Page 1 of Requiem Of Him (Of Solace And Sin #1)

EIGHT YEARS AGO

‘Happier Than Ever’ Billie Eilish

B ranches whipped across my skin, stinging more each time they split the soft tissue of my cheeks as my feet beat against the mossy overgrown forest floor.

Adrenaline spiked in my veins the further I managed to get from the hounds nipping at my heels, but one misstep would have me falling into their snapping jaws.

The burning in my lungs was excruciating, but I couldn’t stop—I had no choice but to make it to the other side.

I ran the moment I realized I was being watched for too long, too closely by those I should have been able to trust implicitly.

I hadn’t done anything. I wasn’t guilty.

I just wanted to live, to no longer feel the crushing weight of expectation and obligation.

The punishment would never fit my alleged sins.

I’d been painted by the same brush as my brothers and sisters who had come before me and the ones who would no doubt come after me.

An adulterer. A sycophant. An abomination. An inferior being.

I had heard it all in hushed tones when I’d enter a room.

I’d heard it from the mouths of people who were supposed to love me unconditionally for who I am, flaws and all, but they were the very people to pick up the pitchforks and set fire to everything I was until there wouldn’t be a shred of my existence remaining on this earth.

And if I was unfortunate enough to survive, there would be no piece left of me worth redeeming.

I had never given much thought about my life expectancy until I chose to live my life by my own rules—rules that no one approved or understood.

I was a ticking time bomb living on borrowed time that no one believed was worth the risk of exile.

No, that would have been too simple, too easy with no finality. And they were owed forever.

Death was a kindness in their eyes. They thought they were protecting everyone, that I would infect the herd.

It was a catching, viral disease, and anyone could get it just by being in the same proximity as me.

I watched as people recoiled or walked in the opposite direction the moment I caught their eye.

They hid behind their God, praying for my family, praying that I’d see my way back to the path of the righteous before I let the needle prick my skin, but they were too late, like they’d always been.

There was no saving me from this mutation.

Fallen twigs and branches snapped beneath my feet as I continued to push myself past the point of exertion, but it still felt like I was running in a circle.

The further I got, the harder my father’s prized blood runners, Maze and Rook, ran, eating up every inch I left in my wake.

They’d been trained for this where I wasn’t, and they had no other end goal than to run me down and pick at my bones, leaving nothing behind.

I never liked them and for good reason. They were vicious and were never taught to coexist with anyone other than my father.

My brothers and I knew better than to get near them or any of the other dogs our father owned—not even our momma liked them.

But these two weren’t simply meant for working around the ranch—no, they were meant to do irreparable damage to any threat, human or not.

I was the threat. Not only in this moment as I ran for my life, but to the Sorensen name, to the legacy my father had built.

I’d become a risk they couldn’t manage, the damage they couldn’t mitigate.

I stood to tarnish every bit of what the Sorensen name was built on. And Taylor Sorenson would not have it.

They’d given me enough rope to hang myself, and maybe I should have.

It would have been the easiest option, but it wouldn’t have been by my hand, whether it looked that way or not.

Killing myself would have never been a one-man job no matter how they would have spun the story.

Even if I stood solitary under the rafters on a chair with a noose around my neck ready to take the plunge, I could see each of them standing around me as plain as day.

As I conjured that very image in my mind, I wondered if a familiar pair of whiskey irises hidden beneath a black felt cowboy would be among them. Would he fan the flames? Or would he turn on them like they had done to me?

I didn’t let myself hope on a normal day, but in this moment I hoped he would be the one demanding my innocence be proven.

But like anything else in my life, I was never that lucky.

Hope was a fool’s death. It rotted its victim from the inside out, corrosive and intoxicating, until they’re left with nothing.

The world never stopped turning, passing them by while they stood still waiting for something or someone to tell them that their prayers had been answered, that they finally gave enough and now it would all be okay.

It could bring the most devout man to his knees by masquerading as their Lord’s will.

I’d seen it so many times that I was incapable of having faith in things I couldn’t see with my eyes or feel beneath my fingertips.

Blind faith in any person other than myself was a fate I could never afford to succumb to, and I refused to, even for a man who had placed his faith and hopes in me.

He trusted me to keep things he held close to his heart safe, hidden from prying eyes, but how could I keep him safe when I was being ripped open from stem to stern for simply choosing to live.

The more he cautioned me to wait, to bide my time, the more I pushed back, eviscerating myself in the barbed wire lining the ramparts meant to shackle me.

He had good intentions, but how could he not see me drowning, that remaining as I’d always been would kill me faster than any punishment my father could dole out.

If I remained as I was, we could have had it all, but it would always cost me more than I was willing to pay to have a taste of life with him.

There was no way they would accept him back into the fold if they realized who I was, was not a deterrent but his preference.

And if that realization came to light, I would not be the only one running.

Hope and good intentions were not going to save me. And neither was their God.