Page 29 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

Chapter fifteen

Beast

“ S hhhhh, shh, shhhh.” A sneaky little giggle creeps and claws its way out of my throat. Thickly deviant, slick until it gags me.

No-hahaha-noooo.

I know the sounds are technically mine, because I can feel them.

They start in my toes, inching their way up until they slide up my esophagus like a soda bubble that pops at my lips.

Slapping my hands over my mouth, I try desperately to silence the residual snickers that always seem to echo soon after.

Deep in the dark hole of the place Samael shoved us—hidden away from prying eyes that pay to mind to troubled girls.

“Silence!” I snap into the void.

They need to be quiet or he will come back and add to my array of bruises and scrapes.

Not that we can feel them—well, I do, but not in the way he inflicts them.

He aims for pain, fear, and submission, but all the ache does is fuel me for what’s to come.

With every strike, I feel a piece of my shell break and release the raw-creatures underneath.

Every atom of my being itches to be released, to run with the wolves, the monsters—for my fractured mind to find its individual vessels and burn out the vermin.

And submission?

Unlikely.

Never, actually.

Too long have we been shrouded in this bleak and confined existence—the Scold Bridle and Soyjack all over again.

Blinded, muted, humiliated. We remember, and the self-proclaimed holy man in the front of the car aggravates the demons within.

They writhe in my psyche, squirming and twisting, slick as their scales glide over one another in a ball of pure hatred and villainy.

Yearning, yet waiting, to slither out of my human vessel, to curl around men like the one up front—the ones that snuffed out the lives of many when they were only young women.

Off goes the snickering again, seeping through the spaces my fingers can’t quite barricade. Far too full of malice, strife, and how I have missed them. My mirrored selves, the aggregate of my makeup, a cumulation of the dreadful.

“Shhhhhhh,” the only sane part of me coos—not that the hags will listen.

They’re too active, excited even. Vibrating and bounding, eager to slay.

The veil has lifted, and through me, three sets of eyes stare into the world.

Prepared to dismantle a carefully constructed society who caters to predators since the days of Yahweh and his silly little garden.

“Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est fa fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa better. Run run run run, run run run away. Ay ay ay ay ay, ooh.”*

His—Samael’s—voice feels like the hairs of fiberglass being scrubbed into skin that was recently scorched by the sun and left to blister.

Irritating, chagrin, and caustic. My fingers have curled and since started to dig and scrape the nails against the skin of both thumbs, the sting spurring me further.

Anything to preserve my splinter of sanity.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

The flesh sizzles; it’s a welcomed alternative over the belting hyena as he sings.

His voice fades out along with the pulsing of Psycho Killer , switching over to another upbeat tune.

The throb of bass has my eyes twitching, shifting from one direction to another as I lay here and stare into the fucking empty.

Car parts dig into my back, the door above me keeping us confined—bound—but I've become accustomed to the company that I keep.

Rather, the company that keeps me. Dragging me around with the bite of an invisible noose, rubbing the flesh raw.

They demand more of me, of the girl that I was born as, who has since mutated into this haint.

I smell it before I can ever sense the blood, copper and the stench of life while it clings to the red cells threatening to burst. Seems my nails have gouged so deep into the skin of my thumbs that the sharp blades of keratin have begun to nick at the bone.

Slowing, I draw my hands close to the front of me and rub the fingers of the opposite hand over the serrated skin.

Smearing the blood over my flesh. My blood isn’t the problem, it’s his.

I can still taste his foulness, from when I tore into him when he dragged me up the embankment and went to toss us into this pit.

“Where are we?” I ask aloud. Feeling them always. Seeing them on occasion.

Alone.

Together.

Nowhere.

They answer, “Helpful,” hissing my reply.

It’s crowded in here, in my mind, the four of us fight to exist. Each of them warring to take the wheel and run the rest of us right up to the fires that were lit to wipe our kind from existence.

Liza is the calmest and immensely calculated.

The other two see her as the matriarch. She leads, she lets the others bleed, and demands sacrifice.

Kate’s dark and depraved—tortures, maims and guts.

I can feel her scraping and gnawing inside of me.

It is her tongue which glides along my throat when I must speak.

