Then there was Taggart. The awe factor had brought him to his knees, and in the dirt, he stared at the scene as though this moment was his final. Eustace turned back to Arne and Henry, and Henry appeared disoriented as he tied the blanket around his waist. But the disorientation didn’t last, for he stared at his hands, turning them over a couple of times, and then at the stars. He jerked around to Elizabeth’s body, and the sob that shook him made Eustace’s own throat close.
“Elizabeth!” he cried. Arne, with wetness in his own eyes, put a hand on Henry’s shoulder, but Henry shook it off and picked up Elizabeth, bringing her to his chest. “You can’t leave me, not like this,” he mumbled desperately, over and over again, and through tears Eustace hadn’t known he was capable of. He mumbled more pleas, some of which Eustace couldn’t make out, and none of this felt real. The idea of Henry and Elizabeth in love was almost as shocking as the reality that Henry had been the beast all these years, and that Elizabeth had known—and that they’d been sneaking away together at night. Eustace was a damn fool for not seeing it sooner, for not seeing who he was.
He realized then that he was the Henry: his old friend. He saw him now, as clearly as though he’d been thrown back forty years. Henry had been here the whole time, the same man now as he had been then. Eustace fell to his own knees at the wonder of it all. At the heart-wrenching way Henry clung to Elizabeth, the only woman who’d been able to see him for who he was. Eustace’s own heart broke, too, his soul mourning for hers. The soul he shared a kinship with.
There was something excruciatingly humble about a man who had once appeared to have everything in the world but emotions, weeping—begging almost pathetically. And that sound was the only one in the air, the denseness of the nighttime forest insulating his cries. If Henry knew anyone else was there, it didn’t show. He had an audience to his most personal of moments—the sacred moment of mourning—whether he wanted one or not.
Then his eyes, bloodshot, darted to everyone else’s before ending on Doc. “What are you just standing there for? Help me save her!”
“But it’s too late.” It came from the witch. Eustace had forgotten she was here, her form hunched in the shadows. She stepped into the light, her blood gone. But even in her wholeness, there was something different about her, something weaker. Something more human. Her voice sounded drained and her body looked tired. Even her beauty appeared less…hypnotizing. Henry’s expression hardly changed at the sound of her voice. “She’s gone,” she finished. She seemed as distraught as the rest of them.
“No,” Henry replied, his brow still furrowed. “There’s got to be something…” He shook Elizabeth again, stroking her hair. “Please,” he barely managed in a breath. “I need you, Elizabeth. You can’t…leave me alone.” He brought her to his body again, nearly crushing her as he held on, and cried into her neck. She looked so dainty and fragile in his large arms, like nothing more than a ragdoll.
“You fool,” the witch growled, angry and irreverent. “Don’t you see? You’re a worthless man again! That means she’s gone, Monster.”
Henry turned to her so sharply she flinched. “Go!” he yelled, his voice as booming as the beast’s bass growls. Both his and the witch’s teeth were gnashing. “Leave me alone, Aglaé. You’ve done enough, and you have no power here anymore.”
With a hiss, the witch—who it seemed was nothing but a powerless woman now—was gone, running through the trees until Eustace could hear her no longer. Henry didn’t watch her leave, since his eyes scanned Elizabeth’s face desperately. Tears still managed to fall, even though his sobs had subsided, and Doc approached then, kneeling before them. Eustace crawled to them too, despite his weak and hurting knees, and Henry met his eyes. Eustace gave a nod, trying to show his sympathy, his understanding. His apology.
“I…” Doc started. “Let me see what I can do.” The look in his eyes said he had no hope, that he was just doing it for Henry. Perhaps as a way to make amends for the mess the whole town had caused.
Whether Henry thought it hopeless or not, Eustace didn’t know, for he laid Elizabeth gently on the ground at Doc’s knees. He brushed the hair away from her face tenderly, where it stuck to the blood on her left cheek. It wasn’t right seeing her this way, a shell of what she used to be, and in seeing her up close for the first time, Eustace brought a fist to his mouth, a sob swelling in his throat. But he hid it, as painful as it was, since it would be a mistake to let it go in front of Henry.
Doc felt her over, examined the wound, and then checked her pulse. It looked as though he contemplated chest compressions, but then stopped, lowering his shoulders. “Mr. Clayton, I…I’m sorry. I just think it’s too late.”
Henry shook his head; there was nothing he could say. No one could argue with death.
Chapter 27
An excruciating, debilitating pain weighed Henry down. Elizabeth’s absence was everywhere, suffocating him. Her pale face and her body, smeared in blood, swam in his vision, and he refused to believe it, refused to believe she was gone. She couldn’t be, since she was the only reason he was living.
He found himself gently shaking her shoulders again, kissing her on the cold mouth, willing her lips to return the kiss. He couldn’t breathe, the night sky and trees and everything in existence falling down on him, all at once. Arne pulled him away from her when Henry began giving her chest compressions, since Doctor Ortiz hadn’t. “I have to,” he argued with Arne. Henry shoved him away, too easily, and didn’t look to make sure he’d landed safely, for he was back at Elizabeth’s side, giving her mouth to mouth then pumping her chest again.
“Henry!” Arne snapped. “She’s gone!”
Henry shoved him away a second time. Again, he gave her chest compressions. Her blood painted his hands up to his wrists, coagulating in his arm hair. It was an awful sight, her blood.
Her blood.
Their blood.
He rocked back, his mouth falling open. The realization took his breath. He’d never thought it a possibility, since he’d always assumed only he could break his curse, but he hadn’t broken it. He had a Curse Breaker. He and Elizabeth, bound together by love, were now bound together as Cursed and Curse Breaker. According to the stories, they were physically, chemically one—two lives dependent on each other. The story of Absolon and Elvire wasn’t one Henry had made himself familiar with, but he knew enough: the woman who brought bread to an abomination, then saw him for the man he was. Elizabeth was Henry’s Elvire, her coffee as Elvire’s bread.
“I know what to do,” he rushed, searching his body for any open wounds. But for the first time he realized he had none, his body made whole in his permanent transformation.
His eyes fell on the pocket knife attached to the doctor’s belt. “Doc, your knife,” he demanded.
Doctor Ortiz hesitated. “Mr. Clayton, I…”
With impatience, Henry ripped it from the doctor’s belt, flipping it open with even more impatience. All in attendance gasped.
“Henry,” Arne reprimanded, taking hold of his arm.
“What will you do to her?” Doctor Ortiz asked in panic.
“Not to her, to me.” He met Arne’s eyes. “Our blood, Arne. We don’t have much time. If I hurry, then maybe I can—”
“Save her,” Arne finished, enlightenment lifting his brow. With a nod, he released Henry’s wrist.
Before Henry could mentally prepare himself for the pain, he sliced the knife deep into his palm. It stole his breath, made his hands tremble. But he could handle the pain. He’d experienced far worse, even just tonight. Henry ignored the unsettling noise of repulsion and disbelief from the crowd.
He positioned his hand over the open wound in Elizabeth’s chest and made a fist, squeezing. His blood drizzled into hers and ran down his wrist, even emerged from between his fingers. As he used his other hand to rub his blood into hers, mixing them desperately, the doctor groaned.