The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

silas

I turn first, putting Coraline behind me, but she’s quick to move to my side. I love her, but I’m not in the mood for her hardheadedness.

I’m not in the mood to lose her. 

“Stay behind me.” I seethe in a low whisper, her brown eyes narrowing as she prepares to shake her head, but I stop her. “Please, Hex.” 

I’m not being an asshole alpha male. I’m not telling her she can’t protect herself.

I’m terrified of losing her.

A familiar taste fills my mouth, leaks between my teeth, and makes my stomach roll.

Fear, icy-cold fear.

I cannot lose her. I won’t. Not when I just got her.

Easton Sinclair stands in the darkness, creeping forward with a stagger in his walk. The building flames behind us cast a flicking light over his sickly face. He is a series of shadows and hissing orange-red lights.

He’s no longer the guy I remember from my youth or even the one that crashed my engagement party. The purple bags beneath his eyes and hollowed cheekbones tell a disturbing story of a man that is no longer there.

Both his physical and mental health decline shines in his eyes.

He is unhinged, gaunt, and holding a fucking gun.

“I guess destroying my life would be fucking hilarious to you four, wouldn’t it?” He scratches his head with the barrel of the gun, mania laced in his own chuckle. “Is that the smell of my dad burning? Wait, sorry, stepdad. I’m still trying to get the wording down.”

There are more of us than him, but that does nothing to calm my heart beating against my chest. Even with the gun tucked in the back of my jeans, one move and he could shoot any of us before I can get a shot off.

Numbers don’t matter when someone has nothing to lose.

“Easton. Look at me.”

My hand wants to reach for her as Sage takes a daunting step closer, her palms up to show she isn’t a threat, like she ever was to begin with.

“It’s over for all of us now. You don’t have to—”

“Shut up.”

On a dime, his emotion shifts from delusion to pure anger, and he swings his arm in her direction so she’s staring down the barrel of his gun.

There is a collective gasp as Rook grabs her wrist, yanking her backward into his chest before swinging her behind him.

“You want a pound of flesh, you can take it from me,” he bargains, still holding Sage’s wrist behind him with a painful grip. “Leave her out of it.”

It’s clear that no matter what Easton came here to do, he won’t leave until someone is bleeding. Regardless of what we say to him, there is a look in his eyes that tells me he’s too far gone to be pulled back from this ledge.

He is shattered, and the person left standing in the pieces of Easton Sinclair is someone we don’t know how to deal with.

“Leave her out of it?” He cackles, and the sound ricochets off the trees. “What do you offer this fucking group, Van Doren? Humor? ’Cause it sure as fuck isn’t intelligence.” 

“What do you want, man? You want money?” Alistair asks, trying to get his attention away from a singular person. That way, if he fires, he’ll miss if he doesn’t have a solitary target. “We can get you money. We could get you help.”

“Help? I don’t fucking want your help!” Easton is a bomb, ticking with the seconds passing, and we are running out of time. “Why would I take your help? Because we’re blood? Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” 

He’s shaking with pent-up rage, tears glowing in the flames. Regardless of his current state, he’s just as much a victim as us. A different shade of morally gray, just colored on the opposing side.

He’s our villain, just as we were to Ponderosa Springs.

And while a part of me gets it, his wrath and resentment, he’s also pointing a weapon at the people I love. I don’t understand him enough to spare his life if he does something stupid like shoot one of us. 

“He wasn’t yours to kill,” he stammers, harshly wiping his nose with the back of his hand, fingers quivering around the weapon. “It wasn’t your revenge to take. You have no idea what I went through, what he made me do, you fucking idiots. He was mine to end, and you couldn’t even let me have that!” 

“You’re right.” I step forward, nodding my head as branches crunch beneath my feet. Coraline’s fingers are buried in my suit, trying to keep me close, but I keep walking until she lets go and I’m standing in front of everyone. In the corner of my eye, I see Rook shaking his head but not wanting to make any more sudden moves.

“We don’t know what happened to you, and no one will if you don’t put that down. You want us to know your story? For people to understand what you did?” I ask him, my palms sweating. “Give yourself the chance to tell it, Sinclair. Don’t be him.” 

There is a riveting silence that passes in the air. No one moves or breathes as Easton stares me down. 

In this light, he looks more like a sad boy than a man on a warpath. At the very least, he deserves a chance to rewrite his story, change the ending.

Evil is not made; it is chosen, and you can choose not to accept it.

“Just put the gun—” 

“You took everything from me,” he grumbles, greasy blond hair catching the wind, dead blue eyes showing zero signs of life. “You took Sage.” He swings the gun in her direction. 

“You took my last name.” He shifts his weapon to Alistair. 

