Sacrilege (Theo Raeken) [2]

static

The no crying rule definitely lasted no more than an hour.

I sob on her shoulder, a choking fit of wailing. It's that awful, ugly crying where you can't help but cough and shake. Her arms feel secure and warm. When Kai walks in, I ask him illegibly between the heavy weeping, "You can see her, too?"

Somehow, he understands me. "Yeah," he says, shocked. "Yeah, I can."

It's real. It feels real. It is real. She's flesh, she's physically here. It's almost an out of body feeling, and I don't care why or how she got here. Just that she's here.

And then it hits me, amidst all the thoughts rushing through my head.

I made a deal with the devil.

***

"One second I was dead, and the next, I'm standing in the middle of the cemetery, looking at my own headstone."

I swallow hard, pushing back the tears from restarting. "Do you remember?" I ask, lips pursed. "Do you remember dying?"

She bites her lip so hard that the flesh beneath it turns milky white. "I remember, baby. I remember it all."

Kai's voice pipes up, sounding urgently curious. "Do you remember what happened after that?"

"It was a flash of my entire life," she says. "And then, heaven." I release a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"D-Did you know what was happening here?" I ask. "Could you...see?"

She grows taut, her jaw clenching tightly. "Arden," she sighs. "There are some...situations that people act in a way that they wouldn't otherwise." She pauses, as if carefully racking her brain for the most non-confronting way to say whatever it is she is about to say. "I saw you kill the pack," she declares. She says it in a factual way, like she doesn't have an opinion on the matter. "You're more powerful than I was." She grabs my hand. "I know it may seem like he's the beginning and the end of everything you are - everything that is - but you need to think with your head and your heart. He's not the voice of reason. But you can be."

She doesn't say his name but I know exactly who she's talking about.

The next two days, I keep to myself and my mom. There is nothing that I want to do other than be by her side, doing something, anything with her.

Most of the time, we talk. We talk about sirens, Theo, Kai, the Vinceret pack and the Wild Hunt. I learn a lot about her. She killed only the bad ones, she tells me. Only the the fascists, the sadistic.

I learn about what it's like after death. She doesn't remember much at all, except that it felt like the feeling of happy late summer evenings. I nod like I know what she's talking about, even though I barely remember what it's like to have a careless summer evening. She tells me about my father, about the affair, about Lucien. She had only ever seen him once.

He became the alpha of the Vinceret pack after my father died. I asked her how. "A true alpha," she breathed. I asked her how again. "A true alpha doesn't always become one through honour and courage," she says. "Being an alpha is all about leadership. There are many things Lucien wasn't, but the one thing he was was a good leader."

On the third day, I finally talk to someone other than my mom or Kai. Lydia Martin, prim and put-together as ever sits with her legs crossed on my couch. Even when she seems to be in a frantic state, she does it in a sort of strong, silent way.

"His name was Stiles," she says. Her lips are pressed together tightly, her posture rigid. "The person you felt was missing at the hospital. The person the Wild Hunt took. His name was Stiles."