Reckless

Chapter 16 Part 1

Present Day

Character POV: Roxanne

The hours pass by in a frenzy, and I hardly can keep track of everything happening around me. All I want is a moment alone with Ariadne, a moment to just be with her and not have some great and terrible revelations raining down on me. I want to just lay down, breathe in her scent of lilac and blood, close my eyes, and sleep for the first time where I feel safe, where I know someone who can help me will be waiting for me when I wake up. Throughout the next few hours, Ariadne shoots me flirtacious looks and loving ones, but no words are exchanged between the two of us as we prepare the vampires for the battle that lies ahead.

The only moment that the two of us have alone together is when we're in the car the following night, driving towards the battlefield we've chosen after a note arrived from Drusilla which simply read, "Looking forward to the end of this dance of ours. -Drusilla." Apparently, she's done hiding as well. She started this as Drusilla back when she had my sister attacked, back when she denied Ariadne the chance to become a witch simply because she didn't like her attachment to me. It's only fitting that we're all ending this way the same way we began it, despite how many centuries have passed.

Ariadne is driving the car because my leg is hurting too much to be shifting between the gas pedal and the brake in this American car. She drives more cautiously than I do, no alcohol or drugs in her system, not speeding and talking to a hallucination version of a person. I sometimes forget how abnormal my life has been until I'm around someone who should be more crazy than me, has an actual reason to be, and yet for some reason is more stable than I am.

I glance down at my hands, imagining them covered in blood like they probably will be by the end of the day. The question will just be whose blood it is. I'm praying it won't be anyone that I care about, that it won't be Ariadne. If she goes, so does my niece. So does Sita and Zebulun. So does her entire species. I'm not sure I could withstand that loss, being left with only one person who I actually know and who knows the real me, and Zahra and I are not particularly close.

"What you said," I say, breaking the silence because I can't stop myself from obsessing on it, "about winning this battle no matter the cost." She glances at me, making an "um-hmm" noise to encourage me to continue on. "You didn't mean that, did you?" She looks away from me, noticeably silent, and I feel panic rise inside of me as I laugh ruefully and snap, "There are some costs that are too high, Ariadne. There are worse things than having to hide from Drusilla."

"We're in this now, Aoibhe," she replies with a sharp glance. I think she's stepped on the gas a little harder in her anger, because the outside scenery is streaming by much faster than it was a moment ago. "You heard what the others said. If you back out this time, they're coming for you. I'm pretty fucking amazing, but even with Zeb and Sita's help, I can't stop over three thousand vampires from killing you. You know that."

"I am not worried about me," I reply evenly, looking down at the floor.

The car lurches and my seatbelt locks and almost chokes me as Ariadne slams on the brakes, the scream of the tires on the cement hurting my ears. It takes me a long moment to be able to get breath in as my heart pounds inside of me and I brace my hand against the dashboard. Ariadne whirls in her seat and snarls at me, "All of this has been to protect you. From the start, that's what it's all been about. You are important, and you need to start viewing yourself as important. I'm tired of you talking like that. Enough is enough. Got me?"

"You feel that way about me, and I feel the same about you," I snap back, tears burning at the edge of my vision as my throat gets suddenly tight. "You mean the world to me. You have been there whenever I have hit rock bottom. You're the only person who has." My voice chokes out at that. I look down and shake my head as I say, "I don't think that I could bear it if you died. I don't think that I wouldn't try to burn the whole world down if you weren't in it any longer. People haven't changed, there's nothing redeeming about humanity. Without you on this planet, what would the point even be?"

Silence greets my words. It stretches out for so long that I am forced to look up through my vision blurred with tears, and when I see Ariadne's face, my heart breaks even further. For the first time in possibly forever, tears are sliding down Ariadne's face. She unbuckles herself and leans across, putting her hands on either side of my face and kissing my forehead. She mumbles onto my skin, "I can't promise that. I have no idea what's going to happen because it's a battle in the real world. There are no guarantees. But I can promise that whatever happens, we will find our way to each other. We always have. Love is stronger than any force, than even my gods." I nod, and she releases me, reaching for her seat belt and buckling up again before she puts her hands on the wheel and winks at me, "Besides, I have so many more people to kill, so many more sexists to terrorize. With the rise in that bullshit again, I'm too busy to die." I release a small laugh at that, which earns a bright smile from Ariadne as she starts the car moving again and continues to drive to the state park.

I look out of the window, thinking she's done, but then she says, "I love you, Aoibhe. Whatever happens, it's important that you know that. I have always loved you, and only you. There's been no one else." And I believe her. There's been people in her bed, like there has been in mine, but Ariadne has never brought someone into her life.

"I love you, too," I tell her, shifting in my seat to look back at her, where the lights of an oncoming car illuminates the sharp panes of her face. "You're the only person I have ever really loved. It makes me sound like a horrible person, but it's true. Without you, I don't know how to love. So please, please-- if it comes between killing her and you dying or letting her live and you live, choose to live."

She doesn't say anything; she just reaches across the gear shift and grabs ahold of my hand, giving it a tight squeeze. I lay my other hand atop hers, as if I can hold her here forever and make sure that no one ever comes after her again. But that's not how the world works. You can't hold onto people forever because you're afraid that they'll disappear if you let go. Life will find a way at you no matter your safeguards. Silently, I cast prayers out to any gods that I used to favor, begging them for help even though they did nothing to help Boudicca. I'll do anything, become anything, to keep her alive. Just please, please, don't let her die.