“You’ve taken my revenge.” 

It’s then that his gaze and aim lock on me. He inhales deeply, tilting his head, letting the moon shine across the tears on his face. My hand reaches for my gun at my back, and the sound of shuffling feet thuds behind me.

“And now, I’m gonna take something from you.”

Sometimes, no matter how badly we want to change the ending, we can’t. 

Sometimes, the end is just the end.

The familiar sound of a trigger being pulled rumbles through the woods.

While physically impossible, time slows just enough for me to hear the tiny explosion inside the weapon, the gas expanding and forcing the bullet down the barrel.

It’s funny how time works.

How it slows when you least expect it, giving you the chance to let every movement of a single moment sink into your skin. Giving you the chance to remember every second that drips down the hourglass.

“Fucking catch him!”

“B, call for help.”

A distance ringing rattles my eardrum, a daze in my mind and a blazing sensation in my chest.

I look down, placing a hand over my white button-down, only to find crimson painting the palm of my hand when I pull back.

“Fuck.”

The ground sorta gives out beneath me, like I’m standing on a water bed barely filled. My knees buckle under me, no longer willing to hold my weight, and a rush of air fills my head.

Arms wrap around me just as I feel the cool earth beneath my back. The smell of lavender and honey mixed with gunpowder—it makes me nauseous, smelling her with something so violent attached.

“Silas. No, no. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

“Fuck, Coraline, he’s bleeding. He’s bleeding.”

“Thatcher, give me your goddamn jacket!”

Arms and hands scramble above me. Just past the frantic limbs, the Ponderosa Pine trees are parted just enough for me to see the night sky. Most people don’t know the Oregon Coast is the best place to see the Milky Way. No light interference to dim the shine of stars.

There is chaos in my ears, but there is no panic in me.

“Hey, look at me, please.”

My eyes flutter, looking upward. Coraline’s hair is draped across her shoulders, hanging down in my face. I can feel the heat from her lap as she holds me to her stomach.

“You’re so warm, baby.” I try to chase her touch, her smell, her. “Can you feel how fucking cold I am?”

“Silas, keep your eyes open for me. There you go, just keep looking at me, baby.” She gazes down at me, heavy tears dripping from her face and onto me. Her smooth hands cradle my head, running along the contours of my face.

There is fear in her tone, panic I can’t console because everything is so numb. I can barely feel my fingers, barely feel my hand lifting to shakily tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. 

“Could look at you forever, Hex,” I whisper, the words stinging in my chest.

I try to take a deep breath, but it fucking hurts. Like blades shredding the inside of my lungs. I cough, choking on spit in my throat.

Red splatters against Coraline’s white dress, and it tears a sob from her lips that I can feel against me.

“Please just hold on, Silas. I know it hurts, but you’re going to be alright. We are going to be alright, okay?” Her voice is a sob, body shaking as she clutches me tighter. “We are gonna go home. You and me, we’re gonna go home. You have to plant more lavender—you have to because I don’t know how. Okay?”

Tears leak from the corner of my eyes, not from pain but sadness I haven’t felt in a long time. A deep-rooted melancholy that takes away the ache in my chest.

I don’t think I’m going to make it back home.

But I can’t tell her that. Not when the world has robbed her of enough. I don’t want her to lose faith in hope. In her future, there’s a light that’s waiting for her at the end of this tunnel.

No one deserves light like Coraline. No one needs it more.

A few years ago, all I wanted to do was die.

Now, I can feel my heartbeat slowing.

Now, I am dying, and all I want is another day with her.  

Just one more day so I can soak in her laugh, feel her touch, experience her love.

One more cup of lavender tea.

One more scoop of honey in my coffee. 

One more day.

“Coraline.” I cough her name, my lips wet with the taste of metal.

“Help me! Please!”

“Hey, hey…Silas, I’m right here, man. Just hold on. Help is coming. Hold on, okay? No, no, keep your eyes open…”

Rook.

“You guys can’t tell anyone.” Rook’s lip wobbles, still leaking blood onto his chin. “You have to promise.” 

My small fists tighten at my sides. At only eleven, I’m a whopping five foot one, sometimes five two when I wear certain shoes. My chances of beating the shit out of Rook’s dad are slim.

But I want to. 

I want to so badly that it makes me want to crawl out of my skin, uncomfortable with how much anger is washing through my body.

It’s Rook. 

He steals gummy worms and requires more Band-Aids than the average kid, but it’s Rook, and he doesn’t deserve to be hit. 

Not him. Not when I know how kind he is.

Especially by his father.

“Pinky swear,” he grunts, rubbing his sleeve over his lip. He puts on a brave face, but I’ve got a feeling we were never supposed to find out this secret.

