jesse 3

Excerpts from Jesse’s written Journal:

Day: later

Month: Same

Season: Spring…still

I was completely humiliated. My soul stripped clean before his very eyes! I have never felt so ashamed in all my life. Not even being dominated by the first wolf I had met; not even reveling in his blood as it spattered on the ground when I killed him. I was ashamed of nothing. I did what I needed and nothing more. This…this was a cut so deep I can still feel the burn of the blade. Blades…plural. His blades.

He had been gone for a week! A week since I woke in his room, with no one but Aurora to help me. Aurora was not the one with the answers…he was. I was getting impatient. Not only had he set his spooks to killing me when I entered his confounded mansion…now he was no where to be found! Gone had the Dreaming Wench said. I didn’t want him to be gone…I needed him here! Why else would I have come back?

I had been waiting and finally on the night of the full moon, I was sitting near a pond in his garden. Aurora had just given me a note from Grandfather. It made me sad and happy at the same time. He had not abandoned me. This made me happy. The news brought into light, I had hated him…or at least held extreme dislike for him. This made me sad. I hate feeling such strange emotions. I have been able to shut them down for so long. I think being in Janus’ home for so long has done exactly what I didn’t want. It’s making me soft, bringing soft emotions I don’t want. But that is beside the point.

He crept from the shadows telling me…ME it was alright to cry when the letter brought tears to my eyes. I asked him where my sister was. He knew I needed to kill her and that was my goal. “I like you sister…” He had said. I wanted to hit him. “but I’ve given her the only aid she’ll get from me, now I will help you.” I did hit him. He had helped her, seen her when he knew I wanted to rip her throat out. He should have taken me and made my life easier. Who was he to stand in my way of getting closer to my sister so soon? He was no one. We had a heated discussion which ended with me covered in blood from a blood explosion. It was so painful. I will never forget it. It pulsated and burned and squeezed. He didn’t hold me in it for long, though it felt like forever. When we actually began to fight, the coward struck Aurora! He couldn’t even face me in a battle. I was so worried about her, when he did strike me I wasn’t able to defend myself. His blades cut deep into my legs.

I couldn’t focus on anything but Aurora, not even the burning pain in my legs stopped the chant that echoed through my head. She would be alright. She has to be… I repeated this in my head over and over again. He threw me across the garden. His words were so hateful. I will never be able to erase them from my mind. “You’re not even in the right league yet kid…” He had said. He had called me a puppy. It was salt on my wounds. He was older and stronger and better then me. I was not a puppy by normal terms but he threw it in my face that there was obviously no chance to gain any of the lost years between us. I don’t know why…but that thought bothered me then and it still bothers me now. He’d hit me in the face with his wings and then the next thing I remember was the sound of thousands of screeching bats and their claws all over me. It was painful and I wanted to cry out. I had to keep fighting. I would let down myself and my grandfather if I didn’t.

He wanted me to submit! Part of me screamed Yes, yes I’ll submit… but the ever present defiant part of me choose that moment to speak. I told him I’d never submit to him. He froze then and blood had come from his mouth. I was shocked, not sure what was happening. Aurora had impaled him with her tomahawks. I was angry, scared, upset, hurting and triumphant all at once. So many emotions that pulled me in so many directions; they brought tears to my eyes. I was angry…this was my fight. MY fight. Scared…she had just killed him. I’ve seen death so many times, but this…this death scared me to my soul. I was upset because she had gotten the upper hand that I had not been able to. Hurting. This one is the hardest to explain. To see him collapse. Dead before me…it had torn me to shreds inside. I didn’t want him dead, but that’s the reason why I had been fighting him. Wasn’t it? Triumphant came only because I was the one breathing and still alive. My angry side won out over all the emotions and I yelled at Aurora. I didn’t mean to, but it was the first thing that had come out. “This was my fight! My fight!" Without even thinking I had shattered Aurora.

She had shattered me. I couldn’t even understand how she had done it…I was broken inside. She started to leave and anything left intact in me snapped and fell into a thousand little pieces. I chased after her. I couldn’t loose her too. I wouldn’t be all alone again. I couldn’t. I’m…I’m afraid to be alone again. We both cried and I apologized, trying to fill the gap I had so effectively created. We sat there for a while, calming and collecting our thoughts. I didn’t want to go back in and see it, but I knew I had to in order to get my stuff. Aurora actually took the lead and it was her startled gasp that galvanized me to get up and see what had happened.

He was there. Sitting there as if nothing had happened. I was so confused. I wanted to run to him and hit him and yet at the same time I wanted to cry again but not from sadness. I didn’t understand why…I really still don’t.

To keep from embarrassing myself I locked my knees and fell to the ground. He wasn’t done with me yet. He created two blood clones and I watched in horror as one of them splashed me with burning blood. It fueled my anger and hurt me, since all I really wanted to do was run up to him and make sure it was really him. Touch his skin and see for myself he wasn’t hurt. The same clone stabbed my legs and left the swords there, the burning and pain brought tears to my eyes. He did the same with my arms and pinned me to the ground. Two more blades were held at my neck and for the first time since the accident I was afraid.

He was so mean and uncaring. He wasn’t the Janus I knew…the one I had come to trust and somewhat care about. I looked to him, searching; hoping to find the Janus I knew in there some where and call him out. My voice was not working so I needed him to be there for me to see so I could plead with him. I was so afraid when his eyes met mine. My Janus was gone.

