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Calliope had never felt such burning rage and anger. It coated her insides, in every breath and every thought, the deep burning desire for revenge. From the flashback to standing on the lawn, blade over Juliette’s heart, ready, just ready to stake her. Guilt, doubt, anger, fear, rage, love, it all bubbled away, where she couldn’t even work out what she was feeling.
She should have staked her. It wouldn’t have killed her, but it would have hurt. That much was clear, they could still hurt.
Rationally, she knew it was because of Theo, the betrayal, the worry, the hurt she felt from losing her brother. Irrationally, it was about inflicting the maximum amount of pain on every Fairmont within a 100 mile radius, and triple to Juliette for ruining her and her families life.
Six weeks on from that night on the lawn and Calliope knew she had to channel this energy somewhere. Anywhere. So she ran, she hunted, she tailed the M.A.A.M.s around town to keep them safe and she slowly and surely racked up her kill count.
That arrow she so longed for was now prominently on display on her forearm, so close to twenty kills, Theo would have been proud. Wherever he was.
She wasn’t the only one who had been busy, either. Since that night, the Fairmonts have been keeping a low profile. Calliope hadn’t seen Juliette in school, or anywhere else for that matter, and Ben had gone, so there was no lead there to her whereabouts.. Margot and Sebastian had the mother of all legal battles on their hands, and he’d all but lost his seat at re-election thanks to Bunny Wheeler and Elinor’s murderous spree.
Good.
Grinding her teeth, and sharking her head, it felt like one small step towards justice. Their world was falling apart around them, and they deserved it, and so much more.
That was her mission now, all her training, and all her years of work was for this moment; destroy them from the ground up, and then put them down.
Which was the only snag in her plan.
She still didn’t know how to kill a Legacy. No one did.
“I think we might have good news,” Jack announced over dinner, three plates out, for Apollo, Calliope and himself. No words were spoken for Theo or Talia. It was practically taboo.
“What’s going on?” Apollo asked, slouching down at the table, reaching for his water glass, food left untouched.
“The Guild have caught a legacy.” Her heart skipped a beat, and she swallowed the lump in her throat at the mere thought.
“What? Where?”
“Up in Athens, but they’re bringing it to Savannah, and we’ve been asked to help them.”
“Why? I thought after that whole botched Fairmont attack and then Theo and mom, they’d want nothing to do with us,” Apollo asked, the permanent scowl on his face not flinching for one moment.
“We’re the only Guild members this side of the Atlantic that have had any interaction with Legacies, and given their prevalence for being under our noses and in plain sight, they want our help, to find a way to kill them.”
“The one they caught…it’s not- it’s not Theo, right?” Jack froze, sighing before shaking his head, placing his knife and fork down.
“Can, he’s not a Legacy,” he said slowly, as if talking to a child.
Right.
“Yeah, sorry, I just-” Her mind couldn’t fathom the thought of Theo in silver chains, the brother who looked out for her, cared for her, loved her. Not after everything, that would just destroy her.
“It’s hard, I know. It would have been a lot easier if your mother had…look, we’ll work this out. The Guild have asked me to head over there later tonight, ensure the place is secure before it arrives.”
Theo still weighed so heavy on all of them, that much was obvious to see. Guilt. That one was easy for her to pinpoint. It felt like her fault, bringing Juliette around, exposing her family the way she did. She had been warned and warned and -!
“Can I help?” Calliope asked suddenly.
“Calliope, the Guild is relying on you to help. You’ve been up close with legacies more than anyone else in the Guild, I’m certain you have expertise we need. You staked the first one here in Savannah, so yes, you can help.” At first it had sounded like placating but the look on his face, the truth of the statement, Cal knew it to be true.
“Not if I get there first,” Apollo grinned, the first smile in so so long. “Little friendly competition never hurt anyone, right, Cal?” Smiling back, she nodded.
About time.
Weeks of nothing and now finally, finally something. Juliette might be gone, but one day she’d track her down and put a stake through her heart and whatever else she needed to do to rid her and her type from the world.
