to be told that she ran away to escape from a physically abusive boyfriend she kept hidden from them for the months leading up to her disappearance, which led to her finding and falling in love with someone new. He won't meet her family this time, it would be too much for them all too fast, but he will hang around down the street just in case.

Their hopes rely on her family believing this story and, eventually, accepting the fact that their daughter has built a new life for herself out of an originally unfortunate situation that forced her to abandon everyone she previously knew. Crazier things have happened within her family, so the concept of fleeing an abusive partner shouldn't be too outlandish for them, but she still worries.

She worries that they'll hate her for a situation that, in both her fabricated story and real life, was entirely out of her control.

"If they love you as much as y'say they do, nothing about what you tell them will change how they feel about you."

The sound of footsteps snapping twigs and landing on cushioned beds of moss approach from behind her, and, before she can blink, she feels his presence next to her.

"Do you trust me?" Harry asks, stepping ahead of her to the gate and holding out a hand for her to take.

The answer is one she does not need to ponder on, not for a single second, to know.

But, with the prospect of going home presented in front of her exactly how she wanted it to be in late December and early January, she's overwhelmed with the realization of how much has changed in her life since she last saw them.

The first time going back to the human realm after she was first brought to this place by Niall wasn't as daunting because part of her didn't think she'd survive past that night. That might as well have been a suicide mission to her, because if they didn't succeed, if Harry died, she would've wanted death too. This time, however, holds all of the meaning and worry that the first time should have.

As she stands, looking between Harry and the swirling, inky darkness of the gate that calls to her like an old friend, she relives every second, moment, and hour that has passed since she last went home. Between the good moments and the bad, between the constant threat of Sacrosanct and the blessing that was falling in love with the person she least suspected, so much has happened. There was a distinct cut-off between her old life and her new one.

Perhaps it's time to blur that line and merge the two opposing sides of existence. After eleven months of strange, new adventures, she decides to move forward with old and new living in harmonious coexistence.

Her mouth curls into a gentle smile, and she takes Harry's hand.