Page 5 of Broken Shadows (Corrupt Shadows Duet #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

Evie

I keep my eyes clamped shut as a conversation filters into my consciousness, remaining as still as possible on the bed. Icy drafts climb over my bare arms and legs, and I suppress a shiver.

How long have I been out? One day? Two? It doesn’t matter. I’m still too exhausted to open my eyes. It’s better to pretend to be asleep, anyway. The moment my father becomes aware I’m conscious, his darkness comes back with a vengeance. My very presence seems to evoke a wrath in him that cannot be easily pacified.

I recognize the first voice belonging to Samuel, the evilest of all the brothers. Unlike Lorcan, whose darkness is mixed with a tidal wave of emotion, there is a notable lack of humanity behind Samuel’s words. Then there’s his stare with those dead, shark eyes.

A shiver ripples down my spine when I hear him shout, “The bitch is taking too long!” Then adds, “We need her magic, now! She’s the last of the Fallenmoore bloodline. Without her, the world will end.”

More lies. This bullshit the demons, well, Samuel in particular, has fed The Order about saving the world using my magic is so unbelievable it’s almost funny. I can’t believe The Order is so gullible. I’ve tried telling Edward the truth, that the brothers aren’t angels at all, but embodiments of the deadly sins that only want my magic so they can kill Lorcan. In a way, I’m glad he didn’t believe me. Otherwise, he’d have no good reason to keep me alive.

I’ve heard enough of their hushed talks during their watches when my father’s taking breaks between torture sessions.

They want me to use my powers to decimate Lorcan and obliterate his soul. I didn’t even know demons could die, but apparently, they can, and they need a living, powerful witch for that. But I won’t be their key to getting him out of the Shadow Realm just to destroy him.

My heart skips a beat at the thought of Lorcan not existing anymore. Despite everything that’s happened, I don’t want him dead. Then there’s Gomez and Rosa. I feel my little bat through our familial bond. He’s okay but trapped. I know he hates being in a cage. At least he’s in the same room as Rosa. Well, I assume that’s the case with the feelings Gomey has sent through our bond.

Edward sighs, dragging me from my thoughts. His voice is strained and quaky in parts when he replies, “I’m so close. Please, if I can just get more time.”

My lips twist when I hear him beg a demon for more time to torture me. This supposed man of God has fallen so far that he’s in the depths of Hell and doesn’t even know it. Religion is nothing but a smokescreen he uses as a justification for his dark actions.

Growing up with him as my parent made me realize at an early age that the religious teachings themselves are not the problem, especially when some people who believe, like my dead brother did. Caden saw the bible—a book written by men in a time far different from ours—not as an instruction manual, but for what it was, an allegory. It’s the messages behind the stories that are important. Caden liked to see the best in people. He showed me that those people can exist who didn’t use rules and passages like my parents did to get their way.

He tried to see the good in me, too, until my magic decimated him. Caden taught me many things, but his final lesson was that evil people often win, and that the only way to beat them is to be worse. So. Much. Worse.

Fortunately, there isn’t anything I won’t do to destroy my father. Until then, I bide my time and pay my so-called penance. I’ll take anything he throws my way and commit every torturous, desperate feeling to memory so when I get out of here, I can sharpen that pain into vengeance.

Anger guides my thoughts as I hear footsteps stop beside the bed I’m strapped to. Samuel’s voice comes out smooth, like venom. “I will break her as you have failed to.”

I keep my eyes shut, but every muscle in my body tenses. Years of self-medicating and repression have buried my magic so deeply that now it comes out all wrong. Edward has tried but failed to make me release it fully through torture and murder.

I’ve worn that victory as a badge of honor ever since I arrived here. But as I feel Samuel’s icy fingers against my temples, my magic shifts in my core like a viper coiling in preparation for an attack.

A scream tears from my dry throat, the dehydrated, shriveled membranes lining it tearing in places, as I wrestle the leather restraints pinning me in place. My eyes fling open and the last thing I see before I’m plunged into darkness is the flat gray of Samuel’s eyes above me.

Inky depths pull me deeper to doors hidden in the shadows of my mind, places that my subconscious shoved the vilest memories to protect me. Pins and needles cover my entire body when I’m forced into a memory that washes over me like a tidal wave, drowning me in bitterness and rejection.

Mildew and mold hang heavy in my lungs as I’m transported to my family home, the one before Edward, Antoinette, and Caden, when I was the youngest witch of the most infamous coven in the world.

The walls of the corridors, wallpaper peeled in thick strips, pulse with the dark magic. Echoed calls from my family reach into mind as the floorboards groan underfoot, protesting my return. My bare feet smudge chalk demon circles drawn onto grimy floorboards. I glance up at a charred painting of my family, and the little girl standing with her father’s hands on her shoulders. A girl who dared to believe in her own light before it was smothered by shadows.