Until then, a Legacy had Cal’s name on it and she wasn’t going to stop until it was dead.
++
Jack confirmed the legacy had been transported successfully and was being analysed by the guild members. Days crept on and every time Cal asked to help, he made some excuse to keep her away. More anger, more rage, it was practically palpable around Calliope now, but this was combined with frustration.
It wasn’t her dad’s fault, the Guild had their way of doing things, and she probably should be counting herself lucky that her family were even allowed to be involved after everything that had happened.
The time away wasn’t to no end, though, as it gave Cal time to go through the books in the family's library, researching everything she could that might give clues to how to kill a Legacy. She watched their video archives, analysed the weapons, and thought back to that night in the pantry. Her technique was perfect, she staked Juliette perfectly, instinct from being attacked. She was just missing something,
“It’s time,” her dad announced, coming home to Apollo and Calliope, wasting no time to let them know they were up to bat.
“Really?” disbelief coated her words, but Jack’s grin sated that.
“Yep, grab your things.” She didn’t need to be told twice.
The whole drive over, she was antsy in her seat, Apollo looked the same, as if they were standing on the precipice of something monumental, they could feel it, everything was about to change. Their time had come.
The facility where they were keeping the legacy wasn’t quite what they’d been expecting. Of course, over the years, Calliope had seen in and out a number of Guild buildings, but this looked like an office block, in a relatively upmarket part of town. If anything, it looked like she was about to apply for a job, not kill a vampire.
She should have known better, though, as Jack led them past the front desk, nodding at the guard, and into an elevator. There were no buttons, no floor selections, just the mundane elevator music all these office blocks played as the doors shut and Jack, Apollo and Calliope descended floor after floor.
“We’re here,” Jack said, ushering them out in a long open expanse, no windows, underground for sure.
The walls were bleak, frames of motivational work mottos, and a sad looking fake plant in the corner. What did stand out was the welcome group, Guild members of young and old, looking expectant, smiling, happy.
“Apollo, Calliope,” Jojo grinned, welcoming them with open arms. “We’re so glad you’re both here.”
“Our Legacy,” she declared proudly, waving her hand to the limp body strung up in silver chains, head having fallen forward, face partially blocked, but there was no denying who it was from one look.
She knew that body, intimately, she knew those hands, bloodied and bruised, and those eyes.
“I thought you said they were caught in Athens?” she asked, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“They were, although we know this one previously hailed from Savannah. Trying to hide, huh?” Tess asked, her grin all teeth as she jabbed Juliette with the cattle prod, once, twice, three times to ring home the message.
Juliette didn’t say anything, just scrunched her face, eyes tight, her fangs piercing over her lips, as the electric shocks fired through her system. She made a low groan when it stopped, but kept her eyes cast to the ground, half-lidded, slow, her breathing to match.
“What have you tried?” Calliope asked, a lump in her stomach sinking deeper as the faces around her grinned with pride.
They rattled off the various means and methods, checking off the obvious ones first and then the more extreme and diabolical. It was gruesome. It had Calliope swallowing back the bile in her throat from the thought of humans doing this to one another.
But that was it, wasn’t it? It wasn’t humans hurting humans. They were hunters, and Juliette was very much the monster.
After more information, reviews of Juliette’s vitals and the agenda for the next few days, it became apparent that the Burns’ weren’t going anywhere.
“We’re staying here?” Apollo asked, beating Calliope to the chase.
“Yes, we have dorm rooms set up and this way, we can spend the majority of our time working together on this, rather than commuting back and forth,” Jack answered, nodding at his kids.
“Awesome,” Apollo grinned, delighting in the thought.
For whatever reason, Calliope couldn’t quite get her smile to match, but she tried, for the group, for her dad, for Theo, for her mom and her family.
++
She couldn’t sleep. She knew why. The image was burned into her mind. Calliope wasn’t dumb, even when she wished she could be.
Her footsteps led her in one direction, and one direction only. There was no hesitation. She had to see her. She had to. If only to find out how, how the Guild caught her, how this happened.
Juliette was meant to be in hiding, not galavanting in a Guild heavy city. How stupid could she be?
