own guilt?
He was looking at his phone when she emerged, the odd contraption she’d seen him speak to people on. Violet sometimes thought she’d be able to cross these lines as a kelesnae, to somehow merge with their technology so she could speak when her voice was giving way. Not understanding these things made Violet fearful of them even now.
‘No one’s tried to call me. That’s probably a good thing.’
‘I didn’t want you to be shunned, Nate. Not like this.’
‘Even if I hadn’t been kicked out, Violet, I’d still be here with you. She won’t hurt you again… I still can’t believe she did it. She never even hit me as a little kid.’
‘What Jacqueline did is not her fault. I only hope she forgets she ever did it.’
Nate didn’t understand this. ‘You’re saying you’d forgive her no matter what?’
‘These things are my doing, not hers. I can’t hate these people for what they cannot control. This is my curse as it is my burden.’
‘Well, then they’re mine too, aren’t they? You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. And I don’t care what that means, I want you here. You’re not my curse, Violet. I’ve never thought that way about you and I never will.’
She finally gave in to his kindness, letting him hold her after she went into his arms. All his words were true, she had no reason to doubt him, no reason to question.
‘Maybe you are an angel,’ he said softly.
As much as she wanted to believe this, Violet knew this wasn’t so.
They left the motel, driving for a short time and reaching the outskirts of the woods. There were no other cars there. Nate peered out the front windscreen.
‘I thought there was a road to the site as well. We can’t stay here in the lot.’
Violet glanced to her left, seeing what he was looking for just behind them. She pointed it out and he thanked her.
‘I’m not really thinking straight,’ he said. ‘I’d like to say I’m good in a crisis. Trouble is, I’ve never really been in one before.’ He kept on driving as he spoke. ‘I mean, you’ve been through horrible winters and been threatened by starvation and plagues and diseases we don’t even have now. You see why I think you’re braver than me, right?’
‘I didn’t think these things were what made me brave.’
‘Resilient, then. Imagine what you could teach people if they believed everything that’s happened to you since you died.’
‘You mean the things I did not wish to see?’ she said sadly. ‘I hid from the world more than I travelled it, Nate. I can’t teach you much really. Especially since I understood so very little of it at the time and even less now I’m here.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t think of it that way.’
‘Some of it I’ve forgotten entirely. I don’t think I was supposed to have much of a memory as a kelesnae.’
‘I’m too scared to ask you what it was really like to be that way. I don’t want to make you remember anything that upsets you.’
Violet considered this. ‘I would tell you if that’s what you wanted to know. I can do anything you ask of me, but you do not seem to want anything. What do you wish of me? What can I give you to make up for all this?’
‘You’ve nothing to make up to me and I’m not expecting you to take care of me, or be a housewife. I never really considered these things, Violet. I was pretty selfish until I met you. I don’t want a lot. You’ve given me so much already.’
‘I’ll do anything to make you happy,’ she said hurriedly as if he was about to reject her. ‘I can cook and sew…’
Nate only laughed at this, yet she knew it wasn’t to mock her. ‘I really don’t need all that. You’re used to women being subjugated and married off to be an indentured servant to a loveless man who’s only doing some kind of duty by accepting you as his wife. I’d rather you just be with me. And I’ll take care of you like I said I would. Always.’
‘Samuel may have wished that of me. I suppose I never considered if his love were genuine or a ruse to get me into his bed.’
‘Could’ve been. It’s an age-old trick, and I’m sorry to tell you it still works on some girls.’
Nate pulled up in the clearing where he and Rachel had camped. It was only mid-afternoon, but they were alone, that was all that mattered to Violet.
‘Hopefully it won’t get too cold,’ he said. ‘I can probably start a fire but I’d rather not.’
Violet got out of the car, walking to the edge of the trees and feeling drawn back to where she’d lived. She was more at home here.
Nate called out to her. ‘Where are you going?’
‘You don’t have to come with me.’
‘Just wait.’
He was locking the car and she’d already wandered into the bushes. She heard him run up behind her.
‘I’m going to the clearing where I kept you if you wish to follow.’
