Page 21 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

twenty-one

Soren

The first fluttering of my lashes hurts.

I think consciousness comes back to me in the darkness, because one second, I’m piping pink and blue icing along the cake, singing loudly and off key.

The next minute, I just am. I exist in darkness and a hundred scenarios shoot across my mind, trying to come up with a reason that I exist in the dark now.

I’m not sure how much time passes while I float there, somewhere between dead and not.

It’s the pain that roots me to something when I become aware enough to feel it. And then I can’t not feel it, because it’s threatening to consume me.

Everything hurts.

When my eyes open, the light overhead burns, and I wince. My vision is blurry and fuzzy around the edges. I must have taken my contacts out at some point, but I don’t remember doing it.

I am in the bathroom though—I can tell by the little crystal chandelier I bought from an online shop. It was my first purchase for the home. Vin had just looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to install it.

“A chandelier?” He’d asked.

“I love it.” I told him, knowing that would be all he needed to hear to justify the purchase.

“But…” he looked like he didn’t want to offend me, but his confusion was so innocent. “It’s a bathroom?”

“I know, but it’s a fancy bathroom.”

Vin hung the chandelier without any further discussion, though he did laugh and shake his head a lot during the process. By the time we installed the dimmer, and I lit the candles on the tub surround, he’d changed his mind entirely about the bathroom chandelier.

“It was a great choice.” He whispered as he stroked between my legs. I had laid my head back on his bare chest and listened to him continue to tell me how beautiful I looked under that light until I fell apart from his touch.

The memory feels safe, and my body fights to stay in the comfort of it as hard as it fights to regain consciousness.

This time when I open my eyes, everything is still blurry, but after a few long, excruciating blinks the shapes re-focus into items I recognize. The chandelier, the bathroom counter, the mirror above it. Maybe I came to take my contacts out and passed out?

It takes another minute, but I finally feel like I may be able to move my limbs. I try to lift my arm, and agony reaches into every corner of my body. That simple action sets off a chain reaction that makes every inch of me hurt—places I didn’t even know were capable of hurting.

There’s a hollow sound somewhere that I can’t place, but it echoes in my skull like a drumbeat.

The pain radiates through me, all the way to my bones, but I don’t know why—until I try to press a hand to my aching head and see the cut that runs the width of my wrist.

I blink at the slash, trying to get my brain to process what I’m seeing.

There’s a chunk of my flesh missing.

Dried blood is caked around it, and on the top of it, a thin line of gelatinous blood that hasn’t yet clotted entirely. It takes a moment for the realization to set in, but when it does, adrenaline eclipses my confusion, and I lift my other arm to find it looks much the same.

Though I’ve felt enough pain to lead me to believe that I am pain now, it’s as though I realize all at once that there’s more to my body.

I glance down at myself in an effort to take in my situation.

I’m naked.

Or at least, I’m pretty sure I am.

It’s hard to tell because I’m submerged head-to-toe in blood.