When Calliope opened the door to the chambers, Juliette looked up, catching her eye. There was no surprise, no shock at seeing her, but instead, almost a sigh of relief as her body dropped back against the chains.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” she stated, and Juliette nodded, weakly.
“I figured it would only be a matter of time.”
“Athens?” she asked, eyes sliding to the mirror on the other side of the room. She knew it to be two-way, and while she assumed everyone was asleep, she didn’t want to get caught fraternising with the enemy.
“Ben,” Juliette replied, words croaky, parched.
Of course. He had gone to stay with his father, or so the rumour mill said.
“Well, that might have been one of your dumbest ideas, given Athens has a Guild Academy, training new members.”
“Yeah, wished you’d shared that little fact before I took the trip,” Juliette replied, swallowing and then coughing, heavy, wincing with each one.
Calliope couldn’t help but stop short, taking her in. The pain was the in the air. Juliette wore it well, but it was present across every line on her face, from the caked blood on her hands and wrists, the sweat on her brow and the mess of her hair.
Those eyes, though, they caught her Calliope looking, the same ones that had pulled her in on her very first day of Lancaster Academy. Calliope wouldn’t have thought for a moment those eyes, so soft, so caring and inviting could hide the monster that lay beneath. Although chained up, Juliette was a shadow of that monster.
But Theo, teeth barred and thrashing against the chains. Her big brother, one of her protectors, was now a monster like Juliette, out running the world, and back was the anger, the rage burning deep in her belly.
Calliope didn’t say another word, instead, turned on her heel and headed back to bed, letting the chamber door shut with a heavy thud.
No more second thoughts, it didn’t matter how, or why, it only mattered when, when they killed her, when she was gone from this world for good.
++
“She’s not healing,” Calliope noted, arms crossed, watching as Apollo and another Guild member finished up their session.
It had been close to a week since the Burns had moved into the Guild building, and every day was becoming more and more predictable. A morning session with the legacy, a lunch strategy session, afternoon raid parties established to ensure Savannah still remained safe for its citizens, and then another session at night, usually going into the early hours of the morning.
They were no closer, in many of the Guild’s eyes, since they first started, but they had to be getting somewhere, surely. They’d been torturing Juliette for close to ten days now, and it was showing. But they weren’t barbaric, it was all for a reason, for the Guild, for the future monster Hunters of tomorrow.
Calliope’s father was in the corner of the room, writing up notes, techniques they’d tried, methods they’d attempted, including trying to get Juliette to tell them. Those cries, those pleads of ignorance had fallen on deaf ears, and it was logged that they’d need to do more if they wanted to gain that information from Juliette’s own lips.
“Oh she is healing, just very, very slowly - we think the silver is causing her issues,” Jojo replied, standing next to Calliope as they watched through the two-way mirror.
“From the chains?” Surely that didn’t seem possible, there wasn’t enough exposure.
“Transfusion,” Jojo said proudly, and Calliope noticed the IV bags hooked up behind Juliette, “We thought it might make it easier to kill her, but so far, we’ve not been so lucky.”
“Smart,” she remarked, wondering if there were other things like that they could look to utilise to help them.
“Thank you,” Jojo replied, “I was reviewing the old histories and previous hunters would put melted silver directly into the wounds of ones they’d captured. Given that’s all very mediaeval, and messy, I thought this might be an easier approach.”
“If it helps, why not?” And hey, it wasn’t a half bad idea. Nothing they normally relied on had come close, so time to get creative.
Rather than watch the next session, given Juliette’s cries of agony still rippled around Calliope’s head from the last, she nipped out and headed through the Guild quarters, over to the library.
They had more books than she could read in a lifetime, but Jojo had a point, so maybe she didn’t need to read them all, maybe she only needed to read the right one.
Medicine. For years, the Guild had focused on ensuring their Hunters could recover from injury and ailment, and along the way, they picked up how the other half lived. Monsters treating their own injuries, keeping themselves healthy and alive.
If she knew how to heal them, could they reverse that and kill them?