‘We can’t stay too long or it’ll be dark before we get back.’
She only nodded. He walked beside her, stepping over the undergrowth as she did. He helped her over a fallen tree that was too long to walk around, grabbing her by the middle to guide her down once he was over.
‘I don’t feel like I walked as far that night,’ he said to her. ‘They said I’d walked half a mile away from the campsite.’
‘You were too distracted by me to know, and I didn’t want you to be found. I’m sorry.’
All she had done to become human again now felt more selfish than it ever had to Violet. She felt rotten over their predicament.
‘We should have stayed,’ he said distantly. She could see he was remembering that night, how safe he’d felt in spite her workings on him.
At last, Violet stepped into the clearing. She knew every tree and every branch around her. Her mind was different now. All her thoughts said not to go back.
‘Leave me here, Nate,’ she said coldly. ‘Go home.’
‘What? I’m not abandoning you, Violet. And I can’t, I’ll disappear.’
‘You shouldn’t have followed this time.’
‘Then why didn’t you stop me sooner?’ he challenged. ‘What is this about?’
‘Perhaps if I lie here long enough, I’ll sink into the ground, or the Enorahts will find me and kill me. It doesn’t matter to me what you said, I shouldn’t have brought you into my nightmare.’
‘Well, I’m in it now and I don’t want to leave. I brought you back to life, Violet. For what it’s worth, I love you and I know that will never change. So don’t give up now.’
She was crying again and his embrace was less of a comfort to her. Nate held her away and made her look at him.
‘You can’t make me leave you, Violet. Do you understand? And I know it’s not what you want, it’s just your guilt trying to push me away.’
She kissed him more fiercely than she’d done before, fighting with her wants to know him now even though it wasn’t right. It couldn’t happen. The guiding voice that was her virtue was close to being ignored. He responded in kind and she sensed his own fears that things were about to go too far.
All of a sudden, Nate flinched and backed away from her, his hand going to his now bleeding cheek. Violet held her breath in terror to see an inch-long scratch along his jaw.
‘What was that?’
Before she could speak, something caught her forearm. A bloody gash appeared on her arm, the fabric of her sleeve ripped open savagely as she cried out in shock.
‘No…’ she whispered. ‘Please no…’
She couldn’t see them yet, she just knew they were there. Her whole being felt them coming at her again. And in the next instance, there they were, swarming around the pair of them in growing numbers like wasps about to strike.
The Enorahts.
‘Did you think you could come back and not suffer more consequences?’ said a booming metallic voice. They were speaking as one. Violet had never heard them before. ‘Did you think your return would bring no harm to anyone?’
/>
Violet saw one light cut Nate’s other cheek much deeper, making him cry out. He put his cuff of his sleeve to his face, staring at the blood stain in horror when he pulled it back.
‘They’re everywhere!’
‘Don’t move,’ she told him. Staying close to Nate, Violet tried to shield him from any more of their attacks. ‘What do you want now!’ she shouted at the lights.
‘Blood. Yours or his. We care not. We’ll take you both. We’re hungry.’ The voice was androgynous and cold.
‘Have you not been feeding all this time?’ she asked them snidely. ‘How have you lived if you've not hunted?’
‘We’ve been hunting your kind, the foolish kelesnae who dared to be reborn. We’ve killed them all, and they cannot come back again. You are the last.’
Nate grabbed Violet’s arm to pull her back. ‘You're not taking her!’
‘Nathaniel, stop!’
‘As you wish,’ they uttered, squaring in on both of them and giving Violet no time to get in Nate’s way.
Her flesh was torn into by their voracious beams as they made another howling maelstrom around her and Nate. He was gripping her tightly and she knew they were attacking him with greater force to get to her. She screamed out for them to stop, desperate to hold Nate and wishing she could give her life to them to save him.
With what remained of her will, Violet allowed the Enorahts’ feeding, seeing Nate was now vanishing in the swarm around her.
‘Hold on,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll bring you back.’
She used the light within his core to survive, drawing now on her own essence that had been dormant inside her. She still had a tiny piece of her old power, and she unlocked it to