Devils Roses 04 - Witch

okay?"
    She shook her head, "Ari. She messed with the fates again."
    "What does that mean?"
    She felt sick. She remembered when they broke up only weeks earlier. He was crushed.
    She looked at Giselle sleeping on the bed, "I can't do this anymore Shane."
    He sighed, "Not this shit again Aimes. Come on. We've come so far this year. I told you I'm fine with it."
    She felt her gaze harden, "I know but I'm not." It was a lie. She knew it was a lie. She wanted him more than anything in the world, except Aleks.
    His gaze hardened, "I've been here every step of the way. Dealing with your fucked up friends and the bullshit your life is involved in and this is it? This is the extent of the emotion you have for me in the end?"
    She nodded. She had broken up with him already. She'd done the big talks. He just didn’t remember them. She couldn’t change the way her heart was closed off to him.
    "Fuck you Aimee. You know what I'm sick of this shit. You're a nightmare. A walking disaster. You're worse than Alise. At least she knows what she wants in life."
    She nodded again. Her heart stayed closed off. She'd gotten good at it. She watched him scream at her but in her mind all she saw was the Nærøyfjord. The cold wind and the tears that fell on Aleks's grave.
    Shane shouted his worst at her. His blue eyes filled with tears.
    She felt nothing. She couldn’t. She knew the secret. He was too good for her. He always had been.
    "I love you. How is that never enough Aimes?"
    She blinked at him and spoke flatly, "Shane it's not you that’s not enough. It's me. I will never be normal. We will never get married. We will never have children. I will never age or die. You will do everything alone. You will have my heart and nothing else. One day you will see that I'm not worth the sacrifice of everything else."
    He blinked, "You are when you're everything Aimes."
    She shook her head, "But I'm not Shane. I'm everything right now. In ten years when you look like my uncle or older brother it'll be weird. In twenty years when you look like my dad it'll be creepy. When you're watching kids play sports or running to their dads with a bleeding knee, I won’t be enough. Trust me. I saw it the other way."
    Shane shook his head and walked out of the hospital room. She felt nothing. Her regrets and priorities had already been put in order when Aleks died. She had clung to Shane in an attempt to be the girl she was. She never factored in the girl she had become. Shane could never share the ways in which she had changed. He could never understand the one thing she lived for, the kill.
    She looked at Giselle and smiled. She needed Marcus to fix her. She flashed to the Nærøyfjord. The dark night was stunning. The hillside was the same. She turned to the graves on the hill and felt the emotions catching up with her.
    She walked across the huge rocks to the spot where they had dug the hole.
    She dropped to her knees.
    She felt the warm wind behind her.
    She smiled.
    She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to.
    "I love you Aleks. I always did. I just never knew how much."
    His arms were around her and the smell filled the air around her. The smell that had become home.
    "How do you know about this place?"
    She pointed, "We dug the hole there." She heaved.
    His grip tightened, "I died. How?"
    "Marcus."
    He laughed, "Well can't say I never earned that. Did I return the heart to Henry at least?"
    She nodded.
    He sighed, "Good."
    She turned, "But the world is different now. Henry is a prisoner again."
    Aleks smiled, "But it means I know how to free him."
    She felt his warm breath on her face. She closed her eyes, "I prayed for this moment. I prayed you would come back to me."
    "I prayed you would finally see me Aimee. From the minute I saw you sitting on the side of the road crying, I prayed you would see me."
    He hugged her tightly and flashed them to a dark room.
    He lit a candle beside the bed.
    She looked around, "Where are we?"
    His piercing light blue eyes and crooked smile made her heart soar, "My place."
    She grinned at him, "You have a place?"
    He nodded, "I have had it for years. Marcus and Dorian and I used to stay here. It was like the bachelor pad."
    She looked back at the bed, "So you had some fun here?"
    He laughed and shook his head, "Uh no. No you know me better than that. Dorian on the other hand, and Marcus. Wow."
    She laughed and backed away from him, "So they used this bed for a few hundred years?"
    "Yes Aimee we had amazing