Bleakness wraps my heart.
“Luce?” It's the sound of a voice that I never thought I’d hear again. My heart nearly explodes with relief.
I spin around to see James sitting beside me. “James!” I breathe out in a flurry of relief and disbelief.
He smiles confusedly at me.
Are we in Heaven together? Really, it doesn’t matter where we are. He’s here. I feel like I’m going to burst with happiness. But wait, what if he’s not real. What if he’s just a figment of my very desperate imagination? I want to reach out and touch him to check if he is, but what if I do and he disappears. No, I’ll just keep him here as he is for now.
I clasp my hands together. My palms are slick with sweat. Would I sweat if I was dead? My mind is trying to work it out but it’s all too messy to make sense.
“You’re both alive.” I hear Isabel’s voice come from behind me. “I’ve taken time back. About an hour or so.”
I turn sharply to find her sitting in the chair Arlo was in.
“What?” is all I can manage.
Isabel looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re both alive,” she says slowly. “I reversed time to bring you both back.”
I blink a few times.
James is alive. He’s real. He’s really here.
Complete euphoria floods me and I launch myself at him, throwing my arms around him. I feel his arms vice around me. I squeeze him as tightly in return
“Luce. I can’t breathe,” he gasps, laughing. I loosen my grip on him. I pull back, hold his face in my hands, and stare into his dark, dark eyes. I can’t believe he’s really here. I don’t ever want to be deprived of looking at him again.
He smiles a lopsided smile and bites down on the corner of his lip. He is beautiful. My heart is hammering against my ribcage.
“Not that that enthusiastic greeting of yours wasn’t great,” he says, brushing a stray tear from my eye, “but, erm, I’m a bit confused as to what the hell is actually going on here.”
“Arlo killed you,” Isabel says very matter of factly. “And then I, thanks to Lucyna, accidentally killed her, so I reversed time to bring you both back.”
“You killed me?” I gasp as I nearly twist my head off my neck in my attempt to look at her. “I thought it was Arlo.”
She presses her lips tightly together. “Nope. That was me, I didn’t see you coming. I was too focussed on Arlo. Sorry. It helped though, you getting yourself killed, it distracted him for long enough for us to bind him.”
Okay. Glad to have helped.
“Where is . . . Arlo?” I ask tentatively, sucking my breath in.
“At home where he belongs. He can’t get back out. We’ve bound him, in a – let’s say, ‘restricted area’ until we can figure out a better way to help him. Don’t worry he won’t get free. You’re safe.”
“Why did you bring us back?” I have to ask the question. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I add quickly, “because I’m not, honestly. I’m more grateful than you’ll ever know.”
She sits forward, bridging the gap between us. “I like a happy ending. what can I say?” She shrugs lightly.
“Thank you, Isabel, for everything you’ve done,” James says, taking hold of my hand.
“Yes, thank you,” I add, somewhat belatedly.
“You’re welcome.” She stands and my eyes follow her up. “I have to go.”
“Isabel, can I ask – Fen, the guy Arlo used, is he okay – do you know?”
“He’s fine. Damage control done. He remembers nothing as do the rest of the humans at the hospital. It’s as if you never existed.”
She smiles and winks at me.
I have to stop myself from laughing with relief. “It’s been nice to see you again Isabel.”
“Likewise,” she smiles. “And just so you know, you’ve both been granted access back into Heaven . . . but I don’t expect to see either of you anytime soon.” She points an authoritative finger at James and me.
Before I get to thank her again, she’s gone.
I rest back against James’ chest. I can feel his heart beating against my back and his breath blowing down my neck, things I never thought he’d ever be able to do again. I block out all horrendous memories and comfort myself in the fact there is nothing that can take him away from me ever again.
“So, you died,” James says after a moment. His voice is rough and low.
“Yes,” I answer quietly. I really don’t want to get into this with him.
“What did Isabel mean when she said, ‘it was thanks to you that she killed you?’” And there it is. He really doesn’t miss a trick.
I shift uncomfortably.
He turns me round to look at him. “Tell me.”
Surprisingly to me, tears spring to my eyes. “You’d died and I couldn’t save you. I tried, but I couldn’t bring you back. And it hurt too much. Then I . . . just kind of got in the way of their fight.”
“How?”
I take a deep breath and look past him, staring at the wall. “I walked into the middle of it.”
He sighs and holds my tear-streaked face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I couldn’t bear the pain of losing you and I wanted it to stop.”
“That was a really fucking stupid thing to do. You know that?”
“I know,” I whimper.
He presses his forehead to mine, my tears running against his cheeks. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”
“I promise.” I sigh. “Why can’t we both just live forever as humans? Things would be a whole lot simpler if we could.”
He laughs and moves back from me. “You’re asking me that?”
I bite down on my lip, saying nothing. I know it’s a stupid thought, but it’d be nice it if could be true.
“We might not live forever as we are, but you and me –” he points between us both, “we’ll always be together. There’s nothing to keep us apart now. And I, for one, think that’s something to be very happy about.” He wipes the tears from my face and smiles at me.
My skin burns from his touch. His hot breath is blowing over me, causing shivers to run freely down my spine.
“So, what now?” he asks. I can see his eyes are on my lips and I know exactly what he’s thinking when he does that.
“I don’t know.” I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “We could go to bed, I suppose.”
“Bed?” His eyes suddenly look really opaque.
“Sleep seems like a really ‘normal’ thing to do after everything we’ve been through tonight.”
“Hmm, it does I suppose. But then normal’s not so bad, I’d say.”
He grins sexily and a bolt of desire zips through me. So I just have to lean forward and kiss him.
“You keep kissing me like that,” he says drawing away from me breathlessly “and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it out of this living room with you, let alone up to bed.”
I climb up onto his lap. “I can live with that,” I murmur, as I pull his t-shirt over his head and feel his hot body press up against mine. “I can live with anything so long as I have you.”