The Oath We Give (Hollow Boys, #5)

by Monty Jay

“You’re not replacing her, Coraline. We don’t see you that way. Neither does Silas. You can’t replace what they had because what you share is completely different,” she says, looking over at me. “I like you, Coraline. I get you. I was you. And I can’t think of a better way for Silas to honor my sister’s memory than by falling in love again. It’s all she’d ever want for him.”

“Glad I could catch you before you left today, boss.” I refrain from throwing the stapler on my desk at his head.

I press the butt of the gun to his throat, lifting his chin so he’s forced to look at me, wanting him to see just how very little I value his life. “Tell me, Daniel.” I tilt my head, a smirk at the corner of my lips. “What’s my wife’s name?” His lips tremble, and his eyes dart away from mine as he swallows hard before uttering one whispered word. “Coraline.” “Remember that name. It’s the one that spared your life.”

“Open wide and say please.” Without missing a beat, she bats her eyelashes at me and says, “Please, will you fuck your wife, Silas?”

I don’t blame them. I’m not angry at Alistair. I can’t feel anything besides relief, knowing the ones I’ve always kept closest to me know me. Each of us have a story, unbelievably hard fucking stories. They hurt and they bleed. When they fall on deaf ears, they become myth. But it doesn’t make it any less real for us. I look at them, knowing that regardless of the lies, one truth is our solid foundation. “We are all unbelievable circumstances that are complete truth.”

They say The Hollow Boys are pure darkness, rotted evil. Those people have never loved one of them. Never peeked beneath the veil and saw just how blinding the light beneath is.

Fucking Silas was the equivalent of head empty, no thoughts.

This is the good thing about knowing Coraline Whittaker. I’ve known she was a flight risk since the moment I met her and I knew that when I told her about Stephen and our plan, I’d need insurance on her wings. So, while the nipple rings I’d gifted her had been innocent, they were also microchipped. “God damn it.” I mutter, staring at her pinpointed location. “What? Where is she?” “I’ll give you one fucking guess.”

"It'll never be over." Stephen chokes, as Silas tightens his grip around his throat, using both hands to strangle the air from his windpipe. "You can't kill my memory. I will live in her forever." "Watch me."

Death enters the room with cold hands, it fills the air and Stephen Sinclair's body finally goes limp.

Thatcher shakes his head, kissing the top of Lyra’s head softly, muttering under his breath, “What am I going to do with you, little miss death?” They were an unlikely pair but something about them just kinda… worked? Like ice cream and french fries. One was very sweet and the other was very salty. But they balanced each other out.

"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?"

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.

“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.”

“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 who 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.”

"Silas!" She screams again, and this time I can see the smile on her face, the joy that radiates around her like a halo. "Rosie?"

"I wanted to come say goodbye." She tilts her head, the freckles dotting her cheeks crinkling as she grins at me, "We never got to say goodbye last time."

"I'm sorry I didn't protect you, when I promised I would." "It wasn't your fault, Silas. I died and that wasn't your fault."

“Always, Rosie Girl.”

“1852, the Evergreen Game. Adolf Anderssen sacrificed a queen for checkmate.” I lift my head toward the hospital bed. “Why are you crying like I’m dead, baby?”

“What’s your favorite color, Silas?” Instead of answering, he lifts his hand, removing the wedding band on his finger and tilting it into the light so I can see the engraved marking along the inside. “dd4a3d?” “It’s a hex code.” Silas slides the ring back on, reaching forward to brush a piece of hair behind my ear. “For the orangish-red color named Coraline. I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time. All of it.” He runs a thumb across my bottom lip. “Curse me. I’ll live my entire life cursed as a reminder that I loved you. That you let me love you. That you loved me.” "I'm your favorite color?" "You're my favorite everything, Hex."

He was the person life left me empty for. To give it room for him to fill.

"I love you, Coraline. Thank you for being happy." My heart aches, "Thank you for helping me find it."

"You are everything, Silas Hawthorne. Everything." I lean into his touch, smiling as I press my lips to his thumb, "Even if you are painting your office that ugly-ass orange color."

Our love is a living, breathing thing–it fills us up until there's no room for anything else. Those might have been my mother's vows to my father in that courthouse, but they were meant to be said by me to him.

it’s not my proudest moment being jealous of a fake penis.

I never got to choose Rosemary. Our connection was circumstance, a gift from something beyond us to help us through our pain. That will never take away the love I have for her, because it was real and it saved me. But I never got to make a choice. From the second I saw her, I chose Coraline. Today, tomorrow, and every day after. I will choose to love her, to give myself to her. Because it could be no one else but her. It's us, forever. Inevitable death and all.

The doors to the sanctuary open, and as I look up from my seated place on the steps of the altar, I see Alistair, Rook, and Thatcher make their way inside. Dressed in various suits and looking much older than I ever remember us being.

It’s been six months since the day we stood above an empty grave that stunk of burnt flesh and secrets. All of us dressed to the nines, one of us wearing a wedding dress, a day that was supposed to mark the beginning of a new adventure. It marked the bitter end of our vengeance.

"I'm sick of funerals," Rook mutters, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes, "It's going to be nice waking up tomorrow not worried about one of you being killed." "Did you just say something I actually agree with?" "Can we fucking please get rid of American Psycho now?” Thatcher slides into the pew behind him, leaning forward, "You wish, Van Doren."

"I think we've had this argument before," I mutter. "When we were, like, thirteen in the back of my dad’s car."

"What were you boys talking about?" Briar asks from next to Alistair, grinning, completely unaware of our potentially life-changing conversation. "Memories." I say simply. Not a lie. Not the truth. There were roads of freedom in front of us. Roads where the reputation of the infamous Hollow Boys did not follow. A place where the distant echoes of our tortured past don’t reach. We'll forever be the bastard sons of Ponderosa Springs, but we know now, that isn't all we are. We are more than rage, sin, lineage, and silence.

Alistair Caldwell is more than wrath. He is a fierce protecter, an older brother, a shadow that cannot exist without a little light. To know Rook Van Doren is not internal damnation. It's a blessing to witness his burning, his inferno that consumes and releases the embers of the ones he loves. And Thatcher Pierson is not an apple fallen from a sinister tree. He's the reminder that our family's history does not determine our future. That love is action and never words. I am more than words no one believes. I'm a voice to someone who needs it.

We are not unlovable creatures of the night with appetites for violence. There are people, our people, willing to convert to the shadows to show us life beyond vengeance and trauma. Beyond the flames of our destructive rage, there would forever lay a single thread of obsidian weaving our souls together. It will linger in us as a reminder. That we were once just four boys, little kids who, in the darkness of our lives, forged a family out of our despair. We weren't blood, but that means shit in the grand scheme of it all. It's easy to love someone who shares you...

"To the Styx?" I offer. In the dawn of death, with a fresh start on the horizon. "To the Styx." This is the echo that is heard across lifetimes.