Bloodstream (#2 Blood Series)

Chapter 5

There's something I've been wanting to do ever since I came back. No, not really wanting to, more like needing to. I have to see it for myself. I need to face the truth that my mind already knows but my heart refuses to acknowledge.

I choose the lesser evil of the two things I've been avoiding (the other one being facing Nathan) and skip yet another school day. It's hard to recognize the girl who just in the beginning of this school year couldn't allow herself to miss one lesson let alone skip them on purpose. A lot has changed since then. I have changed. The world I live in has changed. The things I believe in have changed.

But the biggest change is this marble gravestone at my feet.

Troy Maximilian Giorgio

A son, a brother and a friend who will deeply missed

Rest In Peace

"So wise so young, they say, do never live long", flashes in my head as I read the words engraved in the stone. I feel a crushing pressure in my throat as I fall on my knees on the dead grass. My hand reaches for the stone, touches the words as I try to process what they are saying. My childhood friend and a boyfriend of two years is gone. I thought about him every single day in the Abyss and asked myself a hundred times why he had to die. I still don't know the answer.

"Hey, Troy", I say quietly and I wish I could talk to him just one more time. I'd tell him how sorry I am for everything and how much I miss him. Troy used to be my clarity. When I didn't know what to believe, I turned to him and asked for advice. He had an incredible mind and I loved how differently he saw the world than the rest of us. He was the smartest person I have ever known and now that he's gone there's no light, no light.

I can't talk directly to Troy, I can only hope that he's listening. Because I need to get this off my chest.

I take a deep breath and start talking: "I never got the chance to tell you that I'll always love you too. We weren't really ourselves this year, a lot happened that maybe shouldn't have. But despite everything you did and everything I did you are my best friend and I'll see you again. I know I will because if there's a heaven I know you're there. You're probably right now yelling at me and asking everyone in there why the hell I'm talking to a piece of rock."

I let out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a sob when I picture him there, rolling his eyes at my illogical behavior. It makes me feel a little better, a little lighter. "I miss you, Troy Giorgio. Rest in peace", I simply state then because in the end there is nothing more to say. Losing Troy will always hurt to a certain degree but he died for someone he loved and that is the bravest way to die. If we truly must die that's how I want to go too.

Most people find graveyards creepy but to me they are a peaceful place and I end up staying there, by Troy's headstone for a long while. I feel closer to him here and don't want to let go of that feeling just yet. Under the very ground I'm sitting on sleeps people who lived, laughed and loved until it was their time to go. Maybe it was too soon, maybe it wasn't. But now they are all resting in peace because after death there is no more struggling and in some way that is a beautiful thought. Once you die it's all over, you don't have to worry anymore. I myself don't plan on dying until I'm nothing short of 200 years old but when that day comes I want to be able to say that I lived.

An unfortunately familiar voice speaks up. "Such a waste, don't you think."

"Get lost, Oliver", I command in a low voice. I don't look at him nor do I ask what he's doing here on Earth. I figured Mirabelle would send someone after me and who better suited for the surveillance job than the queen's lapdog. I know that he's standing behind me and is probably mocking me. To Oliver death is not a big deal. In his world people die, end of story. There is no mind in missing them because no amount of tears will bring them back. Oliver may tell himself that but he can't fool me, not completely. I know that at least once in his life he has lost someone he cared about and that someone was enough for him to seek vengeance on the Bloods even years later.

Oliver crouches next to me and lightly brushes my tear stained cheek. "Do you remember what I once said to you about tears, Haley?" he asks then and I turn to ice. My veins freeze over and my limbs stiffen at his words.

Do I remember? Like I could forget.

I had pissed Oliver off by not apparently trying hard enough to learn to control my powers so he decided that it was time to step up our game. Out of nowhere he asked me if I was afraid snakes. I was an idiot and told him yes. Next thing I knew I was standing in a well filled with snakes. The plan to get out was simple: all I had to do was use Blue Fire on those snakes that attacked me. I couldn't kill them all with Fire before they laid eggs because in Oliver's sick mind this was a power control mission. I had to get a hold of myself and my powers to be able to summon the Blue Fire again and again.

I am terrified of regular snakes enough already as it is and those sleazy bastards that were all around me in that well were magically modified. As I felt them crawl on my feet and saw them in the cracks of the well I burst into tears like the teenage girl that I am, had an anxiety attack and everything. And Oliver just stood there, at first perfectly calm but when my panic wouldn't come to an end he lost his patience with me.

"Stop crying and save yourself. You're not a helpless human so stop acting like one!" he growled. To Oliver, like most fallen angels, being a human is the one of the worst crimes in the world. I guess that's why he tried so hard to train me to be a warrior like him while we were both in the Abyss. He wanted me to be numb like him but I only learned to fake invincibility, not actually possess it.

I shook my head, lost in my fear and repeated over and over again: "I can't do it, please just let me out, let me out!"

Oliver looked at one of the snakes and then at me. The black snake with yellow spots started to crawl on my leg, wrapping itself around my thigh as it rose. I screamed and froze, too scared to move. I could just stare at Oliver pleadingly who didn't seem fazed by my silent begging. 

He looked right at me with his peculiar amber eyes and said: "If I were you I might kill that snake before it reaches your heart, beautiful Haley. One drop of an Iliza snake's poison and you'll drop dead instantly."

My screams went through my body like electric shocks and I could no longer even see straight but when Oliver made no attempt to help me I knew that the only savior for me was myself. I thought of my mother who is the strongest woman alive and draw strength from the memory of her. She wouldn't have cried, she wouldn't have begged for mercy. She would have done her damnedest to survive and if I gave up I'd let her down. I needed to breathe, I needed to keep fighting. For her.

As soon as I calmed myself the blue flames I was very much acquainted with appeared on my skin and burned the snake to ashes. I looked up at Oliver who had a hint of an approving smile on his lips. It disappeared as soon as he noticed me looking at him. His features hardened and he easily pulled me up from the snake pit like I weighed nothing.

"Don't let me ever catch you crying again. Tears are for the weak, Haley, and you are not weak. Only the strong survive in here. Remember that", he said with such conviction that I knew that he had told himself the same thing many times before.

I nodded but I lied. Those were only the very first tears I shed in the Abyss.

After the memory fades from my brain I push Oliver away from me and get up. "I hate you", I spit. I may have to tolerate him for now but I'll never forget the things he made me go through during our time together in the Abyss. I know that in Oliver's mind training me was a favor, not a punishment but that's what it felt like. Many scars now decorate my skin but not all of my wounds caused by the Abyss can be seen from the outside. Some are buried deep within myself and I'd prefer for them to stay hidden in there.

Oliver blows out air of his lungs before answering. "I know", he states exasperatedly and doesn't follow me when I storm off the graveyard. He simply stands there surrounded by dozens of old and new gravestones and breathes it all in as he watches me leave.