Page 135 of Degradation

Is this some trick? Is she trying to manipulate me again?

I grab her throat, tightening my grip enough to ensure I leave a nasty impression on that beautiful alabaster skin.

“Tell the truth.” I snarl.

My face is pressed into hers. I can smell her through the mask, and that sweet innocent scent almost sends me into a frenzy.

She’s sobbing harder, becoming more hysterical as each second passes.

“Speak, bitch.” I order.

She shakes her head, but she speaks anyway. “He, he did it. He did it to save me.”

“Who?” I demand. What the fuck is she talking about? Was she fucking someone else? Was this whole a thing a ruse?

She doesn’t reply. She looks like she’s given up. Her body slumps, her head seems to roll back, and I swear to god, if she dies right here, then I will follow her cursed soul into the very depths of hell and drag her right back.

My hand strikes her face so hard I leave an imprint.

She gasps out, coming round once more.

“Who are you talking about?” I snarl. “Who else was involved?”

She trembles, shifting, like she’s forgotten where she is.

“Dev, Devin.” She whispers. “He did it. He killed Gunther.”

This has to be a joke. This has to be some fucked up wind up. Does she know it’s me? Have the drugs worn off, is that it?

I stare back at her, and I can feel the looks from all the men in the other room, all the other guards watching this.

Why the fuck would she say I did it? Why… something clenches at my chest, some twisted realisation hits me. She believes it. She truly believesIkilled her husband.

This entire time, she hasn’t been answering us, she’s been silent, enduring my torture to protectme.

I take a step back, my hands trembling for what must be the first time in my entire fucking life.

Has she, was she, did she believe that? Did she do all this because she was trying to save me? Me?

She had my knife. She used my knife… but that was only after, wasn’t it?

Anyone could have taken that from her room, while I was busy trying to stop her from bleeding out.

And nothing explains how she got to where she was, how she and Gunther were there, how she, a blind person, could stab him without cutting herself, without him fighting back.

She had to have help, but what if it’s not what I think it is, what if use was used too, manipulated, somehow taken there as part of the set up?

Suddenly, this mask is no longer comforting, it’s smothering. I shake my head, yanking at the thing covering my face. It comes off easy enough.

And then I’m stood here, staring at her, seeing every cut, every mark, everything we’ve done in the name of revenge. A revenge we apparently didn’t need to take.

Pailtyn

Have I finally cracked? Has my mind finally given in and started conjuring up the one thing I believe could save me because it knows I’m so far gone now?

That I’m beyond help. So far beyond it.

“Paitlyn.”