CHAPTER 38: 38-LOVE KILLS.

Clementine:

"Elliot, I know you think I hate you. I know you think I betrayed and belittled you. I know you also wonder if I ever thought about you."

I started to speak in a very soft and gentle tone.

"But that is not entirely true. You held a very sacred place in my heart," I said, placing my hand on my chest.

"I just could not bring myself to come back and live with you after you caught me in bed with him," I said, looking at Troy.

"I felt like living with him was the better option, because our life would have turned so bitter from then on. You forgave me for that mistake, temporarily, but it would have come between us in the future. And that was all on me. I had made that bed for myself, so I chose to leave with a man I loved less than I loved you, all because I made one mistake. One mistake that ruined everything. It was never your fault. It was never his fault. It was all my fault. I was a coward. I couldn’t tell him that I had ruined our relationship only to realize I loved my husband more."

I watched Elliot’s face start to light up, almost like he had been waiting to hear this for so long.

"You loved me more?" he asked.

Sadly, this is how it is for people who are genuinely in love with someone. They will take anything and believe it. And I hated that I was doing this to him. But it was important in the moment, otherwise, he would burn everyone with him in the anger he carried. It would start in the north and escalate to our regions.

"I do. I always loved you more, Elliot. Even when I left, there was never a single day I didn’t think about you," I said, watching him lower his face, and start sobbing.

The reason he was catching fire was not because he was angry, and not because his love for me was thriving, like his horns would always turn red. It was because he was finally seeing the light. He was resuming his life from the point where it had ended. He was reliving the time of his death, and this time, he would perish for good.

As he began to catch fire, he started to scream.

"That is all I wanted to hear. Now my soul will be freed," he cried.

The fire on his body started to burn the ropes around him, and that was when he fell to the ground. We stepped away, but Yorick ran toward us, just to make sure the horn wouldn’t change his mind at the last moment.

Watching him in so much pain as he was dying shattered my heart, and without realizing it, I rushed toward him to help pat the fire off his body. Even though it was absolutely necessary that he die this time, by the fire like he was supposed to, I just couldn’t do it.

"Clementine, you’re hurting yourself!" Troy yelled, coming from behind me and wrapping his arm around me, trying to pull me away.

"No!" I screamed, gently tapping the faun’s face.

The way he stopped struggling and looked at me as I ran my hand back and pushed Troy away, just so I could be with Elliot, said it all. A smile crept over his lips, and then he slowly began to close his eyes.

I began to sob, sitting next to his body with my palms burned. The fire was gone. His body simply dropped, then turned into mist. The ashes started to drift away with the wind while I cried beside him.

I don’t know why, but I felt like this first mission had left me more emotional than ever. This was the first time I had cried in front of anyone like this, and it was because of someone else’s pain.

I sat there for one full hour. Troy and Yorick tried to speak to me, but since I didn’t respond, they stepped back and stood in the shadows.

After an hour, I steadily got up from the ground and wiped the tears from my face before turning to look at them.

"We have finished our first mission," I announced, trying to sound as if it were just an act, as though I hadn’t just cried for someone I once knew as a monster.

"You did a good job," Yorick said. I responded with a silent nod.

"Let’s head toward the station then," Yorick added.

"The train will come in two days," Troy said. I began to walk away because I no longer wanted to stand in the same place.

"We should take care of these nets. I don’t want any crusader stepping into them and getting caught." I grabbed a broken shard of glass we had taken from Elliot’s bedside in his house and started cutting the ropes. The two of them watched as I did it.

"Are you guys going to help or just stand there and watch me?" I grunted.

The two finally stepped in to help.

After we had cleared the traps, we started walking back toward where we had come from, the train station. It would be two days, but we could always wait there for the train. It was our first time, so we didn’t know how it worked or how often the train arrived in one day or was it just once?

"How are we going to tell others that we’ve done it?" Yorick asked.

"I think they’ll come to the station the day after tomorrow to meet up with the other crusaders and ask around if anyone has killed the Faun. If someone says they did, we’ll all board the train. If no one says they did, I guess we’ll stay behind and try to figure out what to do next." I explained in the best way I could.

"But where are our teammates?" Yorick asked.

"Here," Ian’s voice came from behind us.

I rolled my eyes. Of course he came out of whatever world he had been lost in.

"You fucking left us alone," Troy hissed at Ian. I didn’t even turn around to look at him, but I could tell Ian hadn’t joined us.

"Yeah, because you guys were talking about some stupid plan of luring him in using the most unattractive person who couldn’t lure in a single soul." Ian was still speaking in the same way he always did, like he was bullying me.

"Ian, there is a time and place for everything," Yorick said.

"And this is not it," Troy added.

And just like that, they were now defending me, after everything they had done to torture me.

"You don’t get to speak like that, Troy. It was you who ruined her reputation. At least in my eyes," Yorick said.

"I did?" Troy admitted.

That was when I knew they were serious about this conversation, and that they would argue again, just like before, or end up beating each other again.