I’m holding onto JB. Justice stares blankly having just stabbed his father. The sky is blackened. The sky has gone black. It’s almost as though Eden was dying with JB. I look down at the man I love and I have a feeling there is nothing I can do to save him. I can’t stop the blood. I can’t keep him alive. I’m hopeless.

He’s bleeding below me. He’s coughing up blood. I attempt to put pressure on JB’s wound. He looks up at me silently. He wants to speak but he’s struggling.

Panic takes over the room. The nobles are running out of the hall. There are screams coming from everywhere. I can feel my heart racing.

“What have you done?” Bambam asks Candy.

“I panicked. I…I wasn’t thinking,” Candy responds.

The men have grabbed Justice. They don’t know what to do. I stare in the corner and see Justice and Roman being restrained. No one notices my father though. Jackson’s eyes look at mine. He walks over to me. His steps are cold and heavy.

“No point. Let him die,” Jackson tells me, “it’s over. You can feel it. Come with me.”

Jackson offers me his hand.

He outstretches his hand. The look on his face almost seems like he thinks he’s taken anything from me.

“ you,” I tell him.

“Don’t be stupid. He’s bled out,” Jackson says.

“ you!”

Jackson attempts to reach out and grab me away from JB. It doesn’t end well. I twist his hand as hard as I can. I hear it snap out of place. I toss him across the room so hard that he dents the nearby wall. Jackson collapses to the ground unable to get back up. He does manage to lift his head at that moment and give me this stare as though he’s disappointed. As if I’m the one who is betraying him.

“She’s coming,” Satyr notices.

“I didn’t mean to break it,” Candy explains.

“It’s too late,” Bambam continues.

I ignore them. They aren’t the only ones panicking. Some people have decided to make a run for it. Others are waiting in the room hiding out behind the King’s Guard who have formed at the front of the room.

“Sir…what should we do?” Ira asks.

JB says something. I don’t hear what he’s saying. Everyone in the room is looking at the king wondering what he was going to say and what he was going to do. I’m looking at the man I love dying in my arms and there’s nothing that I can do.

“What’s he saying?” Countess Livia asks.

I lean into JB. I hear him whisper something in my ear.

Strange.

I look up at the others, “He’s saying to finish.”

“You’re lying,” Countess Livia tells me.

D.J looks over at Ira, “Ma’am…it is your call. The king can’t give orders.”

“He said to finish. He said to finish the wedding,” I state, “FINISH!”

“Look at his eyes…” Countess Livia states.

A few of them take steps away from me. My eyes were black. I was sure they were. My emotion was causing this to happen. I’m sitting here holding the man that I wanted to marry and they are all just letting him die. No one is helping. Everyone is so afraid of Lilith. A part of me wants to say Eden. It would be so easy to say Eden.

Except for JB. I can’t forsake him.

“Arrest Candy,” Ira states, “Arrest Jr.”

They send the guards for me. Idiots.

They take Candy first. I can’t get up to help her. They grab her, kicking and screaming. They could care less that she is pregnant. It takes almost 6 of them to hold her down. As the guards approach me the stained glass in the cathedral fracture and break. There is a sound of shattering glass and a large gust of wind that enters the room. Thirsts have come into the room. There are three of them. The thirsts surround me.

At first I think Jackson is doing this. Jackson is controlling the Thirsts…but that isn’t the case.

I’m the one controlling them.

The Thirsts surround JB and I. They make steps towards the guards. Anything I think they do. With a glance I can have the monsters rip these people to shreds if I want to. I can if I’d like and a part of me is so upset that I’m willing to do that.

Eden.

Eden…

I look down at JB. Tears are in his eyes and his blood is still gushing. I hear him mouth the words one more time, “Finish.”

“You will finish our marriage,” I tell Ira.

Mentally I make the thirsts move forward. There are screams in the room. People have gone to the walls behind King’s guard. There are so many soldiers in the cathedral and more pouring in. The only thing between me and an army of vampires is three Thirsts.

Ira has a knife at Candy’s throat, “Send them back demon or I’ll slit …”

I look over at Candy. Regardless of how stupid she was for breaking the Lucky One, Candy is still carrying my unborn child. I’m struggling at that moment. Ira seems like she actually may go ahead and do this. She is blaming Candy and me for letting Lilith in Eden.

“Ira this is enough,” a void says.

We turn and notice the person who is talking is Mark. Mark walks over to me. It’s strange seeing Mark coming to my defense. Mark crosses his arms and looks over at Ira.

