Page 139
Story: Barons of Decay
Except, he’s still here, standing in the doorway–his tie loose, sweat slicking his temples. “You crazy motherfucking bitch! What are you doing?” he screams, voice rising over the roar of the fire.
“Ending it all.” My hands shake, but not from fear. From fury. My fingernails are torn, knuckles bloodied. The knife from the bar still clutched in my fingers.
“I kept you alive when no one else wanted you,” he coughs. “I gave you a bed, a roof over your head, meals, your stupid, pointless, dance lessons…everything.”
“You gave me nothing!” I stalk toward him, barefoot on the warm wood, dress hanging in ribbons around my ankles. “You put a curse on me. One where I live in one circle of hell after the other. It’s over. All of it.”
The air tastes like the end of times and when I get close enough, he reaches for me. I swipe out, slicing the blade down his hand. He jerks back with a yelp. “You’re insane. Just like your mother. Just like every other woman in this family.”
“No,” I whisper, my voice hollow, echoing in the way madness does. “Youmade me what I am.”
He lunges. I twist, stumble, and slam into the grandfather clock, sending it to the floor with a crash. He grabs my wrist, but I bite him–hard–until he lets go. The blade sinks in again, this time across his chest. A scream–his, not mine–cuts through the firestorm. He falls against the burning shelves, face twisted in disbelief.
“You don’t get to walk away from this,” I tell him. “Not for what you did to me, or them.”
Not for the children he claims don’t exist. Or the arrangement to have me sold off to a monster. Not after what he did to my body. My mind. My soul.
He tries to crawl toward me. The fire eats the carpet between us. I back away, dragging myself toward the doorway, breath coming in ragged sobs. The walls are closing in on both of us, and all I want is to be alone. I want peace. A quiet mind.
I’m low on the ground, crawling away from the library when I see him.
At first, I think I’m hallucinating–smoke and memory blurring together. But then he sniffs, whines, nose to the ground. He finds me. His wet nose touches my cheek. A lick, followedby a warm sound, a real one, rumbles in his throat. He nuzzles closer.
I press my face into his fur. “Ares,” I whisper. My voice is barely there. “Go.Los.”
He whines again. Impatient. Angry. Then he’s gone, paws skidding on ash-slick floors.
My eyes flutter shut. Alone. Finally.
I lay there, wondering if any of this is real. If I’m back in the Hunt, or maybe by the river. I see something. Someone. Dark long hair, bright eyes, high voice. “Run! Tell them I’m here!”
Hands grab at me. Hard and strong. I fight against them, kicking and lashing out. But this time, I don’t run. I can’t.
Blinking up, I see the mask, feel the heat, sense the fury.
Damon.
“Stop,” I beg. “Just leave. Leave me.”
But he doesn’t. He picks me up like I weigh nothing. I feel everything. The pain, the shame, the fucking loss of it all.
“Sorry, doll baby,” he growls against my temple, his voice choked. “Death isn’t coming for you today.”
And just like that, he carries me out of my funeral pyre.
Alive.
But not the same.
I remember this bed.
The exact slope of it under my spine. The itchy, paper-thin blanket that does nothing to fight off the sterile chill of the room. The crooked hook of the IV stand looming beside me like some metal skeleton, clear fluid dripping in a steady beat. I know the lights flickering overhead–too bright, glaring twenty-four seven, washing the color out of the world.
The smell hits next. Antiseptic laced with vinegar. Bleach and blood. Disinfectant and dread. I know this. My body remembers before my mind does, like everything about this place is trying to convince me that I’ve gone back to the day after the river.
Everything from the too-sweet voice of a nurse telling me it was a miracle I was found at all. I can almost hear it. The low beep of monitors. The whisper of technicians behind the curtain. The sting in my skin, the ache in my lungs. The boys had found me by the riverbed and pushed on my chest until they came alive again. My lungs were full of silt, wrists raw, my neck bleeding from the dug out tracker. Back then I'd slipped under so far I didn’t know what was real anymore.
It’s the pain that anchors me to the present.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144