It was a thought, one that warranted time.
And no matter what way Calliope spun it, it was not an excuse to step away from Juliette’s gaze, practically pleading and begging without a word to be put out of her misery.
++
Her research was time consuming, to say the least.
Calliope had spent more time researching and writing up hypotheses than she had sitting in on sessions or even seeing Juliette. Which was probably for the better. She wasn’t looking for the brute force approach. That wasn’t working. They needed to get smarter.
Or, that was at least what she told herself.
In the dead of night, though, it was hard to forget of the girl locked up oh so close, unattended and alone. They’d made sure she couldn’t escape the first few days she was here, there was no need for Juliette to have round the clock watch, and with the sessions every day and lack of feeding, Calliope would be surprised if Juliette could even crawl out of there.
Which is why she had no qualms walking into the chamber and stopping short mere feet from Juliette. What for? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Call it professional curiosity, she wanted to see her, up close and personal.
Calliope’s eyes scanned that all too familiar face, and her breath caught in her throat. God. Her hands were practically shaking as she reached up to push Juliette’s hair away from her face, revealing more of the bruising, the black and blue skin, the burn on the side of her face, and the- God- the horror of it.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” Juliette murmured, and there it was, that smile, that soft, sweet, smile adorned her lips. The one that had Calliope so angry and so broken, the one that Juliette saved for her, in moments of doubt, when she was being coy, and when she knew something Calliope didn’t.
If she could hear it, she would know; the speed at which it raced when they had first described what they’d tried, how they’d battered and beaten her, how they’d burned her with silver and fire, how they’d ignored her pleading and screaming, and now, the racing as she looked at bruise and burn and cut and injury after injury.
This was Juliette.
Her Juliette.
And surveying the scene, who really was the monster?
Not Juliette, not her, not…how could she be? She was soft, and she cared. That goddamn bee, before all this started, she cared that Calliope didn’t get stung and that the bee made it off safely.
Make a wish , she’d said.
God, Calliope wished she could turn the clock back.
What the fuck was she doing right now?
Her hands begged to cup Juliette’s cheeks, to console her, to free her, but Theo, Theo’s memory, Theo deserved better than her to succumb to her weakness.
Instead, she shook it off, swallowed that bitter pill and took a step back.
“You’ve never once asked me to set you free, why?” Calliope demanded, seeking the comfort of that tough exterior shell she wore so well.
It obviously wasn’t what Juliette was expecting, as the smile vanished and she was left to ask, “What?”
“You’ve never once asked me to let you go, why? You can’t enjoy being here.” The might have only been together a short period of time, but never once did Calliope have masochism on her bingo card for Juliette.
“This is what you want,” she replied, looking her straight in the eyes, unflinching in her honesty.
“What?” Calliope replied, frowning, not sure exactly what Juliette meant.
“The guild, your family, this is what you want.”
“And you think I want to see you like this?” she shot back, because for some reason that offended her, how dare Juliette think she wanted her tortured so barbaricly.
“I didn’t say that…although you kinda did,” Juliette answered, calling back to that night. “Isn’t this what you set out to do, find a way to kill me and all legacies?” It was rhetorical, but it was like venom to Calliope, and she fired back.
“Yet here you are, still alive, still disappointing me,” The words fell from Calliope’s lips like a stranger was speaking at times.
But those words. Whether Calliope meant it, she could see that they hurt Juliette more than when the silver burned into her skin and the wounds from the stakes, that they hurt more than she could even fathom. Juliette’s tears were silent, and she dropped her head, a sob breaking the moment, admitting defeat.
It was like Calliope had been stung, seeing Juliette break like that, and she stumbled back, desperate for the door, away from her, away from everything that had just happened.
She felt a pure honest moment of compassion, remembering the girl that Juliette had been, and then…and then…reality.
Turns out, Juliette wasn’t the only one crying herself to sleep that night.
++
“She’s stopped resisting us,” Jack declared over brunch.
The hall was filled with the Guild members, papers strewn around plates and glasses as everyone tried to eat and work at the same time. They felt close. Calliope’s research had opened new avenues, and they could see the merit to her work, so no one wanted to stop, even if it was to sate their hunger.
