The Origins Trilogy

Chapter 22

3 Years Later

Now

Stop bleeding, that's the only thought that goes through my head as I walk down this dirt path towards Ivy's home. I was clutching my stomach, the wound stinging as I applied pressure, my hands tacky with the mix of old blood and fresh blood still spilling from my wound.

I was trying to stay focused, but my vision was getting fuzzy, there was no doubt now...I was dying. I had to get to him, I had to get to Ivy, he was the only one who I wanted to see, the only one who I wanted to talk to right now. I loved Mr. J. I loved him with everything I had, but betraying me like this?

Him trying to kill me was nothing new, I'd grown accustomed to that, but this...what he did...that was something I couldn't forgive. It was the one thing, the one thing I asked him never to do, and he did it. He knew it and he still did it.

It's why my blood alone isn't the only blood coating the white shorts and t-shirt I'm wearing, the once pure white now stained a deep red. I just wanted him to understand, I just wanted him to see how much he hurt me, but I think this time...things changed.

I'm not his anymore, not after that. And he's no longer mine, he may not have released me, but after what he'd done...I released myself. I gave him my whole body, my spirit, my soul, the very essence of who I was.

I gave up everything for him, and this--this is how he repays me. The rage inside my heart spiked, causing me to shudder slightly, and I lost my footing for a second.

Right now my only focus should be trying to stay alive, but even with the bruises, even with the cuts, the open wound, and the dislocated arm, all that could go through my head was rage and this strange panging feeling in my soul.

It'd be a while since I'd felt something like this, not since my father first told me that he hated me, or when I saw the pain in Ivy's eyes when I left him to go to college...it was heartbreak.

Turns out no matter how insane you become, no matter how many people you kill and torture, no matter how much you try and destroy that weakness inside you...it's still ever-present.

Because regardless of how hard I tried to darken my soul, no matter how much the chemicals changed parts of my DNA, I was still by all intents and purposes, human. The tears were threatening to fall, they were trying to breach my tear ducts, but I forced my hate for Joker and the other one to fuel my strength.

If I was going to die, I wasn't going to die crying for him, I was going to die hating him. But I wasn't ready to die yet, I was trying my hardest to hold on as long as I could, I needed to see him one last time before I left this world.

After everything that has happened with Joker and I, and with the other person, the one I couldn't think about right now, Sam was the last person left on this Earth that I felt I could trust. He was my heart, through it all he stuck with me.

Sure I had my other friends, but Sam was my brother, my lover, and my oldest friend, if I was going to die anywhere, I wanted to die in his arms. I had to.

I approached the small house covered in vines and trees, a forest-like environment and I smiled slightly. I was almost there, just a few more feet, just a few more and I'd be with him. I saw his lights on and his doorway was unobscured, he was home.

I was nearing his yard when I tripped on one of the branches that had purposefully lifted itself of its own accord. I'd fallen to the ground and some of the blood from my shirt fell onto the grass. Immediately the grounds were shaking as the vines started to shoot from the grounds, like white blood cells to a disease, attacking the foreign threat.