I didn’t want to be in the dark forever. I didn’t feel ready.
I clung tighter to the thread. It was pulsing, beating like a heart under my hands. It was the only light, at first, but the further I went, I began to see a glow above. Faint and golden, like the sun behind the clouds.
“You’re almost there, baby girl!”
Leon…it was Leon.
I was tired. The depths had been soft, and everything hurt worse here. I could look up now, and see the surface of the water, and the gray clouds, and the rain dimpling the surface.
Then I was splashing, trying frantically to surface, and my fingers brushed against dirt and I realized the water was shallow. It was the shoreline. My head bobbed up and I could see the trees.
Warm arms snatched me up, dragged me from the water and pounded my back until air was forced into my lungs. Oxygen rushed to my head, making it light, and I blacked out for a moment as my head kept swimming while the rest of me hit land. There was dirt, there was wonderful solid earth under my hands. I could smell the pines and the rain, citrus and smoke.
“Fucking breathe, Raelynn, fuck, please!”
Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. But if it hurt, that meant I was alive.
I was still alive, and Leon was holding me, cradling me like a baby with my head beneath his chin, murmuring in my ear, “I’m so sorry, baby girl, I’m so fucking sorry. Just breathe. Breathe for me. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
I was too tired to keep my eyes open. I was weak with hunger, dehydrated, and my lungs were burning. But somehow, I’d never felt so happy.
I pressed my face against his chest, taking in his scent, warm as a summer bonfire, sharp and dark as the pines. “They tried to take me from you,” I muttered, only half-lucid, somewhere between a dream and that deep darkness I’d swam out of. “They tried, but…but I’m yours. I’m yours.”
“You’re mine, baby girl.” His arms were so tight, so strong, as if they hadn’t been broken and bleeding the last time I’d seen him. “You’re mine, and nothing is ever, ever going to take you from me again.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness. Leon had tugged his shirt onto me and held me close against him to keep me warm. I still didn’t fully feel real, as if my body wasn’t sure if it was flesh and blood or still drifting in that awful, screaming other place.
Thunder cracked through the soft sounds of rain and I jolted, my eyes flying open.
“Shh, you’re alright.” Leon’s fingers stroked over my arm, easing the fear out of me. We were walking through the trees, and I was cradled in his arms. I felt so heavy and achy, and my head was pounding.
Muffled, as if from a great distance, I could still hear a voice in my mind, screaming in fury. “Raelynn! Raelynn, you’re mine!”
I shuddered, pressing my face closer against his chest. I knew there were more scars across his skin now, scars still pink from having only just healed. I wanted to kiss them, to thank him somehow, but I was so scared that my head felt like a balloon that was about to pop.
“God is calling me,” I said. “Still calling me. Leon, it won’t stop.”
“It will stop,” he said. “It can’t take you, Rae. It can’t take a soul that’s been willingly given to another.”
I looked up at him, even though his face was blurred without my glasses. “I thought you were dead, Leon. I thought the Reaper killed you.” The thought made me choke up, the memory of him lying broken and bloody.
“I’m not going to leave you that easily, baby girl.” He smiled, and his fingers tightened around my arm. “There’s no getting rid of me now. You’re stuck with me.”
The God’s voice grew muffled as we walked, until it was only a faint murmur. Then it was gone completely, and thunder rumbled again as lightning lit up the skies.
Leon chuckled. “God is furious. Such a storm.”
“Will It give up?” The thunder was so loud it hurt my ears. “When will It stop?”
“You injured It,” Leon said. “It’s weakened. The witch, Everly, told me she intended to kill the God. With It injured, perhaps now is her chance.”
“Everly…is a witch?” I thought back to that soft-spoken girl, who’d looked at me as if she could see my very soul, who’d drawn cards to warn me of my fate. I remembered that she’d felt wild, even though she was so quiet. A feral being, forced to pretend she was domesticated.
I closed my eyes again. I was completely soaked, but Leon’s body heat kept me from shivering. “Do you think she can do it? Can she kill a God?”