“Hmm?” Apollo mumbled, mouth full of food.
“She used to fight and bare her teeth and spit her blood at us, but now, she’s lost the fight.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yes and no,” Jojo began. “We’re unlikely to find a legacy in the field who wants to die, but on the other hand, maybe now, we need to narrow our hypothesis and target our time on the most likely ways to kill her.”
It was so casual. They were talking about death like it was nothing. Her insides squirmed, and she put her fork down. No longer hungry.
“Well, I think it sucks, it’s no fun when they don’t resist.” That earned Tess a few chuckles, and Calliope’s stomach churned further.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, getting up from the table and striding towards the bathroom. What little she did eat spewed from her lips and into the toilet bowl.
Thankfully, no one came looking for her, and rather than go back and pretend to be enthused by this development, she snuck into the watch room, standing as far back in the corner as she could, as if Juliette could see through the mirror.
What they said was true.
Something looked different. Juliette looked different. And that was really saying something given the state she was in.
Every day, wasting more and more away, so far from the girl Calliope first clocked eyes upon back in Lancaster Academy.
Juliette might not have been able to see through the mirror, but she could obviously hear, lifting her head, and shooting a begging look, a plea, those eyes, so red, so dark and bleak, begging her to end it. This wasn’t the first, nor the last time Calliope had seen that look, but this was scraped at her insides, made her clench her teeth together and fight every cell in her body.
No more. No more looking in. No more checking on her.
It was torture.
Calliope needed to stay away, for both their sakes.
++
“Calliope, I think you might be a genius!” Tess declared, bursting into the library, shattering the silence. Not that it mattered, she was the only one in there.
“You’re only just realising this now?” Calliope remarked, looking up from her book with her eyebrow quirked.
“Very funny. Read this,” Tess said, pushing a book across the desk.
Spinning the book towards her, Calliope scanned the archaic latin and frowned. Classical latin she knew. Archaic latin was not her strong suit.
‘What am I looking at?” she didn’t want to guess, after all.
“Maybe you’re not the genius I thought you were.”
“Tess,” she ground out, losing patience.
“Fine. The night of the attack at the Fairmonts, they were talking about Adam and Eve and Lillith, and a snake.”
“Right…” She’d not only heard bits and pieces, despite being strung up against a tree thanks to Elinor, but her dream, that snake, so vivid.
“This passage, it talks about pale ones keeping snakes; snakes, guardians of the underworld, representatives of fertility, rebirth, immortality and healing. What if they didn’t keep snakes around to be quirky? What if they needed them?”
Calliope wasn’t even going to focus on the quirky remark, and steamrolled right past that. “Needed them how?” she asked.
“We get bit by a snake and the venom kills us, right?” Calliope nodded, her brain catching up quickly.
‘We need anti-venom to cure us,” she said, instead of letting Tess answer. “If venom cures them, could anti-venom kill them?”
“My thoughts exactly. Or rather, your thoughts exactly. All your research has been turning their cures against them. We know snakes are important to them. It’s in the literature-”
“But what snakes? What anti-venom? There must be hundreds of snakes out there. Are we going to get anti-venom from all of them and try?” Calliope asked, already jumping to the practicality of this idea.
“We don’t need to.”
“What, why?” In all her reading, she hadn’t come across anything that pointed them in this direction, so how they might suddenly know the right snake was beyond her.
“I think we have it already.”
“You’re not making sense.” There’s no way. No way.
“The old stories speak of Lillith, and how important she and the snake, the Emerald Malkia, are to the Legacies,” Calliope nodded, following along, “Well, the Hunter who last killed a Legacy, he had something called Queen of the Gods. We thought it was Holy Water or something, but, what if it wasn’t, what if it was something else?“
“Like some type of anti-venom?”
“Yes,” Tess answered, smiling.
“How? How would he know?” Yes, he killed a legacy, but he was a right asshole with his notes, his methods and that had left the Guild scrambling for so long.
