Page 6 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

T he freezing concrete presses into Darius’s skin uncomfortably.

He shifts, rolls, squirms, but he cannot find relief.

He wasn’t gifted a blanket or a pillow, simply thrown into this bare room.

Time passes in his cell in a way he isn’t quite used to.

Before, he was using time to his own advantage, using the clues of previous lifetimes to adjust and change as needed.

But now?

Now in this windowless prison he is simply at the mercy of its passage.

Has Auggie’s birthday already passed?

There is no way to measure it, no way to guess how long it has been.

But she’s alive. I know she is. It is worth it.

A rush of cold air presses into him as the door to his cell is slammed open.

“Get up.”

Darius stiffens, but doesn’t acquiesce.

He recognizes the voice. It has taken shape in his childhood, in previous timelines, and in his nightmares.

The owner of the voice is the reason Darius sacrificed himself. It is why in all the timelines Darius was never truly hurt.

It is why everything in this town is corrupt and broken and disgusting.

“Put him down here,” the same voice says .

Just a few beats later, rough hands grab hold of Darius’s shoulders and tug him forcibly off his concrete pallet. They heave him to the ground and push him onto it. Onto his knees.

Darius screws his eyes shut, head angled downwards.

He doesn’t want to see his “visitor,” doesn’t want to acknowledge him in any way.

Cold smooth fingers grip his chin, jerking his head up. Caught off guard, Darius’s eyes flash open on their own accord.

“That’s better. You never did learn respect, just like that filthy mother of yours.” The man before him flashes his teeth in a feral smile.

Hot coals tumble in Darius’s stomach at the thought of his mother. He looks anywhere except at the man. Over his shoulder Darius begins to count the bricks along the wall.

He makes it to twenty-three before the man speaks again.

“I promised her I would leave you be, that I would let her raise you. I half believed you weren’t mine.”

Darius thinks back to when he first learned why he was so different from his other brothers. Why he always felt so lonely around them. Why he seemed so secluded from them.

It was when he was eight; his mother had returned from one of her benders, a mess. But Darius hadn’t cared, he’d just wanted her love, her affection. It was before he realized she had none to give.

When she passed out on the floor, he crawled onto her, wrapped himself in her arms. It was the happiest he had felt in awhile.

But then she woke up.

Screaming at him. Telling him to never touch her again. That he was an abomination.

That while Tripp, Axel, and Grayson were made out of love, Darius was the product of trauma .

He was unwanted, unloved. He was a monster she should have gotten rid of.

At the time, Darius hadn’t understood. He had run to Grayson with tears in his eyes. He expected Grayson not to know either but that wasn’t the case.

Grayson had sat him on the bed, watched him with his typical intensity.

And then he had explained.

Grayson had stated it matter-of-factly, emotionlessly. As if he had rehearsed the conversation for years and was finally telling Darius.

Where Axel, Tripp, and Grayson shared the same father, Darius didn’t.

“But you are mine. A DNA test proved it, and it’s clear as day, you can’t hide your lineage.” In the here and now, the man before Darius continues. The man drops his hold on Darius’s chin, but Darius doesn’t dare move.

In every lifetime, he had never come face to face with the man before him.

With his father.

He hadn’t wanted to, done everything he could to avoid it, but perhaps that is why the mindless loops ended the same.

Darius shifts his attention to the man before him, boring into their eyes, they are an exact replica of his own. Dark green, flecked in brown and gold.

“What do you want from me?” Darius asks, clenching his jaw.

His father sneers, “You need to replace what was taken from me.”

Internally, Darius’s heart pounds aggressively against his chest, but externally, he doesn’t flinch.

What does that mean?

“I let your mother raise you, allowed her to influence you with her softness, but it is time you return to your family. To your purpose,” his father continues, his lips lifting cruelly. “How is your mother doing? ”

This time Darius can’t prevent his reaction, he recoils as if slapped. “You know how she’s doing. You don’t let her out of your sight.”

His father heaves a sigh. “Such a beautiful woman. If only she were from a better family, I would have kept her by my side, but alas, I could not.” He drags a hand across his face.

“This conversation is tedious. Here are the facts–you will join me, you will replace what you have stolen from me, and you will do as I command.”

“And if I refuse?” Darius snarls.

His father snaps his fingers and one of his goons steps into Darius's line of sight. Another clear indicator of his father having his fingers in every organization. Presenting a tablet, the goon presses a button and the previously black screen transforms.

Ice drops heavily into Darius’s gut, he wants nothing more than to launch himself at the man before him.

At the man that had raped his mother.

At his father.

Darius watches the tablet. In the corner, the word LIVE flashes. It shows a hospital room, and it takes less than a second for Darius to realize whose it is. On the screen, Grayson climbs into Sunday’s hospital bed, followed shortly by Axel.

He understands the threat that this is.

His heart hurts . Not in jealousy, but at the realization he will never have that again .

He knows with certainty that he will essentially be a prisoner for the remainder of his life.

His father will make sure of it.

“What did you expect, son? You killed your own brother.”

But it was worth it. Sunday is alive. The video is proof of it.

“Listen when I speak to you! ”

The fist collides with Darius’s cheek with a bruising force. He hadn’t expected it, and it sends him to his side.

“Weak! Just like your mother.”

Next is a series of kicks, to his gut, to his ribs, to his legs.

Darius accepts the abuse. He deserves it.

He is a product of his environment. Of his mother’s trauma. Of his father’s wickedness.

No matter how much Darius wants to be a good man. To break a generational cycle.

He can’t.

After all, he is the evil that has eaten their town alive.

He is a Thorne.