It was dawn by the time we made it to the coast, but the rain hadn’t stopped pouring. The ocean stretched out before me, lapping upon the shore in the morning’s dim gray light. The water reached into the distance, seemingly endless until it met the sky. A great expanse of the unknown, vast and churning.
I stumbled down the sand, right to the water’s edge. The waves lapped over my feet, cold foam gathering around my ankles.
I’d made it. As I stood there in the waves, the clouds parted just enough to let the morning sun shine down on my back, even as the rain kept falling around me. A new day had dawned and somehow…somehow, I was still alive.
I walked deeper into the waves. I walked in until they were nearly up to my waist. I dipped my hands into the water and watched the blood wash away. I listened to the wind and the crashing ocean. I listened to the cries of the seabirds overhead.
There was nothing left to call my name from the woods. The darkness that waited at the edges of my consciousness was gone. All that remained was an ache — one of uncertainty, of confusion.
I could hear Zane’s footsteps behind me in the sand. I kept washing away the blood and dirt on my arms. I dunked down my head and scrubbed the salt water through my hair. It all washed away, all the filth trailing into the water.
The stains were gone. So what remained…
“I didn’t think I would live,” I said softly, but I knew he could hear me. “I never thought I would survive this. That was why I made the deal.” I laughed, shaking my head. “The only reason I kept going after Marcus died was to get my vengeance. And now…it’s done.” I turned back to him, my arms wrapped around myself as the cold made me shiver. “It’s over, Zane.”
He nodded. The golden color had come back into his irises, but the darkness remained where the whites of his eyes had once been. He’d changed since I’d met him; he’d changed irrevocably.
I’d changed too. Except I didn’t know what those changes meant.
I didn’t know who I was now. Who I was meant to be.
“What now?” I whispered. I was weeping, tears streaming down my face, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.
Zane waded into the water. He wrapped his arms around me, held me close within his warmth and chased the cold away. “Whatever you want, love. Anything in the world. This life is yours.”
He held my face in his hands and wiped my tears away. My carefully constructed walls were gone. I’d opened the door to my shelter and found myself terrified to step outside. The light was too bright, the world outside too vast, and I was simply safer in my shelter.
But Zane stood outside, with his hand outstretched as if to lead me out, as if to make the journey a little less terrifying.
“I don’t know what my life is supposed to be,” I said, closing my eyes because it was all too much. In the darkness behind my closed eyes, it was only me and him. In the dark, I could pretend I felt no fear of the future. I could imagine I didn’t still feel chained to the pain, like it was an anchor I was trying to drag with me even though I longed to leave it behind. “This world isn’t meant for me. I don’t think it ever was.”
He grinned, still holding me. “You weren’t made for this world, love. You’re too much for it. As am I. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make it yours.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “You deserve to live. Eternity will be yours, but until then, I’ll be beside you for whatever life you want to live.”
I swallowed hard. “What if I’m too broken? What if…what if I can’t…” What if I couldn’t heal? What if I couldn’t put myself together enough to live? What if I knew only how to survive, what if I could only desperately drag myself through every day? What then?
What if revenge was all I’d had, and now that it was over, I didn’t know how the hell to go forward?
“You can be broken,” he said. “You’ll never be too broken for me. We can be monsters; you and I. We can be wretched, messy, strange things. If you’re afraid, then you can be afraid. When you lose your light, I’ll still come back for you in the dark. You’re not alone.” He kissed my forehead. “You’ll never be alone again.”
He looked at me like I was something treasured, like I was something beautiful, something rare. Things I’d never thought of myself, I saw in his eyes. “You deserve to live, Juniper Kynes. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to come out of the dark, when you’re ready. It’s alright if you don’t know which way to go. I’ll be beside you. I love you, Juniper Kynes, exactly as you are.”
Fuck, I hated to cry. But that broke down the last measly defense I had. I let him hold me in the water, and I cried with relief, with hope, and yes, with fear.
But it was okay to be afraid. It was okay to be lost.
I wasn’t alone anymore. I wasn’t hopeless anymore. No matter how vast the world seemed, I could light the path ahead. I could gather up my broken pieces and start putting them together again.
I could find my way, with him by my side, into eternity.
