Chapter 13 - End

“Stop it, Luke,” Bella said faintly. “I think Ry’s starting to come back, but Jez… please, just this once, don’t kill anyone that lays a bad hand on your girlfriend,”

“My fiancé,” Paul murmured angrily. Bella simply sighed at this. No, more like snorted. Huh. I never pegged her for one that actually disapproved of anything that the brothers did. At the house, they were the constant opposites, the constant brothers who were fire and ice, aside from Dylan and Ryan…

Thinking of them brought a usual pain in my chest, one that I could barely suppress.

“Whatever. I think Jez is coming back, too,” Lucifer said. Aha. So, problem solved. Their problem, at least. Not mine. My problem was never going to get solved. Ever.

The holes in their chests seemed to close up almost instantly, and Lucifer and Bella immediately pulled back. They sat up after a second----like they were shocked awake or something----and then they jumped up to their feet. They looked around, then at each other. Nothing, for a minute. Then…

They turned to me, eyes blazing silver. Luke, finally remembering that he might probably choking Jayce by now---who didn’t even say anything, by the way----let go of him, then ran to hug Jez. He was apparently faster than Paul, but gave way as they both hugged Jez, like holding on for dear life.

“Get…away…from me,” she said slowly, like she didn’t know how to say the words properly at all. None of them moved. We all realised: this wasn’t her. Not her at all. I’ve lived with them long enough to know that she loved them both and they loved her back in the same manner. This was unlike her at all.

“What’s wrong, love?” Luke asked, still hugging her. There was something wrong about her face. It was too…vacant.

“Nothing’s wrong…with her,” Ryan answered for Jez, his words slow and slurred like his twin. This time, though, he gathered his bearings and talked more like himself. “If she wants you to unhand her, then do so, or I will be your death,”

“Damn it, Ryan!” Bella said, taking a hold of his shoulders in a second just as the brothers slowly released Jez, like they were being pushed away. She shook his shoulders. “Snap out of it! Lucifer, I could really use your help by now!”

“What’s happening?” Megan asked. I didn’t ever hear her walk beside me. Didn’t ever hear her breathing right behind me before. Of course, I jumped. After that, I clutched my chest, trying to calm my madly beating heart. “I thought it was all okay, Luc? After all you’ve explained to me, shouldn’t everything be okay?”

Huh. So she knew. Surprisingly, that didn’t come in as much of a shock. She was bound to know anyway, since I knew that Lucifer couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of his girlfriends for more than a few months. Hopefully, she didn’t know about me at all…

“Oh, and Leah?” she said suddenly, turning to me. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you be a lot more human than you were.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, suddenly offended. “Wait, you heard all of that?”

“Duh. You guys were so loud, I could hear you from my room, which is on the third floor, by the way,” she said, flipping her hair past her shoulder. “Besides, you weren’t too human since I met you in kindergarten. There was always something off about you, but I couldn’t place it until tonight. And…I don’t care whatever you are, because you’re my friend. But right now, I need to look after my boyfriend. God knows what kind of trouble he’ll get into before I graduate,”

She added a little chuckle in the end before hugging me briefly and finally sitting down. I sat down beside her, simply watching while putting my head on Jayce’s shoulder, our attention undivided. At least she paid attention. It was a good thing I stuck with her in the end after all. But was this really the end?

“So what’s his gift?” I asked as we watched Lucifer put his index fingers on Jez’s temples. Surprisingly, none of them moved. “Is it like Ryan’s?”

“Kind-of,” she replied, watching more intently this time, as Jez squirmed uncomfortably. “He’s the only psychic person aside from Bella and Ryan. Jez, too, probably.”

“What’s he doing to her, then?” I asked, as I saw Ryan’s brow furrow, like he was affected as well.

“Helping her to gain control of herself,” she answered simply, like it was a normal thing. It wasn’t, though, and we both knew it. “He does that to people, especially me. That guy changed me. He really did,”

“Hmm,” I just said as I watched him finish up with Jez. Her legs buckled and she fell down, unconscious. She actually fainted. Huh. Luke catched her in an instant and surprisingly, his brother worked with him and cleared the way, even if he didn’t need to. Bella released her hold on Ryan and let their cousin do his work. The same thing happened to Ryan. It was weird how I was so concerned, though.

