Fifty Three. Final Betrayal
“Hey, man. I uh…” I can’t really hear what Nick has to say in those first few seconds, as I walk through the door of our apartment and see Cassi slumped over on our sofa, eyes closed and skin so frighteningly ashen…
I rush right to her side in an instant, putting my hand to her neck. But the pulse is there, low as it’s sunk. “What happened? What…?”
“She’s not dead! And I like totally never meant to kill her. I just didn’t want her to go ditching out, running for it. Thought I had the dosage right, but I maybe gave her too much Acepromazine. I am a little bit drunk to be real with you. Still, she only stopped breathing for like… a couple minutes tops.”
I sink back on my knees, pulling my hands back from her, as I remember who this is. This isn’t someone I should be fussing over. Nick has managed to trap and sedate an ancient, body-stealing witch. “How? And why? Why would you…?”
“She came over looking for you,” Nick confesses, “demanding my dad’s address actually, because she knew you were over there somehow but did not know how to get there. Weird. Right? But anyway, I know the whole deal, how she’s an evil witch who cursed your family and took the form of a cat to infiltrate our household--”
“She told you that?”
He rubs a nervous hand through his hair. “No. Some fancy dressed businesswoman came up to me during lunch one day on campus, the day after the full moon actually. Then we got to talking… Anyway, she told you today that she can cure this whole werewolf curse, right?”
I don’t even have the presence of mind to nod. “You’ve been working with Ravenna?” I can’t help but say it like an accusation, because it is yet another secret, and yet another betrayal.
“I have been working to help you, and to help my dad. And me,” he admits. “But I know you’ve got a weird tangle of emotions going on for this chick, ancient siren demon that she is, or whatever.” He gestures disdainfully toward Cassi. “I knew seeing her again would just… hurt. So I was gonna hide her in my room then hand her over to Ravenna and your brother in secret, after you’d gone down to work, but then I was like, nah. I shouldn’t be lying to you about this, so…” Well that’s something at least. Until he admits, “I also just could not lift her off the couch.”
“Course not, you’ve got flapjack arms,” I mutter and he grins.
“Yeah, I know. Gotta start hitting the gym with you again.”
I can’t smile, or joke, or agree with him. I’m stuck staring down at Cassi, staring at this defenseless looking girl who had to be tricked and knocked out with drugs at sunrise once her powers stopped working. Because of course she’d never give up her own life to save me and my family. No one in their right mind would make that sacrifice…
Though I would have died for her. I said it at that deadly family dinner, and I meant it.
I do not want to let these people kill her, even if she stays unconscious the entire time and doesn’t feel any pain. I would not let her die to save me. I’d fine some other way.
But to save my whole family? And to save Nick from a natural but just as brutal disease…
Nick tells me all about Ravenna’s pitch, and I silently promise myself to hold the shady witch to that swear and ensures she fulfills it.
“Anyway, you should get going to work,” Nick concludes. “Dad probably needs you, down in the clinic. I don’t need to go to class today, and I’ll handle the whole exchange of like handing over this, uh…”
“Human sacrifice?” I supply, and Nick grimaces.
“Don’t word it that way, man. This *inhuman* cat-lady has probably also done the whole blood ritual thing, if she’s as old as Ravenna claims. Ravenna is the good witch, and this ancient siren bitch is at the least a psycho stalker who broke into your bedroom after pretending to be your pet for days.”
Yeah, I guess it’s not that romantic of a love story. Still, I would have taken her home and saved her in the woods that day even if I knew her true form. I would have stayed by her side and protected her as long as she needed me.
“So… you gonna get going then?”
“I’m not working in the clinic anymore,” I inform Nick dully. “I can’t live here any longer either. I just need to grab a few things, then I’m heading back to the farm.”
“Shit, man. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to like break your trust or anything. I was just trying to help--”
“You did. This isn’t about you.” It’s about your deranged, manipulative father. No way I can tell him the truth of that though, not yet, when all he wants is to save him. “I just… I need to spend some time with my dad.”
