Deathless

Chapter 46: Millie

My knees buckle and I drop to the ground in a heap. The world is still bleached white. The light seems to have stripped me of everything—where I was, where Jackson was. As the light throbs, a shadow passes across my eyes. I look up, squinting into the harsh light, and then slowly as the white fades and I can focus, I see him. Those dark robes, blacker than night. Trapped within the folds of the fabric, stars blazed, like he carried the universe across his body. His face, a skin-stripped skull, and though I can't make out any life behind the blackness of his sockets, I can feel the heaviness of his soul, the gravity of the Grim Reaper.

He holds out his hand for me, and I stare at it hard. An icy chill runs through me. A chill that has less to do with the temperature of the room and more with the absence of anything in him that holds warmth or life. His hand is all bone. It creaks as his fingers curl before me. Just a large silver ring—Jackson's ring adorns one finger. Out of confusion more than fear, I put my hand in his. I feel the stony bone, the oddly smooth surface, and I try not to flinch. He pulls me to my feet and suddenly I'm looking around a room.

I'm standing in the atrium of Scythe, with its matte black walls, and gleaming marble floor, all staggering pillars and that towering statue, all in one piece. As if nothing had ever happened. I feel the warming weight of an arm come across my shoulder and Jackson looks down at me—that beat-skipping smile, his nighttime hair dipping into his eyes, his clothes once again clean and free of grime and blood. I feel his heartbeat, that familiar feeling so wanted and so welcome as I'm pressed against him.

Lingering in a circle, with Death in the centre, like some kind of omen of... well, death, Thomas, Lucius, Jeanette, and Atropos stand. All peering around, shocked and surprised to find themselves here. Atropos's eyes widen and then narrow sharply into rage and horror as she slowly realises she's lost. Death is back. Her lips quiver and that anger melts away, leaving just sadness in its place, but only for a moment. Then the rage returns like a necessity. She needs it like breathing. She launches herself at Death, but he holds up a bony hand. And she stops before she reaches him, frozen to the spot. Unable to move. Her mouth fixed into a perfect 'O'.

She screeches, and it's an animal, a guttural sound dragged from the bottom of her soul. From thousands of years of pain and rage and frustration.

"No! You have everything! You take everything! I wanted what was mine. Just what was mine, what I deserved. After all these years..."

Death lets her go, and she slips to the ground. Her fingers clawing at the gleaming ground, her head held low as pained cries escape her lips. I look away. I don't want to feel anything for her, but my stomach tightens regardless. She faked my death, used me to trick Jackson into ending the Grim Reaper and tormenting the world. But it was to free her from a prison, an eternal gilded cage from which she can observe life but never live it for herself. Death says nothing, which is somehow more terrible than any words he could use. She continues to shriek at the ground, but then finally falls limp. Her plan had failed. She had failed.

Jackson takes his arm away. I miss it instantly, and he walks to the centre. Death doesn't move. It's strange seeing them together. I see nothing that connects them, but I can feel it. Somehow, something in the way they both stand, in the way they look down at her, unfeeling but also full of emotion.

"Everything you did is undone, everything you did is put right." Jackson walks up to Atropos, he drops to his knees and moves close, and she hisses. His face turns strangely soft, sympathetic. He looks back to Death, and I realise Death may not be uttering a word, but Jackson seems to understand him just fine. "You're being sent back to your sisters. They're waiting for you. Not sure they're happy you planned all this without them..."

Atropos looks up at him, and snarls before the life seems to drop out of her once again. Her head hanging low, her lank hair almost touching the ground.