Page 97 of Devoured

They had nothing to hide.

St. Dymphna groaned around us. Larger chunks of ceiling began to fall. The building was dying. Reality was reasserting itself now that the supernatural force holding this place together was gone.

“What happens now?” Marion asked.

“Now?” I gestured to the crumbling chamber. “This place dies. And you three get to live. Really live. Not just survive.”

“But what about you?” Isaac’s voice carried genuine concern. “You’re free now. You could come with us.”

The Executioner stood beside me, silent and still as stone. Through the bond between us, I could feel the Realm Beneath beginning to destabilize. Walls cracking. Punishments unraveling. Chaos rising.

“If that realm collapses,” I said slowly, “everything connected to it ceases to exist. Including him.” I nodded toward the Executioner. “Including all the justice I want to build. Including Varnar’s eternal punishment.”

“So you have to go back,” Sela said, the realization hitting her. “To keep it stable.”

“To keep it contained,” I said, watching the walls buckle around us. “But also...” I smiled. It wasn’t entirely sad. “Perhaps I can make use of the place. All those chambers designed for punishment. All that architecture of suffering. It seems a waste to let it crumble—when there are so many guilty souls who sleep too soundly.”

“You’ll become like the Judge?” Marion’s voice was small. Afraid.

“No.” My voice was firm. “The Judge fed on everyone’s suffering. I have a more... selective appetite. Only those without remorse. Only those who’ve never felt guilt for their crimes. The world is full of them. And they’ve gotten away with it for too long.”

The building shuddered violently. Time was running out.

“Go,” I commanded. “Now. Before it’s too late.”

Marion rushed forward and hugged me. I tensed—my new form wasn’t built for gentleness. But I returned the embrace carefully, trying not to puncture her with my claws.

“Will we ever see you again?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Perhaps new ways will open. Perhaps you’ll find methods I haven’t thought of. You’re all touched by that realm now. Who knows what that might mean?”

They ran toward the stairs. But Marion looked back one last time from the doorway.

“Zahra—”

“Go!” I shouted, just as a massive chunk of ceiling crashed down where she’d been standing.

They fled into the snowy night.

I waited. I listened until I heard them clear the building, heard a car start, heard them drive away—to safety. To sanity. To lives that could finally begin.

I turned to the Executioner.

Snow fell through the shattered roof, settling on his scarred shoulders like a benediction.

“All this time,” I whispered, reaching for his helmet. “All this time, and I’ve never truly seen you.”

He didn’t resist. My fingers found the edges of the ancient metal. The helmet was warm, almost alive, and I could feel his breath inside—hot as forge fire. I lifted it away slowly, my hands trembling not from fear, but from something deeper.

It clanged against the rubble and rolled into the shadows.

I had to tilt my head back to see his face. He towered over me—eight feet to my five—but that difference didn’t make me feel small.

It made me feel protected.

His face was a map of old violence. Scars crisscrossed high cheekbones and a long, angular jaw that seemed too dramatic to be real. Both eyes burned red, but now I saw something else in them: vulnerability. Longing. The same ache blooming in my own chest.

His mouth was too wide for his face, lips full but marked at one corner where something had split them long ago.