We weren’t supposed to see the shame on his face. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have agreed to ride our bikes here. I never would’ve embarrassed him like this, showing up and discovering this secret he’d hidden for who knows how long.

I would’ve waited until he was ready to tell me.

“I’m not fucking pinky swearing. That’s stupid,” Alistair grumbles, dark hair swaying in front of his eyes as he crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Hit him back next time. I showed you how to make a fist.” 

“Then swear!” Rook shouts. “You guys don’t understand. You have to swear you’ll keep your mouth shut. Or I’ll snitch about who put spiders in Dorian’s underwear drawer.” 

Technically, that was all of us. Alistair was just the one who poured them in. 

It took me and Rook days to find that many granddaddy long legs, not to mention we had to deal with Thatcher bitching about the dirt.

“Swearing doesn’t mean anything if there is nothing to swear on,” I say quietly, even though Rook didn’t need to ask me. Every secret, every fear, every dream, I’d keep for him. Keep them safe. 

“I will not be swearing on my family.” Thatcher reaches for one of the apples sitting in the kitchen, taking a bite from the red flesh. “That’s just bad taste, and it would be a lie.” 

“Got any better ideas, then, genius?” 

He walks to the fridge. I’m still confused about how he didn’t sweat through his sweater on the bike ride here. It takes forever to get from his place to Rook’s. 

“In Greek mythology, Styx is one of the rivers of the underworld,” he murmurs, pulling out a bag of frozen peas, which he hands to Rook, who takes it happily, placing it on his swelling mouth. “In the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer said the gods swear by the water of the Styx as their most binding oath.” 

“Then we swear on the Styx,” Rook says quickly, nodding his head. I’m not even sure he knows what it means, but he’s too afraid not to have some kind of binding that keeps our silence. 

“Wait.” Alistair reaches into his front pocket, digging out a black Sharpie marker. He grabs my arm first, jerking it toward him before scrawling a shitty circle with what I think is a skull inside it and words scribbled along the inner lines.

It reads “Admint One” along the top and “Styx Ferryman” on the bottom. 

“What are you doing? Don’t draw on me.” Thatcher tries to avoid his touch, but with a little fight, Alistair gets him to hold still. 

“What is it?” I ask, staring at the bleeding ink on my brown skin. 

“Charon’s obol,” he mumbles around the Sharpie cap in his mouth. “To pay our way across the Styx to the afterlife.”

My brows furrow as he draws the same image on Rook, then himself. 

“There.” 

“What exactly does this shit do?” 

He shoves the marker back into his jeans, then answers. 

“This way, we find a way back to each other.” He looks at each of us, jaw set. “We steal. We burn. We bleed. We promise that no matter what, we make our way back, even in death.” 

It’s a silly drawing. A silly promise we make. Who knows where we’ll be in twenty years? We might not even know each other tomorrow. 

“You read the Iliad and the Odyssey? Did anyone else know Ali could read?” Thatcher says.

“I will fucking hit you if you call me that again.” 

I shake my head, looking at the mark on my arm. 

Right now, this feels like the biggest moment of my life.

Like no matter where we go or what happens, I’ll remember this. I’ll remember I had friends that cared enough in this moment to make this promise. 

It feels good. 

It feels like enough. 

“To the Styx?” I say the question, and they respond in tandem. 

“To the Styx.” 

Coraline cries, and I ache to be there to comfort her. 

Rook will, my mind echoes. 

Rook will help her carry the weight of grief so she isn’t alone. The boys will lean on one another. They will force each other to move forward because it’s what we do. We move forward.

“I—I love you,” I strangle out, impossibly cold, clinging to consciousness, but sleep is a song I can’t block out. Its hands are strong, and it’s pulling me under. 

Coraline is a blur. I can no longer see her face, and I hope she hears those words and knows they were always meant for her.

“Silas. Don’t, please,” Rook begs, but there is no one to beg. 

God’s not here. 

For the shadow and valley are mine.

I fear no evil.

“Promise m-m…”

My voice no longer works. It’s left me for good this time.

“I promise, Si. I swear on the Styx, I’ve got her.”

“No! Rook, don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that. He’s okay, alright? Don’t say that! He’s okay. Baby, you’re okay…”

Her voice is a distant chant.

I don’t think her witchy lips can cast a spell that’ll stop this. Not when it feels so inevitable. Death is all-encompassing. It’s a blanket. A shield.

“You’re okay. I love you. You’re okay. I love you.”

There are loud sounds, floating in space, but darkness is a comfort. It comes for me as the cold leaves and nothingness takes over. 

I am air and all that is in between. 

I’m limitless.