“We all know JB wants him to finish,” Mark explains, “Regardless of what we think Jr was meant to be king. If JB is going to die...if we are all going to die then the least we can do is give them that. At least give them that. After 100 years and after trying to avoid this for so long it happened regardless. Lilith is in Eden. She’s coming for all of us and we’re all dead. And you know what. It’s not because of Jr.”

Ira is thinking about it.

I look at the door.

“She’s coming…”

“Block the door,” Ira orders D.J.

Dozens of guard run to the front door and abandon me and the thirsts. The Thirsts remain still almost like statues waiting for my command. Ira releases Candy at that moment. Somehow Mark has influenced her.

She brings over the Alphabet of Ben Sira to me.

“I’ll skip to the end,” Ira explains.

“Please do.”

“Do you, Jr take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in heath, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live? If so, answer. I DO."

“I do.”

“Do you, JB take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in heath, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live? If so, answer. I DO."

Everyone looks at JB.

She’s coming. We can all feel it. The door in the front of the cathedral is breaking up! It continues to fall down. I turn to Jackson. Jackson is laughing. He’s enjoying every moment of this.

“You fools. You ing fools. You’re all dead. You’re all dead…” Jackson is laughing.

He may be right.

Guards are pouring in the room from the upper levels. They whisper something to D.J.

D.J looks over at Ira, “Countess…the streets of Eden are bleeding.”

I don’t know what he means by that but I could only imagine he’s saying it in the most literal way possible. The streets were literally BLEEDING with dead vampires. Lilith was coming.

“How many?”

“Hundreds…” he says.

The door at the front of the cathedral being to break open. The guards abandon the door and get to the other side of the room. The locks break off the door. The doors are starting to slowly part. There is this force coming for us. We all know this.

“Finish,” I tell Ira.

Ira looks over at me.

Nothing is going to stop this. 100 years couldn’t keep me away from JB and not even Lilith would keep me away from JB. I didn’t care at this point. I’d be married to this man regardless.

Ira looks over at JB, “I’m waiting for the King to answer.”

JB is weak.

He is struggling to open up his mouth.

The heavy Cathedral door opens a little more. The building is shaking. It feels like an earthquake or something. Is this the power of Lilith? This is what she brought with her. Even the bravest soldiers look like they are about to piss their entire pants. Sweat beads are forming at Ira’s forehead. Bambam and Satyr are too weak to even stand at this point.

“I do…” JB manages to say.

“By the authority vested in me by the State of Eden. I now pronounce you married and what God hath joined together, let no man nor woman put asunder.”

“Pointless,” Jackson says.

No one argues the point with him.

“Sir you are the King of Eden,” Ira tells me.

She’s looking down at me. That’s when I see it. I see the real reason she finished. Mark may have convinced her but it was deeper than that. They were all scared. All of them. They needed me. So I watch all these people who tried so hard to keep JB away from me.

“What should we do?” Mark asks me.

Funny how the people who were so against me needed my help.

“King Jr…what should we do?” Ira asks, “What should we do.”

I look at them. The room of royals looking down at me.

“Shut the up,” I tell her.

JB isn’t moving. He’s just lying there. He’s the only thing in this ing room I give a about at that moment. At that moment all my focus is on him.

JB’s eyes close. He just lays there.

“He losing too much blood,” Ira tells me, “You’re our king now.”

“I’ll give him my blood.”

“It won’t do any good,” Mark explains, “You have different blood types. It’s not a match. Even if you did give him a blood transfer…it wouldn’t matter…”

JB is dying.

He just lays there. The silence in the room is deafening.

It’s Candy that runs over to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder, “I’m sorry. Jr. I’m sorry.”

“He’s not dead yet,” I tell Candy.

He’s breathing just barely…but he’s breathing.

“You’re our king now,” Ira explains again, “What should we do about…the Darkest…”

“Please Jr,” I hear Bambam say.

“Save us Jr…” Mark adds in.

They were dead serious. They were ing dead serious.

And then I laugh.

“You think I married JB to save all of you?” I ask at that moment, “You think I did this to be king after all the you people took me through. Save you? Is that what you’re asking me? For mercy. Would you like me to talk to my mother? Beg for your lives. No it’s begun. You heard. The streets are running with blood. She’s coming. You feel it. She’s close.”

And they can all die for all I cared.

It’s Jackson who is standing next to me, “You’ve done well son. He’s gone. Let him go. It’s over…”

And at that moment I’m done.

Jackson offers me his hand and I take it.

JB is dead. He isn’t