Your Narrator Cries An Embarrassing Amount

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Why had I been so careless! From the moment I realized Alex was starting to suspect something, I should’ve tried harder to get away.

I stammer, “Of course I’m Aurelia, I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

And suddenly I’m choking. My throat burns like it’s on fire, tears gathering at the corner of my eyes as my lungs spasm, desperately seeking for oxygen. On reflex, my hands clamp down on Alex’s forearms.

Alex takes away his thumb and releases the pressure on my windpipe. I gasp, and air rushes again down my stinging throat.

“I told you to cut the bullshit,” Alex says. “You have one more chance to give me an explanation. If you lie again, I’ll—“

He stops.

Like the first ice crack on a frozen pond, the tears from his chokehold trail down my face. But instead of relieving the pressure, as I cough and cough, more and more tears pool at the corners of my eyes—until they’re spilling over in free-fall. His face—his ugly tapestries—the oppressive stone walls—this whole Keep and the entire fucking cursed universe—everything turns into unreal, indistinct blurs.

I angrily wipe my frankly filthy arms over my eyes, and try to turn my head to hide as much of my face. But I can't stop sobbing, and there's nowhere to go. Alex’s hand is still on my neck. Probably I just look like a dumb kid thrashing in a tantrum.

“I don’t know! I don’t know who or what I am, does that make you happy?” I croak out. My throat hurts too much to shout. And I’m so congested right now that the words come out rounded and wet. “But I didn’t do anything wrong! I was a victim, I got hit by a car for reading. Why’d I have to be put here in this stupid beautiful body with you and your stupid psychopathic family— I should’ve just walked straight west instead saving all your lives! And what I'd get for my trouble? You choking and stabbing me!”

At the last sentence, Alex’s grip on the hilt of his dagger—which had slackened throughout my speech—tightens. He presses the dagger forward until it’s again just on the verge of breaking skin.

“You admit it then? You’re not Aurelia?” he insists. “What magic is ‘car’? Is that how you shape-shifted into Aurelia?” His face hardens. “I don’t care whether you’re here by intention or accident—if she’s been harmed in any way by your rituals, mage, I will make you pay!”

More threats? Seriously?

Fine. this universe was out to get me that badly? Then it can go ahead and do it!

I clench my jaw and blink away the tears. The edges of Alex’s shaken face sharpen in front of me again.

“Fine. You want to kill me so much? Get it over with then,” I grit out.

Even as I’m saying that, I have to shake off the trembling in the words.

But isn’t that what my mom’s always said, that fate can’t be avoided? 1

I’ve tried everything but… just letting it happen, haven’t I?

Maybe I’d been going at this all wrong. Maybe there’s never been a way to permanently avoid Aurelia’s death. Maybe the threats are just going to keep coming around until I’d played my role like I’d been supposed to, dead girl for a dead girl.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I already died once. Maybe your girlfriend’s soul will come back. Or maybe she’ll just die like she was supposed to, and I’ll finally be free."

Either way, this will decide everything. I’ll either be on my way, or go onto whatever laid… after. Where I was supposed to go if I hadn’t been put into the limbo of Aurelia’s body.

Alex frowns. I squeeze my eyes close.

It’s still so vivid, the screeching tires, asphalt tearing my skin, arms and bones twisting farther than they're meant to, such blinding pain—

No, don’t. Don’t think on that, Gemma.

Alex’s been trained, he knows what he’s doing. It wouldn’t hurt. Not like last time.

I wait. And wait.

And wait.

Alex’s hold on my throat disappears. I stiffen.

The pinprick in the middle of my chest withdraws too.

I peek open my eyes. Alex is still holding his dagger, and it’s still pointed at me, but it’s much farther away.

He’s much farther away now, there’s now at least two feet of distance between us.

“Your hunting knife,” he says roughly. “Hand it over.”

What knife?

I blink and look down at the knife in the leather holster I’d stolen from the Morrells. I’d had it strung to my waist this entire time.2

I swipe one more time at the drying tear tracks on my face, and reach down—but my hands stop on the way there. A terrible thought blooms in my mind.

“Is this a trick?” I sniff and lick my dry lips.“You’re not going like, take it away and then torture me or something?3 Because I really don’t know how to get Aurelia back anymore than you do. So I’d much rather you just kill me straight if you are.”

“If I wanted to torture you, you’d already be screaming,” he says—which is not the world’s most reassuring thing to hear. “Just give it here.”

But I can’t escape the rictus of indecision. With a hiss, Alex strides forward and snatches the holster free from my waist with not even a “beg pardon.” The top fastening breaks, but he just tucks it directly into the space between his waist belt and woolen tunic.

Then he… puts away his own dagger.

“I can take this out and slit your throat faster than you could take a step,” he warns, his gaze flicking up to catch my wide eyes.

That done, Alex gestures to the chaise to my right.

“Sit,” he orders. It’s honestly hilarious that he doesn’t get along with his father, because he and Magnus are obviously cut from the same overbearing, pompous cloth.

But I sit.

“Explain yourself,” he says, in that commanding way again.

I look at him with suspicion, mouth zipped.

He sighs.

“So you don’t know what happened to Aurelia and where she is. And you don’t know how you got here,” Alex prompts. “But you think she was supposed to die, and my family and I with her. And you think you’re already dead.” His cheeks twitches with distaste. “Or at least, that’s what I got from all that blubbering.”

“I wasn’t blubbering!" I say, forgetting I was still on the fence about answering him. And then I wince, my hands going up to cradle my throat. Talking still sort of hurts, and it’s aching in a way that make me think I’m going to have a ring of bruises there tomorrow.

Alex follows the movement of my hands. Guilt flashes across his expression.

But then it’s gone. He tightens his lips and folds his arms, an eyebrow raised. Waiting.

I look down. "Yeah, I mean... basically. Except I don’t know I’m already dead, I just remember—“ I hesitate. “I remember dying. And then.” I take one hand off my neck and wave it vaguely down Aurelia’s body. “I was here.”

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1. Yeah, I know. Granted, my mom said that about both good and bad things. Her meeting my dad when she’d move to Virginia from Texas to get some independence from her family, and then finding out he’d just moved from the same town in Texas and was the guy her dad wanted to set her up with? Fate. Our neighbor who just missed catching a bus that ended up in a terrible collision, and then a week later got into a car accident while biking? Also fate.

I once asked my mom if she thinks it’s possible to defy fate, like, what if she’d just refused to get together with my dad, and she’d laughed and called me her “American child.” She said that was that question was too self-important. She told me that if I just focused on caring for the people I loved, and always took responsibility for my actions and how it affected others, I had nothing to fear from fate.

I’ve always remembered her words, even though I'd even been confused at the time.

I think I get it a little more now.

2. What! I’m just not used to carrying knives around, let alone using them! Anyway, even if I had remembered, it’s not like it would’ve done me any good to pull it out—Alex probably would’ve just chopped my hand off or something without blinking.

3. It’s a reasonable fear, okay. Torture was how Alex Prime found out the first time that the King and Queen had been behind the attack. He’d overheard a pair of scouts saying something suspicious as they cleaned up the battlefield so it couldn’t be tied back to the royals, hunted them down, tortured both, killed one while making the other watch, and then killed the surviving one too. I had to skip half the chapter because my stomach couldn’t handle it.