Page 23 of All Your Deadly Truths (The Filthy Duet #2)
I choke on the breath I try to take, cutting him off. My hand shoots to my mouth. Shut up, please, just shut up. Inch by inch, I get closer to the wall, my body desperate for relief from their voices and the downward spiral my psyche is pulling me into.
My mind can’t shatter. It’s the only piece of me that is keeping this fight going.
“Hmm…” Footsteps echo behind Tali’s hum.
As she approaches, my scoot away gets faster, and I’ve never felt smaller. It isn’t her standing over me that makes me feel that way, it’s the lack of control that tears me down to feeling like a mere mouse. I’m trying so fucking hard to stay strong, because I know that I can be.
I’ve stopped thinking Kai and Sydni are dead, and it’s helped keep me going. I know they aren’t gone; my heart tells me so.
Seeing her crouching next to me, I turn my head away and reclose my eyes. “He was your Mark.”
“No.” My singular word is bubbled with emotions that are all too telling that I’m lying.
“Aww, Xeraphine.” Her weak attempt at sympathy pisses me off, and I lash out, aiming the back of my hand at her face. As expected, she catches it just before impact. Clicking her tongue, she pulls my hand to her lips and presses a kiss to it .
“Oh, sweetheart, he’s gone.”
Rolling my lips together, I shrug my shoulders. “Okay.” I need to keep my body and mind together. Stay steadfast that I know my Kairhyse isn’t dead, nor is Sydni. He would do everything to keep her safe. I trust him…
“Would shoving his ashes down your throat be proof enough?”
He finds fulfilment in completing even the simplest of tasks because he said it was always challenging to do so when he was Mundane. Now, because he has more time, he’s found patience and doesn’t rush.
“Maybe the hand that was marked by Achille?—”
He hates classical movies. His favorite dish was Asian food, said his mother introduced it to his father and it was a Friday night staple.
“He isn’t going to come for you if that is what you and your Amoro are waiting for,” she says while grabbing my chin and pulling my face to hers. I don’t open my eyes. Just stare into the darkness that it offers me.
He loves me and wouldn’t leave me. He’s stubborn… He told me he’d fight Belial himself to crawl back to me.
He isn’t gone.
She’s lying.
She… she’s lying.
“I think you should count your blessings he is dead, because if he weren’t, I’d make him suffer.” She leans against me, her lips brushing against mine. “Or I’d make him mine just to hurt you for your disobedience.”
Every part of me ignites with fury, and I scream. My body thrashes forward in such a rage that I can’t stay tethered to myself. It’s not just my being that radiates with anger—around me, the air smells of ash and fire, blood and decay.
As she throws herself on top of me again, I grab her throat, not noticing the blackness consuming my entire arm until it vanishes from my sight. The muted gray world above me flickers in and out of focus.
Piercing pain shoots from my forehead and when Tali turns her gaze upward, she lets out a malicious laugh. “There she is.”
I’m not sure where the strength comes from, but I angle my leg and press my foot against her stomach, thrusting upward with such force that she breaks through the ceiling.
I’m no longer in control of myself; feeling like a host trapped in a body that isn’t mine.
Moving as though I weigh nothing, I rise to my feet and step aside just in time for Tali to land gracefully in front of me.
“This fight doesn’t matter. He… is… dead…”
Shaking my head, I launch myself at her. As she grins, her fangs bared in a deadly smile, I’m ready to tear her heart out and consume it—just as she made me do to my father.
But who am I kidding?
“Stop, my Xeraphine.”
The tether straight to my brain goes taut, and a knot forms in my willpower. A scream bellows out of my throat and its piercing sound shatters glass somewhere in the room.
What fucking fairytale am I living in, thinking I stood a chance? She’d been standing in this room, absorbing their lifeforces as their gates opened, long before my Amoro could even make an attempt.
She’s happily fed.
I’m letting anger, pain, and the truth suck me dry.
The truth…
“Come here, baby.”
The pressure I apply to my legs to keep from walking works for only a brief moment. It doesn’t last, though, and as I squeeze my eyes shut, I can’t stop the tears from pricking at the edges.
Her fingers lace through mine and she pulls me into a hug that is the same as laying on a bed of needles. “He’s gone, and no one will come for you.”
No, just keep fighting…
A grip on the back of my neck accompanies several other hands on me. “You’re mine,” she whispers against my cheek, and I stop trying not to cry. Tears fall like a river down my face and I don’t care anymore.
“Let mommy make you feel better.”
“No…” I choke, and I know I’m fighting a losing battle…
Who am I kidding? I’ve already lost. I’m weak, clinging to the illusion that I was anything more than a toy. Just a body to be owned. It’s always been this way; from the moment I took my first fucking breath.
A lesson learned, I suppose. Don’t let hope take root in a world drowned in hopelessness.
Tali’s right.
He’s gone, and all I want to do is be with him.
“Send me to the Beyond,” I beg through a weak sob against her shoulder. “Kill me… please… send me to be with him…”