Faded incantations scratched into the chipped, black painted walls surround the fire-damaged portrait of me and my family. An altar, scarred with gouges, scratches, and stains stands intact under it as a grim reminder of the countless rituals marred by so much Hell magic that it’s impenetrable to destruction.

Words seep into me like daggers as I recall things said by my biological parents. They unfold as if I’m watching a montage of memories through my five-year-old eyes.

I wanted to be like the other kids on our street with normal families. Echoes of their laughs haunt me when I remember running with them through fields, playing make believe, and eating the food they snuck from their houses for me.

But my innocent intentions were quickly warped into something deadly.

My heart skips a beat, and I fall to my knees, clutching at my chest and gasping for air. Their little faces float back into my mind’s eye. Two girls and a boy.

We were friends.

I had friends.

Until that one night, when I’d brought them to my house. Sneaking them through the window of my room so no one would see. I was desperate to show them my collection of porcelain dolls. Well, the ones my brother hadn’t yet beheaded.

I’d hidden in the closet, holding the handles so my family couldn’t get in. I watched through the gaps after my now angry parents discovered my friends in my room. Their faces were so warped with hatred I thought they were going to kill me for it, so I’d hidden like a fucking coward.

I thought they’d kick them out, so I watched when my parents pulled my friends from my room, their nails sinking into their arms.

Their screams rang through the house that night until I was met with silence. Those kid’s bodies were never found. Missing posters hung from street posts for years until they faded along with the memory of them.

Nausea swirls in my stomach. How had I forgotten that they’d killed them? Perhaps, I never really did. Their deaths are echoed in every death since.

So many had died because of me. I had snuck my friends in. I should have known better. My family despised outsiders, keeping them from the dark secrets we held in our home.

After that, I had been so desperate to be rid of them all that telling the church about my family was far easier than it should have been, so when The Order came and killed everyone and set that fire, I was relieved.

My older brothers cried as they were lost in the flames, and I didn’t try to save them. I could have helped them. I should have, but I was transfixed watching the massacre unfold.

My magic liked it.

I liked it.

I told myself it didn’t matter how I felt as I succumbed to the smoke and waited to die. Except I didn’t. Edward saved me. I must have looked so innocent, this poor, abused child who was alone and had lost everyone she loved. Who would have believed that I had lit the metaphorical match?

I suppose that’s the catch all of evil. That’s why the good fall. Evil often appears to be anything but.

My eyes fling open to Samuel, sweat beading his forehead. “See, witch. It’s always been you.”

My worst fear coils around me, unforgiving and permanent. I am the catalyst of my own demise. I’ve justified every death at my hands. None of it was an accident. My magic was me and if it killed someone, it’s because I wanted it to happen.

Every restless and anxious thought bursts out of me in a flurry of shadows, plunging the room into darkness. The last thing I see before my shadows consume us is an unnerving, maniacal grin building on the normally steady lips of Samuel. It’s the first time I’ve seen any light in his eyes. I grit my teeth. The fucking psychopath is getting off on this.

Darkness leaks from my pores, my nose, my ears, my mouth, each one climbing out of me with vigor until I’m cocooned with darkness. I hear a distant scream, probably Edward trying to escape. Didn’t he know what would happen when I finally embraced my magic?

With each breath, I draw in the decay-laced, mildewy air. It fuels the pulses of energy surging through me. Better than any high. Any orgasm. This is pure bliss, a release of raw energy.

The shadows were never my magic’s enemy. They cloaked me from evil people. Even if I didn’t know their intentions at the time, my magic did.

Every person who I killed deserved it. I didn’t know why at the time, but my magic could sense their intentions. Except for Caden. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, triggering something that had been suppressed by his dad—an accident in the truest of senses.

Edward is responsible for that. If he hadn’t tortured and oppressed me, it would have never happened. I had no control at the time, and I’ve spent too long punishing myself when I should have been seeking retribution against the one man who ruined us all.

Now he wants to destroy what good is left in my life: Gomez, Rosa, even Lorcan, who enrages every part of me. But I need him, crave him even, and I’m so mad at him for it. He was always the mirror reflecting the worst parts back to me through rose-tinted glass.

The darkness settles, replaced by a vibration of red-hot magic pulsing from me like heatwaves. My death magic. Samuel’s face appears from the shadowy clouds, exhilarated, while Edward cowers in the corner, holding onto his protection pendant for dear life.

My palms open to the ceiling and shadows dance at my fingertips, curling into spirals, ready to do my bidding.

The restraints at my wrists and ankles sizzle to ash, leaving scorch marks against my skin, but my shadows lick my wounds with a healing meant only for me.