“Well you’ve got all the time in the world for that now.” Now that Cassi is going to die and have her essence consumed, whatever that entails… “I’ve got all the time in the world,” Nick happily concludes, lounging back on the couch beside my drugged ex-girlfriend and putting his feet up on the table.
“Maybe you should get yourself to class then,” I suggest. “Freaking finish your degree instead of failing out of your course.”
“I’m not failing,” Nick rebuffs. “Last mid-term, straight eighties across the boards.”
I stare at him in shock. “How?! You never study.”
“Don’t need to. I’m a freaking genius. All I need is to half listen to a lecture and I’ve got it down, remembered forever. Gonna be a freaking rock-star dentist.”
“Not unless you cut out all the substance abuse,” I counter. “And dentist? Since when? You’re in the veterinary program.”
“Yeah, but animals freaking hate me. Like you said. I’ll do better with human teeth.”
I do agree with that, and I guess I’m happy for you Nick. I’m happy you’re thinking about the future again. That’s why I command you off to class and swear I’ll hand off Cassi myself. I’ll just wait here in this apartment with her sleeping body, then give her over willingly once Ravenna shows up…
Nick says he already called her, and it shouldn’t be more than half an hour until she gets here.
I find myself wanting to talk to Cassi during that time. Maybe she’ll still be able to hear me, even if she can’t move, or respond, or even open her eyes… I still want to ask why she came back here last night. What arguments she thought she could offer to explain to me what she did and what she hid from me…
I don’t say anything at all to her in the end though. Because the second we’re alone together, the second I turn my head to look at her… I just want to kiss her again. Wake her up like Sleeping Beauty and cure her of her own curse, the evil that’s taken over her body and now needs to be cut out and sacrificed…
But there’d be nothing else inside of her after that evil spirit is removed. This is just a dead body I’m looking at after all, some stranger who died in a car crash years past.
I get right up off that couch and set to packing. Twenty minutes in, there’s a knock right at the door, just like Nick said there would be.
It’s Mike, not Ravenna, and I tense right up the second I see him.
“Hey, little brother, why the long face? I hear we’ve got ourselves a sacrifice.”
“Do you have to talk about her that way?” Do you have to be grinning like that, such a sadistic, soulless smile.
“Sorry.” He paints on a more somber expression, but it just comes across as patronizing. “But you do want your nephew not to grow up into a monster, right? You do want dad and Felix and everyone to stay human, themselves?”
“Of course I want that.” It should be all I want, but the second he puts his hands on Cassi, all I want is to attack him. I want is to chase after them and stop this happening when he carries her out to his car, lays her in the back like luggage and climbs up behind the wheel. “Where exactly are you taking her?”
“My place,” he replies. “Ravenna’s at work right now, but she’ll cast a more permanent sleep enchantment tonight before Cassandra comes to. After that, we’ve got some preparations to make. Then there’ll be a little ceremony at the full moon, and voila. We’ll all be free.”
Why am I so uneasy then? Why do I find it so impossible to trust you? That look in your eyes… It’s not the same Mike who gave me advice on how to talk to girls in middle school. I’m still seeing the monster that murdered me. He’s just sated enough to be calm at the moment.
But maybe that’s just my own trauma, tainting my view.
“Can I help?” I ask. I don’t think I can, but I just want to sit in the backseat with Cassi right now. I want to see where you’re taking her and hear all the details of just what this ritual will entail.
“Nope. Just sit tight, and Ravenna will handle it all for us,” Mike dismisses. “I’ll see you back at the farm for dinner, kid. But maybe get some sleep first. You look like you need it.” He starts the car, ripping off down the road with his captive.
I should be happy. I am finally free. I’m free of Carson and Cassandra, and my entire family should soon be free of her degenerative curse.
I think a part of me died today though, just standing by and letting this happen.
I’ve lost something precious, and no amount of time is going to fill that crippling hole.