Page 31 of Diamond Desire
The sobbing that was the only thing reminding me I wasn’t alone in the world.
“You are too stubborn. Far too stubborn. You will let yourself fight until the end and allow the bad guys to kill you before you ever lift the blade to your own neck for them.”I smashed my head against the glass harder, disappointed in myself even if a part of me knew I wasn’t well – that I wasn’t in full control.
Again and again, I repeated myself until I was dizzy enough to be sick. Only then did I let myself drink the last mouthfuls of water that remained and continue my pursuit of sanity.By punching the mirrored wall repeatedly until my knuckles felt broken, blood stained my arms, dropping onto the floor and adding the state of it.
I just kept laughing even as the pain kept coming because again, the pain was better than being empty. The pain and the nearby crying were better than silence and numbness.
I had no idea how long I did it. No idea how long I hit and hit at the same spot, refusing to give up no matter how badly I wanted to do so. The only reason I eventually gave in was because I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. There was an odd sort of numbness coating my flesh and I knew what I had left – the option I had been warring with for Gods knew how long when I realized my physical strength was not enough and that I needed a weapon to aid me.
“Daddy, I’m sorry.”I made my way back to what was left of my father, and I bent to him, shoving my fingers into what remained of his arm, desperately searching for the things I needed to survive even if I didn’t think I wanted to anymore.
Things like bones to use as weapons. And lock picks.
Once finished with his arm, I moved to his thigh, taking that bone too. It was the strongest – the best one to use. It was hidden beneath layers of his rotting flesh. Stashed away underpieces of muscle and fat and blood that I had to scour through with my bare hands like a fucking monster.
I wondered again how many showers I would need to feel clean. How many times my hands would need soap for me to spot anything other than what currently stained them?
“When I die, if your God turns out to be real, then I will not repent.”I breathed as I desecrated my daddy’s corpse. “I will make him kneel for me and beg for penance for all this — for all he has allowed to happen. To you, to me. To everyone in this world who has suffered. I will ask him what he thinks of me and why he deemed me worthy of this life.”
Once done with the task that made me far sicker than anything before, I returned to my one-way mirror, my set of tools beside me, the buzzing and throbbing in my brain loud enough to quiet the voices down.
My kit was rather morbid and sad. Bones and enough electrical supplies from a random vent I had ripped off the wall that would give enough of a charge to set fire to something, if I could figure out how to behave like Logan and fashion something fun. Either the building or I could burn. Both would do. Both reminded me of what I had lost and would never see again.
What I had caused to be taken from me because I was a piece of shit who cared more about revenge than my fucking loved ones.
With my ears honed onto the crying that I imagined, I repeated my actions, hitting the glass over and over and over. Refusing to stop. I had no idea how long I kept at it, but eventually my body shook with tremors, sweat dripped down me, and I… I… I wanted tostop. I wanted to give up anddie.
I wanted to let my stalker win.
I was going to let them win.
Then the glass cracked. The tiniest of chips. The smallest of breaks in its armour. Enough to shut down every other thought of mine as I kept going – over and over again until the crack turned into a spiderweb of near freedom a moment before falling and shattering over the floor.
Over me like rain made of evil.
Over the little girl tied to a cabinet handle that was in a set of filthy blue pyjama shorts and a vest covered in clouds. A pretty east Asian girl with pale skin, black hair to her waist that had not seen a brush in too long. With light hazel eyes that were so fucking familiar that I instantly started crying, even before I saw the scars on her skin, the emptiness in her gaze, and the pomegranate tattooed on her skinny wrist.
“Hi.” I ought to have wiped away my tears, blood, or murder stare, but I didn’t care to. “My name is Sapphire. Are you okay?”
In my head, the words sounded normal. They came out at the right speed, with a pleasant tone and not at all empty. In reality they were slow, croaky – my throat had been sore from my screams and lack of use. I sounded like a fucking psychopath and not at all like a confident woman who wouldn’t be evil like whoever else the poor thing had dealt with.
She stared at me through her own tears, for the longest ten seconds of my life. Then she shuffled over, moving away from the glass that I had spilled – the stuff that had inadvertently cut her arms too. Not that she got far on account of her bindings holding her in place.
“I… I am Yumi.” She spoke English fine, but her accent was thick enough that I knew I had to pay attention or else I would miss what she said. “I am not dead. You look dead.” She waved at the state of me.
I was losing a lot of blood. My head, my hands, and the cuts from my stalker. Now, with the shards of mirror in my skin, I knew I was in trouble. But I didn’t fucking care. I didn’t careabout anything except grabbing my weapons and hauling myself through the mirror into the little cupboard room, that had a door and – blessedly – an even better weapon that I could use. Towards the little girl called Yumi that I knew I would take with me, even if it was so both of us could die.
She was definitely older than Diamond, but younger than Delilah and Yeva. If I had to guess, even through her skinniness and bruises, I would have put her in the twelve to fourteen mark. Neither option was good. Neither helped me stop crying long enough to reassure her I wasn’t a deranged bitch.
Truthfully, I was sure Iwasa little deranged now.
“I’m okay too. I am just looking to get us out of here.” I explained.
She nudged her chin to a backpack in the corner of the tiny room, that seemed almost like a security office of some kind, with monitors that were turned off on top of a desk, a TV on wheels that was far too familiar, and a single chair and filing cabinet.
“A man had too many weapons. He left it yesterday, and I tried to reach for the knife.”
I rushed to follow Yumi’s suggestion, dropping to my knees on the glass stained ground, barely even feeling a thing as I searched for what I needed.