Lucifer slung Ryan over his shoulder carelessly, like some sack. He walked past us just like the two brothers ahead of him, probably to put Ryan in his bedroom. He kissed Megan’s forehead and murmured something in her ear which made her smile, then proceeded to go ahead. Bella simply walked over to us and flopped down on the ground.

“What a night, huh?” she said, huffing like she’d been running a mile. Of course, that was a metaphor. Vampires could run a million miles easy, even swim across the Pacific, no doubt. “Schuyler comes in and then bam, everything’s chaos. I guess that’s the wildest Halloween party I’ve ever thrown,”

“No kidding,” Jayce replied. “Look, I’m sorry I ever did those things to Jez before, but I was just doing my job to get paid, okay? I was supposed to go undercover and act like someone Schuyler could trust and all that…”

He continued to explain, and the others listened to his words. I listened to his voice, how pure they were, how raw the emotions. He was so honest. Always was, never will be the opposite. He was just so kind and beautiful and everything I wasn’t and couldn’t ever be. I could never interact so easily with anyone I never knew all my life, much less say sorry for ruining the life of one of their family member(s, including Ryan, who probably experienced the torture as well).

There was some kind of ease that Jayce took with him wherever he went, and it would be really hard to stay angry at him anyway. He was so easygoing, so unlike me, but like Dylan and Ryan rolled into one. He was silent at times, but unlike most guys, he wasn’t angry at all. It just meant that he was debating on whether to say something good…or not. He was like that: he put others in front of him first, and didn’t care if he was last. That was what always mattered to him, no matter what happened. He always cared for someone, whether it was me, or his new family, or his friends. To him, everyone was important. He showed me his point of view, and explained it in a way that I can understand.

As he continued to amend and apologise, I knew that he probably beat himself up every night after he tortured Jez, no matter how he did it. Did he burn her? Did he somehow find a way to beat her up so bad it broke her completely? I knew that he couldn’t rape her, because he wouldn’t go as far as that. No, he was far too kind. Far too perfect. But a job was a job, no matter what. It had been my perspective before, how I had lived and what I had lived by. There were no questions asked, and we should do whatever we can so as to complete the job or mission or whatever it was and get it over and done with. No regrets.

I didn’t even try to wonder who he worked for. Most likely, the few Hunters that were left before the so-called “War” that Jez and the others rarely talked about, but came up anyway. I guess he was too hung up on work, or had been too lost to not have found me for so many years. I mean, I literally thought he was dead. He didn’t show up for four lifetimes. Maybe he was searching for me. No, there wasn’t even any doubt in that. I knew that he probably had a lot of work to do, and probably had to hunt down as many Drinkers as he could while looking for me at the same time. Who knew? Maybe we had been on different sides of the world in those centuries that seemed like forever.

Soon, though, Bella interrupted him and excused herself for a walk. Megan simply took off, walking to her car and revving it up so as to rub it in my face that I didn’t have a car like hers, before disappearing from my sight. We were the only two left there. No words, no actions. Just hearing him breathe beside me…it was enough to drive me nuts. His scent, though, was pushing me close to crazy. Unbelievably so, even if we spent a few lifetimes together without interruption, I still couldn’t get enough of his scent. How it smelled so homely, so different from anything else, so great, just like everything he was.

That was when I started wondering why we hadn’t gone farther. Why, after all those millennia, I was still a virgin. Somehow, though, that didn’t really bother me much. I didn’t want to take things too fast, after all, and Jayce understood that. Even if he was literally groping me while we were making out a few minutes later.

Really.

Of course, I can’t blame him. It was a wonderful feeling, though, to finally smash my lips against his with no restrictions. No rules to keep us apart anymore. Maybe being human wasn’t so bad. I was tired of killing and murdering people, and I was tired of taking in all their memories, their lifetimes. But I knew I would miss going back to my room in Shadowland. I hope my dad wouldn’t be like Jez’s dad when he finds out that my life as a Drinker is over. He would understand, I was sure. Besides, I knew that I’d get a glimpse of him in my dreams in the future, pointing me to the right way, always knowing what was best for me. Then there was Lina.

I didn’t know if she wanted to come back and live, and that would be an important factor in my future life. I decided to put that aside. As humans say, “we’ll cross the bridge when we come to it”. Since I was human…

I sighed, pulling away from his kisses for a second.

