Alive

He can’t find out!

They all think I’m crazy. I’ll show them. I’ll show them who’s crazy.

I can’t take this much longer.

Sarah’s thoughts and hopes and love and fear spilled out and filled the room. Lilith felt as if she could reach out and touch her, tell her that she needed to leave, that there wasn’t anything left of Seth to save.

She shivered and turned the page.

Emma has his eyes. And lately they’ve been taking on more and more of his expression. I can’t…it hurts. It’s like watching him fall into the darkness all over again. And she’s just a little girl. She’s just a little girl.

Seth won’t let her go to school. He hardly knew she existed when she was a baby, but now…now it’s like he wants her in his world. When he first started showing interest in her, I was so hopeful. But she’s not bringing him out of the darkness. He’s pulling her in.

I can’t save them both.

He’s started a garden. It gets him out in the sun. But I’m scared…what if he realizes…and Emma works in the garden with him. Surely he wouldn’t…

He’s stopped talking about the life fruit. I’m afraid that’s because he’s figured it out.

I still don’t know what happened to him in the fire at the old lab, what it was that opened the void within him. What it was that made him so terrified of death.

What it was that made him willing to kill others in order to live.

Lilith’s soul howled with rage and grief and pain. Shannon, Bella, Jason. Gone just because Seth couldn’t handle the falling water.

In her heart, the water roared.

She turned the pages, looking for more. It sounded like life fruit somehow came from killing people, but if she could figure that out just from reading Sarah’s diary then surely Seth realized it a long time ago. He had to still be looking through this diary for something else. Some other secret.

His chair pressed in on her and she choked on the smell of him.

Tonight was the final…the final straw. The dropping shoe. The break of the camel’s back.

He is gone. I don’t know where he went and I want him back. I need him back. But he’s gone. Utterly and completely gone.

He asked…no, he demanded that I tell him how to make the Recipe. How to make ambrosia.

I will not tell him that.

Maybe he has figured out life fruit. Maybe Emma will have a murderer for a father. Maybe he’ll even take her with him.

But I will not help him. Not with that. I will not have that blood on my hands.

I don’t think he liked that.

I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared. But he’s still…I look at him and I know he’s in there somewhere and maybe if I just figure it out, figure out how to make him all better, it’ll be okay again. I still love him. I always will. I know that.

But he’s so mad now. And if he has figured out life fruit, he’ll figure out ambrosia. He will. He was always so smart.

And I can’t stand to watch him fall.

I can’t take this much longer.

This will work, I know.

Lilith heard the door creak open, and her blood froze. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She could only listen. Listen to a voice that fell on her like dirt falling on a casket. A voice that breathed fire and smoke and death. A voice that filled the world and made it hard to breathe.

“My wife,” said the voice, “was a very good cook.”