Chapter 146: The Reaper
I wanted to tell Julian that it was an accident, that I didn’t mean it, but no words came out of my clutched jaw.
“Grace!” He shouted and rushed to her side. “Grace??” Julian gave his twin’s smaller body a few nudges, but she didn’t move.
I already knew from the blood loss that she was gone. Even if she wasn’t, she still wouldn’t make it. When Julian realized this too, he stopped moving her.
“J–Julian…” I finally managed to stutter, but only his name. I couldn’t get anything else to come out.
There was a long, dreadful silence between us before Julian finally spoke up, his gaze trained on his dead twin. “Grace warned me… over and over… that you were no good. I didn’t listen… because I loved you so much. I still love you, with everything I am…” I should’ve felt relief, but my nausea grew as he continued. “...Deep down, I knew the streets gave you rabies.” Julian finally stood up while taking Grace’s red-dripping knife in his hand. “I won’t let you suffer any longer, Beautiful. Because I love you, I’m gonna have to put you down.”
An unfamiliar emotion consumed me like wildfire. I can’t remember if I’ve ever felt it before, but I knew it wasn’t something I felt in forever.
True fear. I’m *terrified*. My knees were trembling, but I still tried to make a run for it up the staircase. Julian was casually walking up to me and yet speedily closing the distance at the same time.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I pushed one of the giant flower pots down in front of him to slow him down. My senses were frantic and I couldn’t think straight. Without thinking, I clumsily ran to my room and locked the door behind me, forgetting that Julian had a spare key to the doors.
I started hyperventilating and could barely breathe. This felt worse than waking up from my nightmares. I’m fucked! I’m dead! I’m fucking dead! I shook my head in an attempt to get ahead of myself, but it wasn’t working this time. My first thought was to block the useless door, so I struggled to push my dresser in front of it. The wood against wood made a loud scraping noise, and Julian could probably tell what I was doing a mile away. Part of me knew that he could easily knock this over if he wanted to, but it was the most I could manage. I couldn’t feel the pain in my thigh anymore, but my body still wouldn’t obey me.
My olive-colored gaze shot toward the balcony. My only escape route. I’ve done it before to get to Gabriel’s study, but can I do it again? My body is weaker than what it was last time. And, for a reason I couldn’t understand, failed to get my body to stop trembling. The moment I took a brisk step toward the glass door, I jolted at the loud bang on the other door behind me.
“Beatiful.”
“Fuck off!”
“Open the door.” He said calmly.
“The fuck I am!” I spat, the complete opposite of calm.
The glass on the door cracked when I swung it open and it slammed against the wall. Thunder boomed over my head. The clouds were so dark that I couldn’t tell if it was morning, noon, or evening. If Julian said anything else, I didn’t hear it over the roar of the downpour. I knew I was making a gamble, but my life depended on it.
Having no other options, I climbed back onto the roof on my hands and knees. My grip on the rough shingles was looser than ever because of the rain. I could’ve sworn I heard a creak in the wood, so I glanced behind me. Nothing. Still, I hurried my steps. I didn’t know where to go or what to do, no matter how you look at it. Even without a chain on, I was still caged. The thought of me unintentionally killing Grace still jarred me, but I didn’t have time to think about regrets or what I’d say to my mom and Gabriel. I was about to end up just like her.
The shingles scraped my knees raw, and the blood melted in the running water down the roof. I barely felt a thing. When I made it to the side of the house where the study’s window was directly below me, my heart sank when I saw the rim had started to erode from all the rain.
*Can it still hold my weight? I don’t want to risk falling. I’ll break my neck or…* I grabbed at my nightgown, holding my stomach tightly. I didn’t want to put the baby in danger.
Before I could make up my mind, I heard creaks in the wood behind me again. A shriek escapes me when I saw Julian approach me from behind. The heavy rainfall made me deaf to his approach, or maybe I was too worked up to notice.
“No!” I screamed as I tried to kick him away, but he grabbed a hold of my ankles and yanked me towards him. “Let me go! Motherfucker!” I didn’t stop struggling, even when he gripped my waist and hauled me over his shoulder like a sack of flour. “Fucking put me down!”
Julian’s grip tightened around me as he growled. “You’re tiring my patience. I can put you down over this edge if you’d like.”
My struggle came to a freeze. “You’d hurt the child??”
“I have a feeling you both will be fine.”
“A feeling?! Bastard–this is two stories up! On a fucking roof!”
*He really wouldn’t do it, would he?* I told myself that he was still madly in love with me and would never put my life in danger. Until I remembered that Julian saw me as a dog with rabies and had to stop my suffering by putting me down. *He didn’t mean that, right? He’s just caught up in the moment, right??*
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t calm down. My panic grew when he walked towards the edge of the roof. “Julian…!” His big hands pulled me off of his shoulder when he got closer. I could feel his fingers shifting, getting ready to release me. “Julian, don’t!”
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