I thought of Dylan. Where was he now? Was he going to come back, just like he promised? Or was it all an act? I kept in mind the fact that Jez said that she agreed with Ryan. She never said anything about Dylan, and she blew her cover when she said that it was all an act. A prank, in my part.

“Hey, you okay?” Jayce asked, his hand still under my shirt, on my waist. The other was still on my neck. I rested my head on his shoulder, right near his neck. This gesture would have meant that I wanted to feed from his soul so bad, but it was different now. Too different. “You look pale. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” I answered. I felt the tears near the brim of my eyes, ready to overflow once again. This time, I tried to stop it. “It’s just…I don’t know who I am anymore, Jayce. I don’t know what to do. I’ll go to college after I graduate next month, but what then? What will I do after?”

The question hung in the heavy night air. It was probably past my usual bedtime, and I knew that I was supposed to be sleepy by now, but I wasn’t. I was wide awake. I was aware of everything: the cold, almost warm, wind, nearing summer. The crickets, filling the night with their close-to-annoying chirping. The hard wood that I was sitting on and the now-uncomfortable boots. The suit was clinging to my skin now, wet with blood, and I bet that it would hurt when I peeled it off later. Still, I couldn’t help but think how it was just right, to be like this. To hold Jayce near me, to have my head on his shoulder as he buried his face in my hair, just like he used to on our forbidden nights a few centuries ago.

Then, he said: “Isn’t it enough to live a normal life with me after that? To age and die and have kids and grandkids?”

“Answering a question with a question,” I pointed out. “No real answer,”

“I’m so bad at doing this,” he grumbled to himself before pushing away. I didn’t like the cold, frosty space he left on his wake, or the weird, almost vacant, feeling I got when he pulled away from my grasp. He kneeled in front of me and pulled a velvet box out of his jacket pocket. I gasped when he opened it: a diamond ring sat on the red velvet cushion as he opened it. The jewel sat perfectly on the golden band, not too big or too fancy, but not too small anyway. He took it out, then held my right hand. And sighed, as if he was preparing for a run. “I’ve looked and looked for you. I travelled all over the world for you. I’ve waited so long, and I’ve saved up so much. So, Ms. Leah Jordin Smith, will you marry me?”

My heart fluttered. I felt like crying, and I really tried to hold it back, but the tears came. They say that when the first tear comes out of the left, it means that you’re crying because you’re sad, but if it came out from the right, it means its tears of joy. My tears just had to start from the right eye.

“Yeah,” I answered in the most teen-like way possible, which was so unlike me. I was used to being the mature one, the one who could hold her tears in for longer than she could, but now…I just felt like going out of control. “I do,”

He hugged me, and kissed me.

That just happened to be the exact same time Dylan arrived, his car revving, drifting into the front yard and tearing it up like a crazy lawn mower drove into the lawn. Jayce and I broke apart and, judging by the parking and the way it drifted so carelessly, I knew who it was the instant it stopped. The door opened, and there he was, climbing out of it in his usual way, brimming with confidence and kindness at the same time.

“Hey, Leah!” he greeted when I pulled away from Jayce. Did he notice the small engagement ring on my finger? Or did he just dismiss it as one of the things he knew I bought on impulse. I knew he most likely saw us kissing, but dismissed it as one of my impulsive acts. He walked towards me, his strides long and confident. Jayce eyed him patiently, like he already knew this was going to happen. I knew, though, that I would have to explain a whole lot of what has happened. Later.

Dylan pulled me in a tight embrace and, on pure, raw instinct, I hugged him back. Oh, how I missed his minty scent, his long, taut muscles and his sturdy chest. I missed how he towered over me, but somehow always to look so short in front of others when he hugged me just right. Like now.

I felt the usual pang in my chest. I knew I loved Jayce, and he was there, standing right behind me, witnessing and watching all this so patiently. I wouldn’t even dare break his heart. I was already betrothed to him and, as tradition states, I should not ever have interest for another man. Or boy, in this matter. Still, though, I couldn’t ignore the fact that whenever I inhaled his scent or touched him or felt his breath on my neck yearning for my blood, my mind still went into haywire, sending all rational thoughts into the rubbish bin.