This power is mine, I am it, and with every breath I feel the power of my ancestors slipping into me like a tapestry woven with threads of good and evil. Hell, maybe even the fates, forcing me to confront the buried parts of myself.

I slide my legs off the mattress, twisting my body until I’m facing Samuel. Edward’s pointless prayers whisper into my ears as he begs for the god he abandoned long ago to protect him.

“Now, Witch, it’s time for you to—” Samuel chokes on the rest of his command as my shadows shoot like vipers into his throat.

He grasps at his neck, attempting to sedate the shadows, but I’m stronger than him. Unexpected, certainly, by the look of pure fucking shock on his expression.

I smile, blood trickling down my lips from where I must have bitten my tongue while embracing my powers. Samuel falls to his knees. I tsk and grip his chin between my index finger and thumb. “You’re next, but first.” I turn to Edward, tilting my head as I watch his feeble attempt at escape.

My grin grows until my cheeks twinge as I allow him to reach the door. He thinks he’s so close to freedom, his fear so palpable I can taste it. But my magic reaches the lock before he can get a grasp on the handle.

“No!” he screeches when he can’t get it open, hammering his fists against the wooden frame. “Please, God, no.”

“Your God can’t save you here,” I say sweetly, a charge of hope vibrating in my voice that fills him with dread. The color leeches from his cheeks when he turns to face me, and my shadows coil around his neck, wrists, and torso, dragging him back to me.

I’m going to enjoy this.

I grab the same scalpel Edward had forced me to squeeze, then stand over him, his limbs tied by my shadows, forcing him to face the ground. I kneel at his side, shove the blade into his palm, then whispers. “Now squeeze.”

“Fuck you!” he splutters, tears bubbling from his bloodshot eyes.

“You’d fucking like that, wouldn’t you?” I grab a fistful of his hair, lifting his head up. “Squeeze the blade or I’ll use it to cut your throat.”

He’s trembling, and a faint smell of urine permeates the air surround us. The coward has wet himself.

“Please, don’t do this,” he begs, but his words only feed my rage until I’m blind with it.

“Now!” I shout, pulling his hair tighter until he lets out a scream. “Serve your fucking penance, you coward.”

He shakes his head again. Fuck.

My shadows, like ribbons of darkness, tighten around him. I flick my fingers and my magic forces him onto his back.

I lean over him. I won’t kill him yet. No. I plan on enjoying this torture. I’ll make him see what a despicable cunt he really is.

His eyes shift a little, and I realize he’s glaring at my chest. He looks up quickly, but it’s too late.

“Oh, this is what you want,” I say with a laughter that doesn’t sound like my own. “You want me to fuck you, Dad? It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Like my magic, you suppressed it.”

His nostrils flare. “I would never fuck a whore of Satan!”

My fists ball and my shadows constrict. “No?” I ask, my eye twitching. He really has justified everything, including his revolting lust. “Then why did you touch me when I was just a kid?” I scream until my throat hurts.

“It was penance.”

“It was rape!” I yell, spit flying from my mouth onto his face.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t want it. That you weren’t trying to seduce me. I only did what I had to do, to punish you.”

My heart hammers so loudly I can’t hear myself think. I grab the scalpel from his shaking fingers, then climb on top of him. “If the last thing I do in this world is to take you out of it, then it will all have been worth it.”

Shock widens his stare when I unzip his pants, one click of the zipper at a time. “What are you doing?”

I smile. “What you always wanted. Touching your dick.” I grab him through his urine-soaked boxers, and squeeze until he’s writhing against me. His screams are a lullaby to the pain and hurt buried in my mind.

I squeeze tighter, digging my nails into his dick until he’s screams are dry, raspy, and desperate. Bringing the scalpel lower, I free the shriveled-up appendage from his underwear.

“No, please, God, no.”

My head gradually tilts to the side and my lips curl back from my blood-stained teeth. “It’s for the greater good. Isn’t that what you always say, Father ?”

He almost breaks free of my shadows, but I hold him down with every ounce of my power.

I shove the blade under his foreskin, fury guiding every flicker of movement as I carve through him. Blood spurts everywhere, splattering my flushed cheeks and neck.

Slice.

Cut.

Carving away parts of his manhood is so exhilarating that I forget everything else—Samuel, Lorcan, even Rosa.

All that matters is that I show him the same pain he showed me.

Ringing resonates in my ears, but I ignore it, instead focusing on the scalpel slicing deeply into the fleshy tissue, the elasticity of the skin fighting against my makeshift weapon. I increase pressure on the blade, then blow out a breath as his foreskin rips free.

“Try to get an erection now, you perverted fuck!”