Author: Pepper Winters

I stopped. My lip wobbled, and I bit down on it, drawing blood, focusing on the pain. It helped mask the agony of remembering that day only a month ago.

Fox dragged his hands through his hair. “Go on. Don’t stop. I want to know all of it.”

“A month ago, Clara collapsed and the usual emergency inhaler didn’t work. She was announced clinically dead in the ambulance as we tore to the hospital. They managed to bring her back, but stole her from me for hours to perform tests. I had no idea what they were doing with her. I threatened to burn the hospital to the ground if they didn’t let me see her.”

I shook my head, remembering the exact afternoon as if it replayed in perfect detail before me. “Clara sat up in bed slurping on red Jell-O. She was awake, rosy cheeked, and happy. All my debilitating fear disappeared, and I felt as if life had finally given me good news. I’d done endless research on asthma in children and a lot of them grow out of it as they get older. I stupidly thought that the episode signalled the end, and she would never have another one again.

“That was before the doctors took me into another room and told me my daughter was dying.” My hands clenched and all the rage I’d bottled-up exploded.

I glared at Fox, not caring my cheeks were stained with tears. I wanted to kick and punch and kill. “That was the day they told me they fucking misdiagnosed my child. That she had Pleuropulmonary Blastoma and the tumours had grown so big they were suffocating her day by day. They said operating wasn’t an option as it’d spread to other parts of her body. They said the only choice was chemo, and that would only extend her life by a few months. They said they were fucking sorry and offered me counselling. They spoke about her as if she was already dead!”

Fox hadn’t moved. His body looked immobile, locked to the carpet. His eyes flashed with such livid anger I feared he’d track down the doctors and kill them himself.

“That was the day I died. I accepted your contract for a stupid fantastical dream of a trial drug in America. Something that has the power to reduce white blood cells and stop the cancer from spreading. But even if it worked, Clara is riddled with it. It lives in her blood. Killing her every second. That’s why I agreed to sell myself to you. That’s why I kept coming back. And that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to admit my daughter was dying and I couldn’t save her. No matter what hope I chased I would fail.”

Fox tore his eyes from mine, pacing to the mural of the black fox on the wall. His hands opened and closed by his thighs. “How long?”

My throat closed up.

“Mummy, when I’m old enough, do you think I can have a puppy?”

Everything Clara ever wanted was in the future. When she was old enough. When she’d grown up. I never had the heart to tell her that there would be no Pegasus or puppy or university education.

Shit, I couldn’t do this. I would never be ready to say goodbye.

He spun to face me. “How fucking long, Hazel?”

Steeling every muscle in my body, I voiced Clara’s death sentence. “A few months.”

“Fuck!” Fox whirled around and punched the wall so hard his fist disappeared through the painting. “And you didn’t think to tell me? You didn’t think I ought to fucking know? For fuck’s sake! I’m in love with that little girl! You allowed me to fall head over fucking heels knowing full well I was about to lose the one thing curing me. She’s the key to fucking healing me, and you tell me she’s about to die!”

“Shut up!” I glared at him almost suffocating Clara in my arms. “Enough!”

Fox ignored me. Thumping his chest, he winced in agony. “You gave me everything, and I stupidly thought I had a future. A fucking family. I had something to strive for. Something to fight for. I was doing it all for her!”

He charged toward me, the harbinger of death and destruction.

I braced myself for his wrath. Kill me. Then I don’t have to watch her die.

He glared, looking so strong and invincible. Then something cracked inside him. He transformed from a broken, livid male to an unfeeling, unthinking machine. He willingly gave himself to the ruthless conditioning of his past—shutting down his hard won emotions.

The ease of which he regressed terrorized me. I screamed, “Don’t go back. Don’t give up. You love her. Don’t abandon her when she needs you the most.” Don’t abandon me.

Fox laughed coldly. “You think I’m abandoning her? Goddammit, I’m protecting her. You’ve torn my fucking heart out. How am I supposed to trust myself feeling so empty and alone? It’s Vasily all over again. Everyone I fucking love dies!”

“Mummy?”

My heart dropped into my toes, and I looked down to see a groggy Clara blinking in confusion. “Why is your hand over my ear?”

I laughed through the sudden onslaught of tears. “No reason, sweetheart.” I removed my palm, clenching my fingers around the heat residue from touching her. She looked worn out, pale, and entirely too thin. Her lips had never lost their blue tinge and she felt frail, unsubstantial, as if her soul had already begun the journey to leave.

My body seized. No…

“When I grow up, I want a sister. I want to dress her, play with her, and teach her all about horses.”

I couldn’t breathe past the rock in my throat.

Clara’s brown eyes flickered upward to Fox. “Were you fighting?”

Fox immediately dropped to his haunches, reaching out to take her tiny hand. “No, Clara. We weren’t fighting.” His eyes swirled with hurricanes and snow, glistening with rage and misery. “Just talking. That’s all, little one.”

She sucked in a wheezy, unfulfilling breath. Another cough bombarded her small frame. “Good. I don’t want you to.” Her eyes closed again, and we stayed frozen. I dared to hope she’d fallen asleep, but her little lips parted and a darker tinge of blue returned.