“Leah, there’s something wrong with your blood,” he murmured into my ear. “You smell too…human,”

“Do you hate me for that?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy without even knowing why. I didn’t have to be so self-conscious around Jayce or Ryan, but Dylan…well, I guess I just saw him as someone who was too good for me. But then, I made his business mine, and it made the very thought of letting him go…well, painful, to say the least. I would be broken, even if I knew Jayce was always there, and I still loved him. I loved Dylan, too. So very much.

“Oh, no,” he said with a chuckle. “I love it.”

“Alright, man, hands off my fiancé,” Jayce finally said, his patience already as thin as ice. I wouldn’t want to go there. But Dylan…well, he just had to agitate him, being the overprotective, brotherly person he was.

Then, it hit me.

I would be so broken if we split up like this, because I knew that he’d be broken, too. He was like a brother to me now, always there, always watching, but never to kiss me or touch me or hold me the way he used to. That was what I felt, and I knew it. I never knew it, actually, until now. Maybe because of his certain air of mystery or his silence or his unending kindness and protectiveness that took over me and made me feel like a noodle when he touched me, but it was all gone now. I knew almost everything about him, and I know how he acted and how he thought stuff over too much.

“Excuse me…?” Dylan asked, obviously ticked off by this statement. “I’m sorry; I thought I heard you say that my girlfriend was your fiancée,”

“That’s right,” he said, again defiant, going against the odds. God help Jayce against Dylan. We all knew he wasn’t that strong. No one was here to help. Lucifer was obviously gone, since I had felt a strong rush of air pass by when we were making out, and Luke and Paul were probably too preoccupied with monitoring Jez that they wouldn’t even notice if a volcano erupted beside them. And Ryan…well, I didn’t want to interrupt him.

Dylan tried to pull me close, but I already took a step towards Jayce to help him. I wouldn’t want an all-out fight. No way was I going to see anymore blood spilled tonight. If I did…well, it might just drive me close to insanity. And trauma, by the way.

“Stop it, both of you,” I said, my tone probably firm, like I hadn’t been crying my eyes out only minutes ago. At that, Dylan turned away. That was when I saw the humungous pink scar on his neck. “Dylan, what happened to you?”

“You wouldn’t care,” he said as he got his hands on the car door. His fingers were already ready to open the door, but…he didn’t. He just stood there. Then, he looked up at the moon, like a hole in the dark midnight sky, shining bright and full. He sighed. “This is our exodus, Leah. Mass departure…of everything we’ve ever been through, shared, experienced. Everything we did is now officially thrown right out of the window. So I’m leaving, and I’m never coming back,”

“Wait, Dylan, stop,” I said, walking away from Jayce. He understood. He always did, just like everyone I loved. Why did Dylan have to be the one who I explained to now? “I don’t want everything to end like this,”

“No, it’s already ended,” he murmured as he finally opened the car door. “I’ll just call Jez and the others, and we’ll be leaving. Graduation isn’t a big deal for us, and we could just fake our papers for college or something. Don’t worry about me.”

“I still don’t want it to be like this,” I said, sticking to my point of view. Yes, I did worry about him. He was like a brother to me now, even if he literally wasn’t anymore. I knew that I shouldn’t worry about that, since I was probably going to get married right off of high school, but he was like the brother I never had. “I don’t want you to leave,”

“I’ll tell you the truth, okay?” he said, finally facing me. “If I ever was anything---anything---to you, I want you to stop begging, because you and I both know that I won’t be able to resist. If I stay, I…don’t know what I’ll do next. So…please. Just leave it at that, yeah?”

Then I understood.

For once, I was going to let go.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. I watched him go, then turned to Jayce. This time, it was his turn to come to me. He knew I needed him. He knew that I was always like this when he just happened to come by when I had a relationship going. Maybe I was going to forget about it, maybe not. But Jayce was here.

A constant.

Someone who was always there, no matter what. Maybe that’s why I stuck with the vamps in the first place. In a distant world, I worried about Megan and how he was going to handle Lucifer’s leave, but I just know that he wouldn’t be the one to leave so easily. Maybe he’d stay in touch, maybe not.

It was nice to know, though, that there was always someone I could rely on who would never even change one bit.

