Page 163 of Broken Souls

He opens it to show me my little baby girl in the palm of his hand, still inside her amniotic sac.

“No!”

He poises a claw over her.

I struggle to reach her, to help her in some way, but my body is broken. My arms are useless. I reach for the dark magic once more, but my words falter on another scream as I watch him tear open the only thing still keeping her alive, still allowing her to breathe.

Her partially-formed lungs try desperately to work. She’s trying so hard to survive despite everything that’s stacked against her. She’s too young for this world. She’s too fucking young!

“Don’t…” I cry as I watch her struggle. “Don’t…please.”

Leave her alone.

“Please…”

He laughs at me, cold and cruel. “I begged Sau to save my mate and pups, and do you know what she did?”

I reach a broken arm out to my baby, wanting to hold her, to take her from him. But my hands are still destroyed. My wrists are still snapped back. He grabs my broken hand with his free one and clamps my knuckles into my arm. I cry out in utter agony.

“Nothing,” he hisses. “She let them die.”

“I’m not...her,” I whimper.

“No. But you are a Shadow whore.”

Releasing me, he grabs Rafiki by her head and lifts her up. She’s still breathing, and my heart trips in my chest.

“Please…” I cry. “Please don’t –”

“Do you know how my pups died?” he asks without emotion. “They were eaten by the monsters in her shadows.”

I scream as he lifts her above his head and then opens his mouth.

I keep screaming as he lowers the bottom half of her between his lips.

I keep screaming long after he bites her in half, after he sucks out her organs and intestines and the last flicker of her life.

I scream.

And I scream.

And I scream.

His eyes widen as he swallows. “That’s not a witch,” he says as he jumps to his feet.

He drops Rafiki to the ground, letting her splatter like a blob of ice cream.

My scream becomes all that I am. Broken and raspy. My vocal chords snap as I keep my eyes on my little girl.

I never got to hold her.

I need to hold her.

She needs to be held by her mother at least once.

Sobbing, I will my body to move. To reach my little girl.

I need to hold her.