Page 15

I felt nothing but disgust, despite her seeming innocent and sweet. So many people had been sent down to torture me that a pretty little blonde did absolutely nothing for me. Most people would have thought her beautiful, if not for the scar on her face that stood out against the harsh bulb hanging overhead. Her face cast her as an outcast in witch society. I thought it made her look interesting and, oddly enough, it hurt my heart to see. My boy had had scars that I hadn't been able to prevent him from receiving.

And, just like that, I hated this girl. She was no angel, but the devil himself.

"What's... what's your name?" the devil croaked out. "I've never been told your name before."

There was something very off about her. She didn't fit the normal bill for the women that had previously been sent down here to tempt me so many years ago.

I licked cracked, broken lips. Did my voice even still work after all this time? It had been so long since I’d used it.

"Ro—" I coughed. "Romero. Romero Flynn." There. It did work, and after coughing it didn't even hurt much to speak.

I had never uttered a word since having been locked in here. The last person I'd spoken to had been my son, and I couldn't even remember how long ago that had been. I didn't know why this girl pulled the words out of me, but maybe they would be what finally signed my death warrant after all this time. Speaking to this girl and breaking my years of silence could finally be my suicide.

However, I didn't want to die, if you could believe that. But living without my son had finally become so unbearable I didn't think I had any other choice.

The Council had finally broken me. And, fuck me, that hurt just to think about.

My mind just wasn't what it used to be.

"Go away, girl. And don't come back down here. I don't want to see you again. Leave me here to rot like all the rest," I spat out.

And rot I would, with the Council's blessings. That whore who'd birthed my son and her disgusting, vile mother had made sure of it. Some women got away with everything by allowing demons between their legs.

I hated them all.

Wetness hit my cheeks. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd cried and I didn't want to be doing it now.

"Rain!" The blonde girl screamed at the top of her lungs. The sound of her voice shredded my insides, there was so much pain inside it.

Stupidly, I tilted my face up, expecting water to come falling down on my face. Nothing came and I was instantly pissed at this little girl who got my hopes up just to smash them to pieces.

She was crueler than most.

"Get out of here, bitch," I snarled at her. "Go back and tell your Council that you had your fun with me, but I told you nothing."

Tears started falling freely down her fucked up face. I couldn't get past how different she was to the perfect little princesses that had been sent down here before. A new development I refused to find interesting.

"Rain!" she screamed again, sounding shrill and unstable. Coming from me, I thought that said a lot.

"Bitch, it isn't going to rain down here. We're inside and underground. Shut up."

Her entire body shuddered and the tears instantly stopped. "Stop calling me a bitch," she snapped. "If you don't stop, I'm going to have to start calling you a dickwad or something stupid like that, and it'll make me feel like a jerk later after I have to leave you behind in this place."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise, this was new to me as well. They had never so much as raised their voices to me before.

"I know it's not going to rain in here. I'm calling for my dad and putting my emotions behind it, hoping he'll hear me. I haven't quite mastered the skill of dream walking yet and I need him." Unbelievably, she blushed a pretty shade of pink. "There's someone else I could call out to, and for some stupid reason I feel like he'd hear me even if he was dead, but I don't think we want him to know about you just yet. He'd lose his mind and things would be destroyed, I'm sure of it. There's also, you know, someone else..." She hesitated, refusing to look at me. "But I don't want him to know about this either. We're attached in a different way, and I'm not going to be able to stay here for much longer, just in case."

I cocked my head to the side and studied her. She had to be lying, at least about the part I could understand. Still, I couldn't help but ask, "This is a dream, you say?"

Lie to me some more, girl. Come on, I thought,let the bullshit out past your lips and set it free for me so I can call you out on it and laugh in your face.

She nodded as she chewed on her bottom lip and the black ring stuck through it. I’d never honestly understood the appeal of poking holes in your face for the sake of shoving jewelry through. Just like I’d never understood getting tattoos when there was no magical purpose behind them.

Did my son now have tattoos and facial piercings? I wondered. He'd be a grown man now, I had enough sense left about me to know at least that much time had gone by. I hoped not, but if so I would still love him all the same, he was my son.

Fuck, would this girl never leave me the fuck alone? She was ruining what was left of my pathetic life.

"Yeah," she said, nodding her head. "I fell asleep somewhere other than my own bed and under my dream catcher like I'm supposed to. This time I guess it's been for the best, though, because it led me to you. There's no way the guys can be upset about that."