*****************************************

“You’re finally getting married!” my mom shouted excitedly over the phone. I could hear dad ranting in the background, but he wouldn’t have enough backbone to endure my glare if he even disapproved of Jayce, which I was sure he wouldn’t do. Honestly. I thought my ‘rents were going to be all angry. But they weren’t. They were just glad I finally settled.

And actually stuck to it.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t go,” she finally said after ranting on and on about her marriages. Note the ‘s’, because she’s been married to, oh, a total of 30 guys B.D (Before Dad) since high school and finally found dad in a local café after she divorced her 30^th husband, which would be their future business building. That night was about the time I was created. “Oh, honey, there’s just a lot of work to do here in India…”

She trailed off and soon, I told her that it wouldn’t be too fancy, just a few people after a few weeks, then a honeymoon in our rest house in Cali. Nothing too extravagant.

Besides, the grad party had been a wonderful night as it is. I didn’t go to any parties, for once, and stayed at home with Jayce to keep me company through the night. Technically, I wasn’t a backdoor virgin anymore (don’t even ask), but Jayce and I wanted to wait until after the wedding. Old tradition, of course.

Speaking of, my husband-to-be was out in the garden, most likely just to irk me and show his muscles to the other maids, and to show off. He was good at that ever since he proposed. It was like he was just happy to finally be with me. So was I.

I still can’t let go of the fact that I’ve actually finished high school. FINALLY. After all the parties, the broken hearts and the wild things I did, high school was over. I had thought once that my life would end after that, since I was likely to kill myself after high school, my favourite stage. All those frivolous, impulsive acts all led to more and more things to come. More broken hearts (although probably not in my case), more lessons to be learned and more things to experience. More friends to meet, more enemies to be made, more parties to go to. The list was endless.

I was kind-of jealous of my friends. Megan, the one who I’d never think would be mature just in time, finished as a valedictorian since Jez didn’t come. She’d follow Lucifer to Dartmouth for sure, and I doubt I’ll see her after a few years. Eris was the star of it all, making everything so chaotic when she spilled punch on Nathan, triggering his impulsive behaviour and starting a food fight. It was all that chaos that finally led to tears of joy and sadness. Hugs and kisses that were meant to last forever.

The truth was, though, everyone would forget. Eventually, they would forget the various, almost regrettable, things we did. They would forget what happened that day, too, even if all of us didn’t want to admit it. I’d forget as well, but I didn’t want to think about it too much like all the others. I just wanted to keep a low profile, but wanted to shine at the same time. Everybody wants the same, I guess.

So, in that food fight in our last moments in the cafeteria and the school grounds on which we were practically raised ever since 7^th Grade, people were just…well, themselves. Goths and punks and nerds and all those students who never really fit in actually participated. All of us did. It was one of those moments that you’d think you’d never forget, but you will in time. One of those moments when you’d actually remember every detail, even if time seemed speed up so fast.

More surprisingly still, the teachers joined in, just like they did when we were in our first few years in high school. After a few more minutes, everything ended in tears. Tears because we all knew, deep inside, that everything would end eventually. Sure, we might see each other sometime in the future, or in reunions, but this memory will always be remembered, even if forgotten for a moment.

Everyone has their own exodus with the people they know, I guess. Just like Dylan said, the mass departure of everything: experiences, memories, and in this case, people who we’ve known for what seemed like all our lives. They’ve changed us just as we’ve changed them in a way that we can neither understand nor comprehend, and so all of us will have our exodus in the end, just to give way to new memories and people.

“Hey, Leah!” I heard Jayce shout from below. I chuckled to myself and looked down. There was a beautiful grass cutting of a person that looked scarily like me…wait, it was me. Ha ha. That was so sweet. “I made it just for you, Lee!”

“That’s so sweet, Jay!” I shouted back at him, using his nickname as he used mine. I blew him a kiss and he acted as if he caught it, then put it to his heart. I swear I could melt.

Maybe this was my exodus.

Maybe not; maybe there was still more to come.

But for now, I was contented with it.

There were more to come, I was sure. More departures, more separations…but in the future. I just madly hoped it wouldn’t happen with Jayce and I.

So here it is: the end of my story. At least, the part that I will tell. For a moment, it all came down to these thoughts. But it’s not the end. I ran downstairs and rushed to Jayce’s arms, hugging him as tightly as I could to show him I appreciated it. I didn’t ever want to let him go.

THE END

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