Lunar Virus ✔️

Chapter Thirty-six: Elodie

No one ever told me that my life would lead to this.

No one ever told me that every step I took from the moment I was born--that every scrape, tear, and shitty day I endured--would lead to this.

I imagined that it would go very differently; I would have gone to prom, graduated high school, watched my brother turn thirteen, and I would have had my first kiss. I would have said sorry to the man whose vase I broke, and I would have tried the buttermilk ice cream my grandmother used to make.

I struggle to push the waterfall of thoughts, regrets, and emotions aside, but I can't seem to pull myself together. A dull pain settles like cement in the base of my skull making it hard to concentrate. My eyes, not on their own accord, settle on Elie. His skin has gone paler than ever, his blue eyes are covered in mist, and his lips are parted in horror.

I would have shared my first kiss with him.

Quentin: Should I have you kill him first? He would never fight back.

The sound of Quentin's voice in my head feels disturbingly foreign and precarious, like a porcelain figurine balanced on the backbone of a flossy tightrope. I am the porcelain figure, fragile and trapped in a position I don't want to be in; and it's my job to cut the tightrope before I'm forced to hurt someone.

Quentin: Like I said, I've never lost before. You aren't a little porcelain doll, you're a puppet with a brain and mind games are my thing.

Quentin starts slow, trying to taunt me and the lack of control I have over my own body. He starts with an involuntary twitch in my thumb and ends with the unwanted curl of my fist. My nails dig into the soft skin of my palm and refuse to relax. It's the kind of grip I'd use to protect something precious, like golden flower petal or the hand on a loved one. I take one step forward, then two, and suddenly, I'm only an arm's length away from Elie. My left foot comes forward and so does my fist, solidly connecting with the into Elie's jaw. As soon as he stumbles backward, I grab his shoulders; he looks at me hopefully, like maybe I'd reached out to him to prevent him from falling.

I bring my knee up into the lower right part of his stomach, under his ribs and watch as his expression turns into one of pain.

The gushing water beneath us does nothing to soften his fall; his head hits the ground with a sickening thud and my stomach plummets.

Elie's lips part and he moans, turning to his side, struggling to draw in air while keeping his head above the water--he's completely vulnerable.

Quentin: Want me to finish it?

A rush of heat pulses through my body and every fiber in me rebels. My heart, the only thing that seems to be under no one's control, beats frantically and unnaturally fast. The crushing emotions of panic and fear threaten to overwhelm me with no body to channel them through. My eyes stay dry and clear, each breath enters and exits naturally. But inside, I'm about to implode.

Elie, please get up.

"Someone get him out of the water!" I hear Sheila's commanding voice in the outskirts of my mind.

Jayne approaches me hesitantly, a careful pause in her stride where there wasn't before. "Elodie, please don't do this to us." Her gaze, for an instant, flicks away from my face and into the space behind me. "You're stronger than Quentin, you know." A ripple of water sloshes against my calf, alerting me of a presence behind me. Turning faster than I've ever turned before, I swing my elbow back into someone's ribs and instinctively push my foot into the spot above an unsuspecting knee while bringing my upper body backward to dodge a punch. Straightening, I see that it was Dev who had been sneaking up behind me. I deliver a final kick to the side of his head and he crumples.

Why aren't they fighting back?

Despair begins to seep in, and I start to doubt the soundness of my plan. It wasn't very sound in the first place.

Aren't they going to end it?

I spin around to face Jayne just in time to see her pull out her penknife.

Are you brave enough, Jayne?

Her eyes are stormy, conflicted for a moment, and determined all at once. Her trembling fingers grip tighten around the handle of the pen and my body lunges towards her.

I do indeed feel like a puppet as my fists expertly make contact with flesh and my feet gracefully carry me through the motions.

Quentin: I was a street-fighter.

The words almost slip out of my mouth.

Quentin: I've never lost a fight.

Sheila goes down soon after Jayne does, gasping sorrowfully with hate in her eyes--hate that is directed towards me. No matter how much Sheila might have disliked me in the past, I could always find comfort in the fact that I was not one of the people she loathed. The object of her hate was always more deserving of it than not; they were people with no regard for other humans--people with weird phobias and prejudices--they were the people seen wanted on television, wanted for hurting innocent lives. In her eyes, I am one of those people now.

With everyone down, Quentin could choose to leave me, but he doesn't feel like he's won yet.

My feet drag through the water and stop in front of Elie, whose sitting up in the water. His eyes, blue and lovely, lock with mine.

"We could have found another way," he rasps. "You don't have to do this. Please don't do this."

It's already too late.

He lifts his hand from the water and wraps it around my ankle, gently placing his head on my knee. "I can't hurt you."

Frustration creeps in at his refusal to do his part. He could end it right now by dragging me under the water, he could save all of humanity, and yet he chooses to be delicate with me? Why isn't anyone brave enough to finish it?

Quentin needs to die.

I push back against Quentin for an excruciating moment, wanting to feel as though I have control just for a second.

Quentin: Stop, you--

I feel a powerful blow to my back--most likely a punch.

Elie gasps and I glance down in his direction. His face has morphed completely. Tears slope off the planes of his cheeks roll onto his lips and his eyes focus on my abdomen. Confused, I look down to see blood; I'd been stabbed.

A bitter throb ripples through me and all of a sudden I feel hot and sick with a pain that halts even my ability to react.

Who finally did it?

"I'm sorry."

I realize that I'd bruised every single person but one: Moby. I had forgotten that he was even there.

A cold feeling creeps in now, like wind is blowing through me, or maybe it's because I've fallen in the water.

Moby's face hovers over mine, looking grim.

Thank you, I want to tell him

It is finally over. 

***

Author's Note:

No, this is not the last chapter :)

  ❤️ ❤️❤️