“You're not very good at your Hebrew, either, are you?” Tess rolled her eyes at Calliope. “Malkia means Queen of God in Hebrew.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Tess smiled, nodding her head at her.
“He had the anti-venom.”
“Maybe, I mean, I think so.”
“Now what?” This felt important, this felt big.
“We tell everyone else,” Tess answered, both of them knowing Jojo would want to know immediately.
This felt like the answer to the question they’d been stumbling over for weeks; how to kill a Legacy?
++
It was anti-venom.
The labs confirmed it. The Guild had it shipped over, special delivery, after extracting what they needed from it, just in case they needed to replicate it at some point.
All that was left was to test the theory.
Did it work, would it kill a legacy?
The silver spears of the previous hunter were cleaned, sharpened, and then dipped in the anti-venom. Just enough to test the theory.
Deep down, though, Calliope knew. This was it.
She wasn’t wrong.
Once that spear pierced Juliette, that was going to be it.
“Calliope Burns,” Jojo called, silencing the busy room. Everyone was abuzz with activity, all high on the thought their hard work had paid off. “It is with unanimous vote, that I get to announce, you will do the honours!”
“Really? What vote?” When was the vote? She hadn’t voted.
“You worked it out, Calliope; if you’re right, we want you to be the one to kill the first legacy in decades.”
“Tess helped,” Calliope tried, that sinking feeling back, stronger.
“No, this is on you. Do it for Theo,” Tess replied, shaking her head. She might have lost her parents at the Fairmonts, but for some reason, what happened to Theo felt more violent, more savage, and she nodded Calliope’s way to reaffirm her words.
God, Theo.
What would he say to this?
He wasn’t dead, after all. He was hiding, somewhere. Same with her mom. What would she say?
She had been desperate to put Juliette down herself, but when push came to shove, she let Theo go, took him to safety, somewhere. Surely she would look at this situation now and see the heinous situation they’d found themselves in.
Would she kill Juliette?
Jojo rough-handled the spear into Calliope’s hand, breaking her thought, and she gripped it like her life depended on it. Linking arms, Jojo led her towards the chambers, everyone following behind, like it was a moment to celebrate.
Maybe for them. Not for her.
“Can I…can I do this alone?” she asked, stopped short, sliding her arm free of Jojo’s.
“You don’t want-” her dad began, hand on shoulder, before she shrugged it off.
“Of course you can, Calliope. This is your moment, your vampire,” Jojo replied, looking at her with such pride.
Her vampire.
Her Juliette.
No one argued, and Calliope moved to cross the threshold.
The chamber door shut behind her with that dull thud she had grown used to. If all went to plan, this would be the last time she ever went in this room. For better or for worse.
“You worked it out,” Juliette said, hearing Calliope approach, her footsteps slow across the room as she moved towards her.
“What makes you say that?”
“The room,” Juliette nodded back towards the mirror on the wall behind them, “It’s full to the brim.” She took a deep, crackled and shaky breath. “So that means you worked it out. You can kill me. What you always wanted.”
It felt like bravado, those words, for Juliette looked scared, not angry, not hurt, just frightened.
Calliope stalled. Feet from her. Taking her in.
“Do it,” Juliette commanded, gritting her teeth, looking at the spear in Calliope’s hand.
“I don’t want to,” she whispered, knowing Juliette would hear it, but the room behind them wouldn’t.
It was her first real moment of honesty in God only knows how long.
“Please. They’re never going to stop.”
“I don’t want to.” And she didn’t. She knew for sure. One hundred percent certainty.
“Please,” Juliette begged, her face hollow, her eyes swollen and tired and broken.
God. They’d tortured her. They’d destroyed her. She was in pain, she was suffering, and Calliope could end it.
She said she would.
I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to kill you and every legacy like you!
Yet, facing that moment, she couldn’t move. She was frozen to the stop.
If she staked her, anti-venom on the tip of silver spear, Juliette would disintegrate before her very eyes. How, how could she? How could she kill her? How could her world exist without Juliette in it?
She needed longer. She wanted longer. What did they have, a few days, a week at most? Take her back. God, take her back to those days. Not this. Not now. Not here.