His clone had split into two and they grabbed Aurora. Another wave a fear coursed through me. I felt sick to my stomach and I know a few tears leaked from my eyes, though I think they blended with the sweat on my head so no one had noticed. I begged him not to hurt her. “I'll do anything, I submit! Just don't kill her!" He wouldn’t do it. I needed to sacrifice. I offered myself up. I was nothing without her. My grandfather would not take me back, I could not kill my sister without Aurora there to stay by me…Janus was gone and he would turn me out to the world…leaving me alone forever. I couldn’t loose her. The words I said next, I don’t remember saying, just hearing them in my voice. "Take me! Torture me, kill me, whatever you feel the best. Just don't hurt her. She has nothing to do with this! Your fight is with me." I had sobbed. I was beaten, broken. He held my only life-line in his hand and he knew it. I had one great weakness…and it was those I care about. He was capitalizing on that and it hurt to think someone I trusted would cut me so deep, even if he was mad at me.

He released Aurora, saying I’d learned my lesson, but he didn’t want her to heal me. He kicked her, but she healed me anyway. His next words…will ring in my head and my heart forever, “Damnit Jesse, your so damned stupid.” He said more, but I was caught on that. He had never called me stupid before. He had actually thought I was highly educated when we had first met. Had I dropped so low in his eyes?

My eyes, as much as I hate to admit it, broadcast everything I feel for anyone to see. I needed to see him. To see if he was my Janus again. I knew if I looked at him he would see it all. The hurt, the vulnerability, the shattered broken remains of what was left of me inside. I didn’t care. I needed to see. “At this moment, you look like the puppy you actually are.” It shattered my heart, the only thing I had tried to keep intact. Someone, who had shown me so many emotions, had called me weak and young and frail because I had shown him mine. He didn’t care what he had done to me. "Should have trusted the undead to hold such a cold heart." I stood, feeling it better to say it and wait. If he had wanted to kill me, he would and I wouldn’t have stopped him. He did get angry and stormed over to me. The air was so charged plants started to wilt and the air crackled. Our conversation I will try to remember, it was the closest I’ve ever come to expressing anything for someone besides my family:

“Did you just call me cold hearted?! Do you have any idea what you are saying? I’ve loved more people than you’ve ever even seen. I’ve seen people die for other people because they love them. I’ve seen people spit in death’s face for love. I’d die for that woman lying on my bed, eternally asleep. I couldn’t lay a finger on my daughter even when she killed my wife because I loved her… Cold hearted? You’re one to talk Jesse. You would kill the world if it meant another day of survival. Your grandfather’s poisoned you. He saw you as clay to mold into the perfect warrior. He failed. The perfect warrior has compassion. It’s what keeps him alive! Do not tell me I am cold hearted…”

I wouldn’t look at him, he had already seen my emotions, I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing them again. "Don't you ever think you understand me. You have no idea."

“When you were seven your sister tossed you overboard of a boat, and you wanted to kill her at such a young age. Aurora found you, she was the only one there for you the whole time in your entire life, she took you to your grandfather, whom you just found out actually loves you, and kicked you out to get your story started. You’ll do anything if it means survival or getting closer to killing your sister. You..” He had changed to look like me, adding more insult to injury. “I only can love those who have never abandoned me, mainly Aurora who is like my mother and my sister, and besides my grandfather the only person whom I have ever loved. I trusted you, Janus! But I lost that trust in you because of what you’ve done. What I don’t understand is the huge point you’re trying to make, I can’t grasp it, I’ve been brainwashed. I shall continue to be so…”

I stood, my anger and hurt welling inside me. I smacked ‘his’ cheek, prepared to bare what I never thought I could. "I do not love only those who have never abandoned me, my grandfather abandoned me and I felt like I died a little more inside each day. I never hated him, I was angry and upset, but I never hated him. I love him. You think I can't or don't love, you're wrong. I can love and I do. I just can't show it because I don't know how." I started to walk away, not being able to look him in the face when I said what I needed to say next, "They aren't the only ones I'd die for either…"

I had shocked him and he said that I couldn’t possibly be serious. I was. I couldn’t get more serious. Such emotions were like signing my own death certificate. Someone would use it against me and I would die, not being able to stand against someone holding him or my family hostage. I had just signed my life over in that one, sad little sentence. He asked me why and I gave him the only answer I could give, it would be the same for my grandfather and Aurora too. “You cared…”

He talked, though I was only half listening for the rest of the conversation, I got the bits and pieces that were important before he left, saying something about midnight and the ballroom. I left too, following only after I knew he wouldn’t turn around and find me. I am sitting in a small room, staring at the pressed, dried black rose he gave me on our first meeting. I kept it. It’s been pressed and sealed in a place I hold sacred. The only place my thoughts and emotions can run free and no one gets hurt…

*Passage of time*

It hasn’t been long. I’m on a bus with Aurora. We left Janus’ home. As we left I couldn’t overcome the urge to show him, how deep my words in our conversation truly ran. I left the dried and pressed black rose on a table in his home. When he finds it…if he cares. He’ll know. He’ll understand. ‘The ball is in his court’ as I’ve heard it said. Only time will see if that action results in my death. Maybe, just maybe, my path to normality is shorter then I think.

~Jesse