Page 24 of Blood Claims (Garnet Dagger Mafia #2)

THE SINS OF OUR PAST

“… T his is foreplay.”

My gasp ended in a scream of fright when the metal at my back gave way and snapped. Once more, I would have fallen had he not reacted, spinning me from danger and telling me,

“Which is it to be? The Hell below or face your sins above?”

I swallowed hard before looking down to the dark oblivion below and then up to the next floor. It wasn’t much of a choice. So, when he held out his arm, I did exactly what he knew I would do. I ran up the stairs, doing so to the sound of him chuckling behind me.

“That’s what I thought, Little Rabbit,” I heard him mutter mockingly as I tried to get as far away as I could. As if I had a hope of running from the nightmare. The one he was forcing me to endure.

However, the second I reached the top, I found a long, large hall that just presented me with a new nightmare to navigate.

Because this time, it was a wall of tall arched windows, each flooding the room with moonlight.

A light that, for once, I could have done without.

Especially when that bluish glow shone like a spotlight on the row of hospital gurneys.

When it highlighted the dead bodies each of them held covered by stark white sheets.

“Oh god,” I whispered, my trembling hands holding my stomach as my fear increased tenfold. I even shook my head as if this would help. When, in reality, nothing could. Nothing but reaching the doors on the other side of the room.

And yes, I knew that they most likely held something even more dreadful behind them, but I was out of options.

So, I started to walk, my steps quickening the second I watched body-shaped shadows snake from beneath the sheets.

Silhouettes slithered up the windows, taking on the form of skeletal figures all trying to reach out and grab me.

Their arms stretching out past the frames and along the walls, until I found myself running.

“NO!” I screamed as they started to merge into a pair of giant arms, reaching out once more with those clawed hands. Hundreds of them raced toward me across the floor, as if they could taste my fear and wanted to devour it whole!

I threw myself into the double doors, turning just in time to slam them shut before they could reach me.

But if I thought that this was enough to stop them, then I was wrong.

Because the second I let my head hang between my outstretched arms that momentarily pinned the doors closed, I saw it.

Saw them emerging before I had even really had the chance to catch my breath.

My face was a mask of horror as the shadows started to appear through the bottom of the door, making me shriek before backing away.

I frantically looked around me, finding myself in a concrete stairwell. I looked down at the darkness and the second I heard the Hellish cries of others rise from the bottom, I knew I only had one option.

“Fuck the Hell below, I will take my sins above, whatever they may be!” I shouted as I started running up, seeing there was only one more level to go. Meaning I was soon pushing open the last door, only to find myself on the roof.

Again, I slammed the door shut, the bang of metal echoing in the night. But then I turned around and, this time, it was the worst horror of all. The fears of my past I was now forced to face.

“No… please… not this… anything but this…” I pleaded as my eyes watered, instantly forming tears at the impossible sight at the center of the rooftop.

It was my childhood bedroom.

No walls, no roof, just old, shabby, partially broken furniture, and dirty sheets on a lumpy mattress. But it wasn’t the room that kept me rooted to the spot. No, it was the terrified seven-year-old girl that stood at the center of it all.

It was the knife she held in her hand.

It was the blood that dripped from the edge.

Blood that added to the stains on the carpet from the dead dog at her feet. A dog I had loved.

My only friend.

Whose only sin was loving me in return.

I cried out, before jumping in fright when I heard banging on the door behind me. But it wasn’t the shadows that wanted to consume me. It was my own dark past that had finally caught up to me. It was the most chilling voice I had ever heard. One I would never forget.

Never forgive.

Always regret.

“OPEN THE DOOR, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” I instantly backed away from the door, shaking my head at it, telling myself,

“This isn’t real… this isn’t real…” But then my reply to this only made me jerk back again.

“YOU CAN’T PROTECT HIM! THAT FUCKING DOG, I KNOW HE IS IN THERE! THAT FUCKER PISSED ON MY FLOOR!” My father’s voice thundered from behind the door as he pounded his fists on it.

“I WILL KILL HIM THIS TIME!”

I backed away further, until I turned, I heard the chill of my own childlike voice.

“There there, he can’t hurt you anymore.

Now you can be free. I set you free, my friend…

just like mamma did.” Tears blurred the sight I knew well, and I remembered it like it was yesterday.

That little heartbroken girl now stroking the bloody soaked fur of her only friend.

A kitchen knife in her hand falling as the first sob broke free.

Great, wretched sounds that drowned out the furious sounds of my father.

One I hadn’t had the power to free myself from.