My heart ripped itself out, vein by vein, artery by artery as my body prickled with foreboding. She’d never looked so wraith-like, so ghost-like, so…

You can’t have her. Not yet. Not yet! I yelled in my head, wishing I could go head-to-head with the powers that be. I need more time. I’m not ready.

Her liquid eyes re-opened. “Mummy?”

A gut-wrenching moan escaped my lips, before I cleared my throat and forced my terror away. The part of me unbound by earth—the spiritual part—knew the doctors had my daughter’s lifespan wrong once again.

There would be no more months. No more days.

“When I grow up, I want to be just like you, mummy. You’re my best-friend forever and ever.”

I couldn’t explain the crushing, debilitating weight that took up residence in my chest. Horror scattered down my spine as tears prickled my eyes. “Yes, sweetheart.” I kissed her forehead, threatening away tears, drinking in her fading warmth.

“Do you think Roan would like my star? I can’t take it with me.”

Ah, fuck.

No. No. No.

I gathered her closer, rocking, choking on relentless tears. I hated everything in that moment. Every doctor. Every hope. I hated life itself. “You can give it to him when you’ve had a good night’s rest, Clara. Don’t fret about it now.” I kissed her again, inhaling her apple scent into my lungs.

“When I’m older I’ll look after you, mummy. Just like you look after me.”

Her eyes suddenly popped wide, looking intelligent and almost otherworldly. She stared right at Roan as if she saw more than just a scarred man, but a broken boy from his story.

A large cough almost tore her from my arms. Once it passed, she gasped, “Don’t fight with mummy, okay? And you can have my star.”

Roan cleared his throat; his entire body etched with sorrow. His jaw clenched while his eyes were blank, hiding whatever he might be suffering. The scar on his cheek stood out, silver-red against the paleness of his face. “Okay, little one.” His large hand came forward and rested on her head.

Clara smiled and her eyes held Roan’s before coming to rest on mine. Something passed between us—something older and mystical than an eight-year-old girl. I saw eternity in her gaze and it shattered me as well as granted peace. She truly was a star. A never ending star.

“I love you, Clara. So very, very much,” I whispered, kissing her nose.

She sighed. “I’m tired. I’m just going to go to sleep now.” Clara shifted in my arms as another cough stole her last bit of air.

“When I grow up, I’ll never be sad or lonely or hungry. And I’ll make sure no one else suffers either.”

I had never held anything as precious as my daughter as her soul escaped and left behind a body that’d failed her. Something deep inside me knew the very moment she left, and I wanted nothing more than to follow.

My own soul wept and tore itself to smithereens at the thought of never hearing her giggle or see her smile again. There would be no more talk of growing up or planning a future that had barely begun.

It was like a candle snuffing out. A snowflake melting. A butterfly crashing to earth. So many beautiful things all perishing and ceasing to exist in one cataclysmic soundless moment.

I didn’t shout. I didn’t curse. There was nothing to fight anymore.

It was over.

My daughter was dead, and Fox hadn’t moved a muscle. His heavy hand stayed on her head, fingers playing with strands of faded hair.

Silent tears glided down my cheeks. I never stopped rocking, holding the last warmth of my daughter’s body.

“Mummy, would you be sad if I left?” The memory came from nowhere and I curled in on myself with pain. “Yes, sweetheart. I’d be very sad. But you know how to stop me from feeling sad, don’t you?”

Her little brow puckered. “How?”

I scooped her up and blew raspberries on her tiny belly. “By never leaving me.”

I traced her every feature, from her heart-shaped face and full cheeks, to her dark eyelashes and blue lips.

“You left me,” I whispered. “You made me sad.”

Fox made a heart-wrenching noise in his chest and stood quickly. Staggering, he looked as if he would pass out. “This can’t happen. It can’t.”

His entire body trembled, hands open and closing, eyes wide and wild. He looked completely and utterly destroyed.

He needed soothing. He needed to let his grief out. He needed to find healing not just for Clara’s death but his awful past. But I had no reserves to console him. I had nothing left to give.

Fox looked at Clara one last time and every ounce of humanness, every splash of colour that Clara had conjured in him faded to grey, to black. “It isn’t fucking fair. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. Not so soon. Not like this!”

His rage battered me like a heavy squall and I couldn’t do it. I needed to remain in a little cocoon of serenity where I could say goodbye to my wonderful daughter. Hunching over Clara’s body, I shut him out. I opened the gates to my grief and let myself be swallowed by tears.

“I don’t want you to be sad, mummy. So I’ll never ever, ever leave you.”

The memory brought a tsunami of tears, and I lost all meaning of life as I tried to chase my daughter into the underworld. My ears rang as Fox howled and every good and redeemable thing in him died.

There was nothing left to say. Nothing I could do to change what had happened.

Turned out, I couldn’t save either of them.

“I can’t do this. I can’t—” Fox snapped with the brittle rage. He left in a flurry of shadows and sin, leaving me to pick up the broken pieces of my completely shattered life.

Chapter 18

I thought my darkest hour was the moment I killed my brother. It took the agency months to break me. I withstood hours upon hours of torture, all so I could drag out my brother’s life.