“I never meant to fall for you,” Calliope confessed, unable to close the distance. She couldn’t risk it.
“I did,” Juliette said, a soft smile at her lips, eyes adoring, “I meant every moment of it. I love you, Calliope, I always will.”
“Jules-”
“S’okay. This is what we were destined for, right?” Juliette’s eyes were forgiving, accepting, and inside Calliope was screaming, her hand wavering.
“I can’t. You can’t. You can’t love a monster.”
“I loved you before all this.This is noise, family pressure and expectation. I fell in love with you when it was silent, just us.” That had her stepping closer, and Jules’ eyes closed every so briefly, as if basking in her presence. “And, you can do this, you’re the strongest person I know,” she added, eyes now locked with Calliope’s.
“I don’t want to lose you.” Her confession, her truth, as her hand came up, cupping Jules’ cheek, desperate for one touch, any touch.
“Not possible.”
“Juliette, please-” she wasn’t taking this seriously. She was being flippant and Calliope couldn’t handle that right now.
“I asked if my heart was safe with you, you said forever, so please. Make it safe. Let it be you, let me see you for the last time, not one of them.” She squirmed in her chains, silver touching exposed burnt flesh, making her hiss a moment, teeth out, before retracting. “They’re going to kill me anyway; at least let me go with you, please.”
How could she deny her that? A death full of grace, in the arms of the one she loved, and someone who loved her back. The others despised her, hated her, wanted her to burn a painful death, but Calliope, she could comfort her, hold her, and give her that moment of freedom.
“I love you,” Calliope whispered, forehead now against Juliette’s, as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I love you, Juliette, and I always will.”
The words she hadn’t said on the lawn that night. The words she’d been denying herself ever since. Oh God, she knew she loved Juliette, she knew so early on, but how, how could it work? Now, if only she hadn’t doubted it. If only she hadn’t questioned everything.
Juliette had betrayed her family for her, risked her life for her, and she gave nothing back. Now, now she was asking for one thing, to be released from the hell Calliope’s so called family had put her through.
“I love you, too,” Jules replied, using what strength she had left to lean forward and kiss her.
Those lips, those lips that had captured Calliope’s from the get go. Their first kiss, awkward and unsure, to their second, certain and full of want, to the third, desperate and longing, to the many that followed, through smiles and laughter, and desire and lust, and love and adoration. This kiss, this final one, held it all, everything they wanted to be and more. The what-ifs, the if onlys, the wishes on the bee, and the tears of tomorrow.
“Forgive me,” Calliope whispered between her lips, choking back the sobs, knowing what was coming, the Guild would have seen her, would have seen the kiss and they’d be coming.
They were out of time.
And with that, she forced her hand forward, slicing Juliette’s skin, straight into her heart.
It cut through, little resistance, and Juliette let out a sharp gasp, her eyes hauntingly calm, accepting, as Calliope blinked, and the tell-tale burning took over. And just like that, she was gone.
It wasn’t drawn out, it wasn’t long and tumultuous, it was short and bittersweet and as if it hadn’t taken them weeks to work out how to even kill her in the first place.
The lump in Calliope’s throat felt impossible to swallow now and she dropped to her knees, dry heaving on the floor, her eyes spilling tears, blurring her vision, the spear still in her hand and oh god.
Flashbacks, to the pantry, again that kiss and then the bite, to their bedrooms, hands exploring, heavy breaths, and smiles, curious and young and in love, and to cuddling up in bed, big spoon to little spoon and the softness in which Juliette held her hand.
All gone. All gone, and Calliope felt her world spiralling out of control.
Fuck.
The uproarious sounds from the room next door told Calliope everything.
She needed to get out of there. She needed to leave. She couldn’t- How could they- What had they-
If there was one thing Calliope knew how to do, it was run.
“Where are you going?” Jack called, Calliope having slammed open the chambers door and making a run for the elevator.
She didn’t answer, and she could hear the buzz of questions coming her way. Confusion. Anger. Surprise. A mix of misunderstanding and hope that she was not doing what she was actually doing.
