"But from the little I rember, and from Angelica's knowledge of the system, the multiverse, and everything I learned while living inside your soul these past months, I realized my race cos from an ancient lineage. A race that no longer exists. And even in a multiverse filled with countless lifeforms, species older than galaxies and species born yesterday, even then, a Stone Angel returning to existence would draw attention."
Angie moved toward him with quiet, deliberate steps, as if crossing so fragile boundary she feared might shatter. She sat beside him on the narrow bed, and the mattress dipped slightly under her weight. The space between them was small enough to feel intentional. When she leaned closer, her face drifted toward his until their noses and mouths were almost touching.
"Even more so because I'm a female Stone Angel. Which ans I can get pregnant. And I'm certain there are powerful psychopaths out there who would love to experint on the body of a race that no longer exists."
The words hit him harder than he expected. Luke blinked, caught off guard. The seriousness in her eyes made it clear she wasn't speculating. It was a cold, factual statent. And sohow he had never thought of it, not like that.
Angie slowly pulled her face back, as if giving him room to process.
"That's why I don't want to cause trouble for you. I know you'd be upset if sothing happened to this body… out of respect for Angelica's mory."
The irony in her tone was sharp and quiet, almost cruel in its honesty. Her concern wasn't for herself, but for how he would feel if she were hard. The realization pricked at him — not pain exactly, but close.
"So, my lord… staying hidden with you for a while, until we decide what to do next, is the safest choice for both of us."
Luke frowned, studying her. Her logic made sense, but her tone… it was too neat, too perfectly reasoned for him to take at face value.
"You're right," he acknowledged. "But I get the feeling you're only emphasizing all of that because you want to stay close to and you're trying to justify it."
"I'll do whatever it takes to stay near you," she replied without hesitation. "Even if that ans appealing a little to your sentintal side."
That confird a suspicion. She was intelligent, dangerously so. It relieved him more than he expected. A naive mind could be shattered or manipulated with ease, and Angie's existence, fragile in its own way, needed protection. If he ever convinced her to choose a path of her own soday, he wanted to know she wouldn't walk into the world defenseless.
As she stood, sothing stirred in his thoughts.
"You don't rember anything from your previous life? Not even your na?"
"Not even my na."
The answer ca fast, steady, without a flicker of doubt.
"And Angelica's mories?" he asked, cautiously. He wanted to understand, but he didn't want to violate anything that had belonged to the woman Angelica once was.
"I have all of Angelica's mories. Angelica was a human woman, twenty-six years old, a virgin, born in a place called Texas. She loved her brother deeply, but he was killed trying to save her."
If Angie had all of Angelica's mories… if pieces of her personality still lived on inside that stone body… then maybe it wasn't sothing bad. Maybe it was sothing good.
"Can you tell what Angelica felt when she died?" Luke asked. His voice ca out quieter than intended. "If it's not sothing too personal… if it's sothing the real Angelica would naturally choose not to share, then don't tell . I'd rather protect what's left of her. But without overwriting who you are."
"Based on Angelica's last intentions during your final interaction, she would have answered without hesitation."
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Luke drew a slow breath. That was sothing, at least. A way of preserving a part of her, even now, by asking what Angelica herself would have done.
"Angelica's feelings that night were chaotic, like a storm," Angie said. "Monts of calm, monts of turmoil. A consequence of years of guilt. It began the night Angelica lost her brother. He died saving her. From that day on, she blad herself for his death."
Angie's voice carried no emotion at all. She recited the words with the detachnt of a dical report.
"She considered suicide many tis. The strongest impulses ca on nights when she thought about entering the second fortress alone and letting the Midnight Warden finish the job. But she couldn't do it. She thought it would disrespect her brother's sacrifice."
They were intimate details, raw and heavy, told with a flatness that made them sting even more. Angie was clearly struggling to grasp the weight of the mories she was relaying. Luke caught it in the small pause she made before continuing.
"That was one of the reasons she went to help you. She wanted to be brave, like her brother," Angie said. "And she was afraid of dying alone. So she preferred that you killed her, and also believed she was helping you by giving you experience points."
A pressure tightened in Luke's chest, not only guilt, but the sudden clarity of how much Angelica had carried alone. Angie's manner of speaking made it even sharper, because she was still trying to translate human emotion, analyzing each feeling like soone studying a painting without fully grasping what the colors ant.
She stilled for a mont, her gaze drifting, as if sorting through the fragnts of Angelica's mories and lining them up in so logical order. Luke waited. He realized Angie needed ti to process emotions the way a machine needed ti to test each function.
"The part about revenge… is difficult for my limited emotional matrix to interpret," Angie finally said. "Angelica felt regret for putting that weight on you. But it was also a way to ease her guilt. She preferred that you focused on avenging her by killing Paul rather than being left with nothing except the mory of killing her."
The room grew heavier, thick with mories that weren't his but now lived inside him anyway.
"It was a crossroads for her," Angie said. "She needed to tell you the truth about Paul, and she was dying. So she placed everything on you, because in you, she saw sothing of herself."
Angie rose slowly. Her movents were smooth, practiced, almost calculated, but sothing had changed. A faint hesitation, a flicker of sothing uncertain. It was as though the mory of Angelica contained so warmth she was trying to imitate, and failing, held back by limitations even she didn't fully understand.
"And in the end, my lord, you fulfilled every one of her wishes. You killed Paul. You avenged her brother. You saved all the humans she cared about from the tutorial, and you even removed her body from that place. And you brought her back to life, not entirely, of course. But that part would have made her happy, because in so strange way, it's sothing her brother would have been happy about. That part is emotionally confusing for ."
There was truth in her words, not the warm, human truth of feelings, but the colder, analytical truth of soone carrying mories that weren't originally theirs and trying to reassemble them into aning.
Luke rose as well. A simple movent, yet heavy, as if it dragged years of unspoken weight with it. He stepped closer and set a hand on Angie's shoulder. It was skin, it looked human, but it wasn't. To the touch, it was soft and almost warm, as if human skin had been dipped in ink until it turned completely gray. Her entire body carried that sa smooth gray tone, and yet to the eye, its texture resembled stone. The presence beneath it carried Angelica's echo, and at the sa ti, wasn't her at all.
When he t her gaze, he saw the outline of the woman who had died in his arms, the sa bone structure, the familiar shape of the eyes. But behind them lived a different mind, one that observed the world like every second was a new discovery.
"Thank you, Angie," he murmured, feeling sothing invisible loosen inside his chest. Not all at once, but enough for the first real breath in a long ti. "I know you're not trying to manipulate with any of this. I know those words ca from the part of Angelica that still lives in you."
His original plan had been simple: take Angelica's body back to Texas and bury her there. That was why he had kept her remains in his pocket dinsion, waiting for the right ti to honor a promise he had never spoken aloud. But fate had twisted that path into sothing else entirely.
Angelica's body had beco a vessel, a bridge, the thing that allowed Angie to be born. And then Angie had saved him, dragging him out of the tutorial when he should have died. In a way, Angelica had saved him twice: once by dying so he could live, and once by being reborn as Angie and pulling him back from the brink.
It was a debt Luke knew he could never repay. Maybe no one could. And that was why he accepted, without hesitation, the responsibility of protecting the fragnt of Angelica that remained, this new being who carried echoes of a woman he couldn't save.
He glanced toward the bedroom door, quiet and shut, as if marking the line between what was past and what ca next.
"I'm going to have to place you in my soul for a while," Luke said. "We'll go to Maine together."
Reviews
All reviews (0)