Her sheer viciousness keeps the vessel alive and awake, physically protecting us and ensuring survival.

You spill nothing of me, child.

The last scorns me followed by Kate’s cackles behind her.

“I— I…” my words stutter. I look away, back to the nothingness as if I am a miscreant—a lesser.

The sane part of me jolts from a sudden screech as the sheer intensity of it threatens to rip the remnants of my mind down to the individual fragile fibers.

Shying away from the anarchic energy does little to prevent my body from flipping onto my belly.

Weight presses down on our back, creeping up my spine until the vertebra pop and pressure pins my face to the unforgiving surface below.

The mass magnifies, seconds passing in eternal increments, before a scream rattles the bones inside of my chest. A warm ooze begins to pool in my ears, threatening to trickle out of the end of my canal; roll down the side of my neck, and continue over across my throat like a violent slash.

“P—please!” I squeal.

Nothing comes, no forgiveness, no release.

Just the ever-present rattling of the chains in my head that keep the terrors at bay.

They clank, scrape against the hard recesses of my thoughts, and groan with the same weight that presses me to the floor.

Louder they become; slowly at first, then the rattling builds in intensity until it resembles a million bound souls marching to their pre-determined torment.

Dragging me against my will, bloodied fingertips digging into brimstone all to save me from their deafening chant.

Serve the Lord.

Serve the Lord.

SERVE THE LORD.

“No!” I cry and defy.

Madness bleeds into the remaining crevices of my minuscule soul, choking the sound of my cries. Still, the weight persists. Breaths of life no longer able to fill and expand my lungs—left to the crushing load.

L…let it end. Please.

Suddenly a blinding light appears above me. A gust of cool air blankets my battered skin, and now I notice I’m alone. No wraiths are cornering me in the blackness—scrawling their touch across my flesh, or chattering insistently in ears that have become so raw they could bleed.

Not only am I alone, I’m nowhere close to being face down.

My back is warm against the hard barrier beneath, letting me know I’ve been here quite sometime.

The dull ache of unstretched limbs announces itself when my muscles attempt to flex and when it does, the feeling is unbearable.

Choosing to remain stark-still, I blink my bleary eyes over and over, willing them to clear and adjust.

I need to see, need to prepare the vessel for war.

A figure looms over me, towering, showering me with the blazing radiance of a savior come to pluck each one of my souls apart and divvy them among the levels of hell.

When a hand reaches in, it brushes over the side of my face and I wince away from its touch.

In those seconds of panic, I can’t help but cower in the back of my prison—away from whatever is trying to confirm my existence.

The hand doesn’t stop; it reaches again and pins me. I snap at it, growl, punch, and scratch, but when I close my eyes, the world resets.

Once again, I’m staring into the luster.

Begging it to burn away my retinas so we no longer have to witness what happens to the vessel.

But it doesn’t; the touch is reverent, delicate even.

The longer I focus on the way my skin warms under the caress of this…

being… I find its thumb rubbing away the salty tracks of my tears.

Another ethereal hand joins the first, just as warm and comforting as the first. Consoling me where I can no longer hear the chortling of the voices.

Is this what peace feels like?

Too soon the touch disappears, but I don’t stop my own hand from reaching out to touch the radiant halo sitting up high.

Details slowly come into focus—so brilliant it wards off my darkness.

Pulling me from where I lie in the confinement Samael deposited us in and left me to fight myself for control.

Where my body aches, blood drips from my face, my hands, and madness ensues.

I…I need more of the silence. More of the warmth.

To feel safe, to be touched, have my tears brushed away while I shatter and glue myself back together with the sludge of my molten soul.

Begging, my hand remains lifted, pleading with the being shroud in an angelic glow to take me away.

To show mercy for the girl who awaits a demise she is unprepared for, mercy for an angry soul that wishes to never be reborn.

Save me.

My lips mouth the words. But, as quickly as it appeared, the light is gone—a heavy thud shakes the metal box I’m packed into.

Solitary takes me once again; the way in which I break apart wild and unrestrained is heart-wrenching for the real part of me.

I’m shut away again. Whether it’s the pills, the physical doors that hold me against my will, or the fragile glass of a mind too damaged to withstand the violent pounding of my demons.

I’m always alone.

Until the voices begin again.