But she was. She was in the elevator as the door closed, leaving behind an image of the people who she had trusted, who were meant to protect her, who were meant to look after her. Instead, they’d pushed her to become a murderer. A monster.
This is noise, family pressure and expectation. I fell in love with you when it was silent, just us.
Juliette’s words broke the static white noise in Calliope’s brain.
I fell in love with you when it was silent, just us.
Just us.
That’s all Calliope wanted.
Too late.
There was nothing left for her now.
++
“I love you, Calliope, I always will.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Not possible.”
Like a nightmare, playing out night after night, Calliope was haunted by it. Again and again her brain made her relive the moment, relive it all. Nothing changed. Nothing altered and nothing moved, she still killed Juliette night after night, and still uttered ‘Forgive me,’ from the bottom of her heart.
It was a broken record, punishing her for the beast she had become. And oh, she could do that well. She couldn’t hate herself more if she tried. Forgiveness, she did not deserve. Love, never. Her life was in pieces, and honestly, what was left but to follow Juliette into that abyss?
Those thoughts had been circling more and more during the day, as she ran, further from the guild and further from any memory that reminded her of Juliette.
Yet, at night, it was impossible.
This night, however, she wasn’t back in the chamber, she wasn’t holding a spear, and Juliette wasn’t strung up in chains. No, it was different, but yet also familiar.
A garden, trees, where she’d first seen the snake, after the pantry, after the bite.
“Forgive me,” she heard her words, clear as day, and, she expected to flashback to the chambers, but instead, Juliette.
“I do,” she said, and it felt real and present and warm and loving and Calliope knew this was a dream, a wish, a want to sate the pain in her chest and heart. “Calliope, I do forgive you,” Juliette repeated.
“You’re not real.” None of it was real. Again, it was a dream, a fantasy, a want. Pure desperation.
“Okay, rude,” Juliette frowned, so lifelike it hurt. “What makes you say that?
“You’re dead.” And she knew, she knew too well just how dead Juliette was. There was no point in reasoning with her, even in her dream.
“And?” That wasn’t quite the response Calliope was expecting. But there Juliette was, standing before her, dressed in jeans and a sweater, eyes inviting and warm, so like her Juliette, it had her doing a double take.
“Immortality, Cal, vampires are immortal.” She was spelling it out like Calliope was a child, but this made no sense.
“I saw you burn-”
“You saw my body burn,” Juliette replied, shaking her head. “My connection with you, nothing could stop that. This is what we were destined for, right?” Those words, so familiar, as if Jules knew all along that her death was not going to be the end.
Destiny. Fate. Whatever they wanted to call it.
If this was how she and Juliette could be, Calliope would take it.
“I’m dreaming.”
“You were dreaming when we first connected like this, as was I, after the bite.”
“You’re really here?”
“I always have been.”
It felt overwhelming, but this wasn’t new. Jules was right, they had connected like this. The severing almost took it away, but it hadn’t, it had reaffirmed whatever they had between them. And now. Even beyond death?
What more did Calliope need?
How could she question it?
She had regretted questioning their relationship, and now was she really going to make the same mistake again?
Whether a dream or not, her hands found Juliette’s waist like they had so many times before, and she leaned down, capturing her lips like her life depended on it. Juliette’s breath caught, ever so slightly, as she kissed back, her lips soft in return, her hands running up Calliope’s sides, up to her arms, and cupping her face.
“I’ve missed you,” Jules confessed. “I’ve been trying for so long to get through.”
“I’m so sor-” Calliope was going to apologise, she needed to.
“Don’t.” Jules kissed her again, pulling her closer, leaning her body into hers. “I am yours, as long as you will have me, don’t dwell on what brought us here, just be, be here with me.”
She couldn’t resist the request.
Start-crossed lovers they may have been, but somehow, they’d managed to re-write fate and destiny to suit their own terms. Death was no boundary or barrier, for Juliette was never going to stop loving Calliope, and Calliope, Juliette.
++
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”
- The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1, W. Shakespeare
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