Sixty-Six ◑ The Choice

Cade’s hand trembled. His grip loosened a notch. Lucille felt her body sliding down, closer to the rocks waiting below.

This should’ve frightened her, but right now she wasn’t even fearing for her life. All she could focus on was the raw emotions flashing in his eyes, the rapid shift from confusion and outrage to guilt and misery.

“It doesn’t have to be like this.” Her voice was low, but it carried around the tower. “I don’t have to hurt you. You don’t have to hurt me. We’ve done that so many times already. Don’t you think we have to stop?”

She expected him to accuse her of manipulating him and maybe let go of her, but he did neither. His hand tightened around her neck. More tears flowed from his eyes as his face contorted in anguish. “I have to end this. I can’t live like this anymore. I have no choice.”

“But you do have a choice,” she rasped as her breath got stuck in her throat. “You always had a choice, Cadmus.”

At the mention of his real name, his whole demeanor changed. His vulnerability vanished in a single blink. Anger returned in his eyes. With his lips pulled back in a snarl, he turned around and took her back inside, only to fling her to the side of the tower as though she weighed nothing.

Lucille’s back was the first to take the impact. Pure pain shot along her spine and exploded throughout the rest of her body. She gasped, but it was like inhaling knives. She landed on the floor with a thud, the entire room swaying before her eyes. The only conscious thought in her mind was keeping the knife in her hand.

Talking him out of it hadn’t worked. She must now resort to her old way. She knew she must defend herself somehow, but she couldn’t summon even a single lick of flame.

In front of her, Cade was starting to get wrapped in a sheer tornado of black energy. The floor began to creak, the walls crumbling bit by bit. The staircase was groaning as though being inwardly shaken by a great force. What was left of the window pane was creaking, shedding the rest of the broken glass pane down on the floor.

Groaning, she rolled to her side and looked up at him as he approached her slowly, almost leisurely. She knew that this was supposed to be the part where she’d be scared, but her mind refused to cooperate. Surprisingly, even the instinct of survival didn’t feed her fear. It kept showing her memories of him, from her old life to the one she lived in New York. From the happier years of her marriage to the days where she’d been falling for him all over again.

“You’re not like this,” she said, her voice brittle. “You haven’t always been like this. Your life had been hard, I know, and it led you to make terrible choices. But it’s not just who you are. I’ve seen your good side, Cadmus, and it’s beautiful. Even if it hadn’t been towards me, you still showed kindness in many ways. You learned how to love tenderly, truthfully.”

The rage in his face mellowed until he looked confused again. His eyes were shining with tears. He didn’t stop in his tracks, however. He kept walking towards her as the tower began to slowly go up in ruins.

“Liar,” he hissed, but his tone lacked its earlier venom. “You’re a liar.”

“I was,” Lucille admitted. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I was horrible, I know. I should have given you what you wanted. I just didn’t know that it was the same thing as what you needed all along.”

Cade let out a frustrated growl. His shoulders were shaking, but he picked her up by the neck and slammed her head back down on the floor. If he had done it full force, that would’ve been the end of her, but the hesitation in his actions mellowed the intended blow.

Stars danced in her darkening vision. Her hair was covered in blood now, and it was sticking to her scalp as he brought her face close to his.

“It should end,” he told her through gritted teeth, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. “It has to. It needs to.”

“I know, but not like this.” She shook her head, weeping now. “Not like the way we started, by hurting each other constantly. It should end with all of us being free.”

Another screamed escaped him, so loud and so strong that it shook the entire tower. He bunched up the front of her dress and used it to lift her to her feet until their faces were mere inches apart. Then, he pushed her against the wall, forceful enough to hasten the cracking of the bricks. The slime oozing out of the gaps seeped through her dress and stung her skin.

“No,” he said, snatching the knife from her hand and pressing the edge of the blade against her throat. “It has to end with you being dead, so I can live with her. Forever.”

“But you hurt her.”

Despair, pure and utterly apparent, flooded his features. “I didn’t mean to do it. I never wanted to hurt her. I love her.”

“I know.” Lucille tried to inhale, but the blade was digging into her skin and his shaking hand made it worse. “Killing me won’t undo it, Cadmus. Killing me would only take you further down the dark path you have taken the first time you hurt her. It would only get worse from there. Help me save her.”

A sob wracked Cade’s body. He pressed the blade harder against her throat, drawing a clear line of blood that coated the side of the knife. Thin rivulets of crimson trickled down her neck, on his other hand, which was still grabbing the collar of her dress. He pushed her more aggressively against the wall, his eyes on hers, expressing a strong kind of desperation that swung between hostility and insanity.

But Lucille wasn’t scared of him now.

She realized what he truly was. Not a cheating husband, not a greedy king, not a shady lover. He was just a man. Flawed, insecure, and imperfect. His shortcomings and all his bottled-up feelings were no excuse for the decisions that he’d made, for the dark paths he’d forged, and the risks he’d blindly taken, but at the end of the day he was just a man. He was just human.

Did he deserve to live after all the terrible things he’d done? Probably not. But she refused to do it herself. She was done with punishing people to the extreme. She was done with her curse. She was done with the vicious cycle that kept all of them in a hole, pitted against each other for all eternity.

They were people who played dirty because of their own idea of love, and they had hurt many. None of them deserved peace. None of them deserved freedom.

But it was all they ever lacked. It was all they ever needed.

His face scrunched up, his teeth gritted, as he let out a low cry. His hand tightened around her collar, his knuckles white against the carved hilt of the knife. The edge of the blade was biting into her skin, making hot blood flow down her neck.

It seemed like it was the end. It seemed like any moment, he would slit her throat and end it on his terms, but the tension that coiled up his entire body told her that he was still fighting for it.

The pain nearly made her black out, but she forced herself to stay conscious. She forced herself to keep looking at him as he struggled to choose. For a vague moment she wondered if she herself had made the right choice, but she was sure that there was no other way.

After all, no matter what he’d choose, she was already free.

She had already freed herself.

“I forgive you,” Lucille whispered as the blade of the knife dug deeper into her skin. “All I ask is for you to forgive me too.”

“Lucille.” Cade’s voice cracked. “Lysandra. . . .”

The light of realization dawned on his face. For the first time since she’d known him, he looked certain of something. He looked sure, unshakeable and resolute.

For the first time, he looked like he was on the right track.

Lucille inhaled as the blade burrowed deeper, preparing herself for the blackout.

But it didn’t come.

Just as the knife was close to making the deadly cut, Cade pulled it back, released her, and took a long step back. He held her gaze, his eyes filled with light.

Then he raised the bloodstained knife high in the air, as high as it could go, before plunging it into his own chest.

Right into his heart.