Roses and Thorns

26- Son of The Moon

 The darkness surrounds me as I embrace it, feeling the weight of the world upon my back. The earth presses down on me, as if preparing to suffocate me now, but I'm already choking on the noose of my own terror.

Sirius paces in his cage, likely scenting my revolting hatred. I expect fear when he sees me. I want him to tremble at my paws, I want to tie the noose myself...

He steps forwards with that same awful, trusting intimacy, a hope in his eyes that's just too clever. Is he seeing me or an escape? Was that all I ever was?

"Did something happen? Is there a lead?" He leans forwards, nearly touching me through the bars again.

We. We. We. My mind chants. Every fur and every muscle, every bit of my still beating heart wants for me to turn back, but I can not turn from the truth.

Here in this moment, against my better judgement, I regret never learning that hymn.

"Energy draining." I speak, the two words echoing between us.

"What?" he asks, ears perked. The significance does not shatter him to the bone like it is breaking me.

"One of the powers of Dire Canira. Calliope's sickness. The way you killed my sister, the reason no flowers have appeared on her grave. You're draining all of their energy." I state the facts, waiting, begging for a confession.

He pauses, his eyes tracing something I can't see above my head. His ears flatten with the realization. "So the blame falls on me again, doesn't it. Took us half a year to walk in a long, desolate circle and we're right back where we started."

He's so calm.

I cry out in rage, my energy flickering past my control. I lift the log we used to walk through and through it across the bars, slicing the walls of the cage to bits. The splinters fly everywhere, sticks falling to the floor like bone, and we stand without borders between us, little but the magical barrier keeping him from hurting me.

I almost wish he could jump across, do away with me, end it all. I'd do it in a heartbeat to bring Calliope and Daisy back.

Too damn late for that.

He moves back by steps, eyes wide with prey fear. I want to feel powerful, but he has robbed all joy from this hunt. His fear makes my mouth feel dirty. I feel sick.

"I trusted you!" I yell. "I bought you out there and you took advantage of me. You took advantage of my family, my friends, you made me care, you made me-" I feel bile and blood rising in my throat, an incurable sickness I've bought upon myself.

He fixes me with that same, unyielding glare, half confused and half sad.

"Rose."

"Don't say it." I warn, but I no longer know what it is. There is nothing to prepare for, nothing to expect. I can't even flinch.

His eyes burn with a sudden resolve, his face curves into a deep, long snarl, and he dips his head. "Fine. You want to know why I'm innocent?"
A silence fills us both and I hold his gaze as he steps forwards. He walks over the sticks that once held us apart, kicking them aside as if they were nothing, and then he walks over the magical barrier unscathed. He meets me on the other side, resolute, and stares me down with the intensity of a thousand suns.

"What are you?" I ask, breath shuddering.

He steps forwards and I step back, terrified. "I told you my mother was expelled for a grievous crime, didn't I? The crime was my birth. She fell in love with a Felis and when I was born, well, she was lucky she didn't die. Still, not only was she expelled from the Defenders, she was expelled with a useless, powerless, Verhamera-forsaken child. The spawn of a grimalkin and the holiest of Canira breeds, the Defenders of the Queen herself. They were a match made to spite the stars. I suppose some good came of it, though- no magic, no restraints. I really am a shadow, aren't I? I exist outside of society. Convention. No boundary made by magic can hurt me. The Dog Days that cripple the rest of the waking world run over my skin like rain. I don't exist, Rose."

"You bastard." I mutter.

"No one ever loves me again after I tell them." he snarls. "I've been tossed out by everyone who ever cared for me. I've lost my pack. My parents. Dozens of towns. I was happy to eek out a living in the shadows, never caring for anyone again-"

"This could have proved your innocence, you idiot! You're going to die-" I stop, shivering. "Why hadn't you escaped earlier?"

"I planned on it before I fell in love with you."

"Yet you'd keep this from me."

"I did what I could to stay close to you, and it's not as if I was idle. All those shadows on late nights? Those were me. I get around more than you know. I've been solving the case on my own. How else would I know where all those documents were? How else would I have crossed the Cloud Chasers off? Please, Rose. I've been narrowing this down since the beginning, coaxing you along as I went. I'm down to two candidates."

"Who?"

"Alabaster and Morgan."

I'm about to retort something violent when I remember Calliope's eyes.

There are strange magics at work here.

Beneath my breath, I hiss, "This isn't going to work."

"I know." he replies, and his tail fur meets mine. There's still that electric shiver when we touch, but now it fills me with more guilt and dread than I ever could have imagined at the festival.
"No, you say you do, but somewhere in you you thought that you were winning me over. Congratulations, you were completely and utterly wrong. Now here's how this is going to work. We're going to find the real murderer, and then you run as far as you can, find some new poor town to steal from and terrorize, and new hearts to rip into bloody pieces."

"We." he whispers, and I want to scream. I restrain myself, still trembling, as he continues, "How are we supposed to get up there? If they come down here and see the cage wrecked, they're going to assume it's you."

My mind is already reeling, so I set it into overdrive the best way I know how. There has to be an escape... an opening... I look up towards the exit, Sirius following behind. I pop above ground, and seeing as Alabaster is still in his cabin, find myself with the perfect opening.

"Are you two alright?" A familiar voice sets my heart racing, but as I look to my left I see only Blitz and Morgan, and I feel Sirius bare his teeth. Blitz approaches, fur letting off nervous sparks in all directions, and says, "Look, I have no idea what's going on, but Anassa and Morgan just had a talk and... I think we're just about to solve your murder case."