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chapter 9

❝ I'll love you forever ❞

NINE

MIDNIGHT GRAVEROBBERS

✶

The mist hung low above the graveyard and there was no moon on the dark night sky. Overgrown roots and moss were making it difficult to dig around the graves, marked with the remains of letters that once spelled out the names Effie or Elianna. Shining on the grey and black marble tombstones, were abbreviations such as Ef, Eli, Lia and Anna. Somehow, seeing either one of those names, awoke different types of emotions within my heart. Memories that I couldn't recall, besides the now dead Anais, calling me 'Ef' whenever she was angry.

I pushed those thoughts and images to the back of my head and tried to ignore the guilt that I felt, knowing that her murder had to be partially my fault.

'' Hold up, pigeon, do you even know what we're digging for? ''

'' I already told you that I have no idea, '' I snapped, raised my gaze from the ground and looked at Baekhyun. The angel was leaning against the shovel that he found somewhere and glaring at me. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing the skin on his arms that was completely covered with swirling black tattoos and there was a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. More than tired, he seemed to be irritated by all the digging that we were doing.

He let out a frustrated groan and kicked a nearby tree. '' I can't believe it. I keep underestimating your stupidity. I should've known that you weren't joking when you said that you have no idea what we're actually looking for. I can't believe that you still put up with that mouflon's bullshit. You've always trusted him too much. ''

I was about to ask him how exactly he knew Abel, when something else caught my attention. My shovel dug in the dirt beneath my feet and I felt a strange tingling vibration soar through my body. Magic. It was barely there, but I sensed it and I instantly knew that I was at the right place. I glanced at the name on the grave and mumbled a quiet apology to the Elianna who died in the late fifties and got buried there. I heard Baekhyun say something about how he wasn't going to partake in my antics, but once I started digging, he still stretched his neck in curiosity. I rolled my eyes at his actions, lowered my head and bit my lip. Taking a deep breath and thinking things over for the countless time, I finally decided to gather my courage and say: '' I'm sorry. ''

The sound of those words made him freeze, as if I just pushed a dagger through his heart. '' What did you just say? ''

I should've stayed quiet, but it's too late to back out now.

I nervously chewed on my bottom lip and tried to find the right words to say. Strands of my long hair, now bright pink after another failed attempt to dye it with magic, were falling down on my forehead and I was intensively digging in to the grave of some woman who had the same name as I did. '' I... I don't know what happened between us, but I can tell that I did something really bad. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm a different person now and I would never- ''

'' Don't use words like that when you don't really know what you would do if you would be presented with the same choice again... Because I believe that you would stab me in the back, right next to where you already did, so shut up. '' His eyes suddenly became ice cold and he clenched his fingers in to fists. '' Shut up. You have no idea about the extent of the pain that you're trying to apologize for. If you would, you would know that a simple 'sorry' is too vague and empty to even begin to erase the damage that you caused and- ''

My shovel hit the coffin that was buried in the dirt and Baekhyun stopped in the middle of his sentence to look over my shoulder and see what I discovered. His hands were buried in his pockets and he was clearly still angry, but he didn't want to delve any further in to that conversation. Moonlight illuminated his sullen eyes and his features twisted in to a cringe when I raised the front of the coffin. It wasn't the first time that I was robbing a grave and I had a feeling that he saw his fair share of corpses too, but he wasn't shocked by the sight of the rotting body. No, what took him by surprise, was the sword that the dead woman was guarding in her eternal sleep.