So, I saved the one thing that meant the most to me.

Because I didn’t want him to suffer anymore.

So, I took his life and always regretted it.

I lived with the pain of that day more than all others.

More than anything my alcoholic, deadbeat father could ever do to me.

Because that day, I felt like he had turned me into the monster he had become.

Which was why I backed away from my most shameful memory and toward the other side of roof, keeping close to the edge. As if getting too close to the center would somehow suck me back into that Hell. The Hell I had broken free from. But that’s when I saw him.

Standing there, waiting for me.

“Why… why are you doing this to me!?” I bellowed at him, forgetting what he was capable of.

“For you to face the sins of your past,” he told me, making me snap back at him,

“And what of yours?! Have you faced them?!” The question hit its mark and I couldn’t miss the way he flinched or the way his glowing eyes narrowed. Which was when he suddenly moved, grabbing me to him and spinning me around so I had no choice but to face what he named my ‘sins’.

His hand collared my throat from behind, forcing my head up. A head that only came to the start of his chest, he was that much taller than me. His height made it easy for him to watch above me.

“This was the only dark secret I could find,” he told me almost softly. As if a part of him regretted it. But as I struggled against him, it meant nothing. And it didn’t last long because he soon banded his bulky arm across me, keeping my arms locked to my sides.

“Poor little Vanessa… how long have you tortured yourself over the memory of this hopeless child. This act you loath, yet one committed at the time in some sacrificial belief of heroism… did you not set him free, as you had hoped?”

I shook my head, or at least tried to, but his grip on my neck tightened, making me grit my teeth. The sound of threats continued to echo from the door on the opposite side of the room. One he forced me to face, along with the sight of this traumatic memory.

“Why… why are you doing this to me?” I asked again, sobbing, making him sigh behind me before admitting,

“So, you can see that the actions of a child should not be blamed for the sins of her parents,” he told me softly, making me gasp in shock. Because it sounded as if he was… was doing this to help me?

But why?

“Soon, the monster of all your nightmares will burst through the door.”

I tensed, and it was something he felt, as he cooed down at me,

“Ssshh now, for I can take you away from it all. I can easily slay the beast at the door.”

I swallowed hard, and again it was a lump of fear he felt. A fear that I pushed down my throat that passed his hand still collared there.

“All you have to do is agree… say yes to me, say yes and ask me to take you from this place. Ask it of me and it will all be over, My Little Rabbit.” I tried to shake my head again, but once more he held it still.

“Now now, calm that fluttering heart and trust me,” he told me, but then my eyes widened as the banging got even louder.

“Here he comes, and you look afraid, Little Blood Rabbit… you don’t wish to relive it all, do you?

” he asked, making me close my eyes tight, finally able to shake my head as I tried to block it all out.

Block out the way I cried. The way I called for my dog, begging for him to come back.

Crying into his bloodied fur how sorry I was.

I wished I could have taken it back. The instant regret weighed on my young soul.

“Don’t force me to be cruel and open your eyes for you,” he warned, making me do as he asked, watching the very second that my father burst from the door. The wailing child’s scream like a siren in the night.

“NOOO!” my own scream carried it on, but the demon at my back wasn’t deterred.

“Ask me and this all ends… ask me quickly!” His voice took on a desperation and just as I opened my mouth to ask him to take me away, I heard it.

My name.

“Vanessa… Vanessa!!” I heard it shouted through the veil of this nightmare, penetrating through the darkness of this horror. But then it was the child of me that offered solace, and she turned to look straight at me. My father was only a foot away as she told me,

“Time to wake… they found you in time.”

I heard the growl at my back before suddenly everything disappeared.

The arms around me became black smoke swirling around my body, along with the shadows of my past, now evaporating into the sky.

Each one took away the nightmare, as if this had all been painted with ash and the wind was washing it away from my reality.

The strength to keep upright was gone. Vanished, along with the last of my willpower to withstand any more.

So, I fell to my knees as reality infiltrated the nightmare’s cruel grasp on me, allowing me to lift my head the second I heard it.

My name once more being shouted by Victor and Talon, who were running toward me.

Running across a rooftop garden with its center no longer showcasing my sins.

Sins of my past now replaced by a shimmering swimming pool.

But soon they were both blocking all else out as they reached me, just as my mind gave up. Which meant the last thing they heard me say as they took me in their arms was nothing they would ever make sense of.

But the demon would.

Because he already knew. He knew that…

“I called him Peter,” I told them both and before I lost consciousness, I added…

“And I was the Rabbit.”