Page 35 of The Sins That Bleed

Withering Soul

VALESKA

T here are times throughout my existence that I wish to be human again.

They have no idea how fragile their short little lives are, they have no appreciation for how easily they can end it all, and with so many options at their disposal. Vampires though, we have select few ways our existence can be ended.

The dagger I used to slash my skin could have done it, since the silver blade is imbued with the essence from darkness herself, dragging those it kills straight to hell. I should have plunged the jagged blade into my heart instead of wasting my time slashing at my skin.

I’d been so angry at myself, at the life I have lived and all the things I’ve endured, the things I have done, the hate that burns molten in my rotten soul—it turned into a frenzy. I was riddled with the guilt and blood I have carried on my skin all these years.

I force myself to be present in the moment, to be here with Sunny in support, but my heart is not in it today. After my revelation last night about Rai being her brother, things might not ever be the same between us, but I can do this for her.

We’re sat in the underworld I created, the piece of shit from her nightmares still trussed up and adorned with pins from when I was last down here. He’s been hosed down to wash the vomit, shit, and piss away, to remove the odorous scent he exudes in order for Sunny to be here.

His missing eye is still a weeping open wound, though.

We’d talked at length. I shared everything I knew and everything I’d done to betray her trust. She sat across from me, legs crossed and taking it all in, her face a mask of stone that showed no sign of any emotion. I think that hurt more than if she’d screamed at me.

By the time I told her I had her abuser captive, she’d looked exhausted, unable to take one more surprise from me.

She’d sighed heavily, as though she’d lived a thousand lives, and I guess that’s what trauma does to you.

You drag it along as it continuous to change you so thoroughly, that your DNA feels like it’s unpicked and woven back together in a different way.

Creating gaps, bumps, and fraying threads, over and over again throughout your existence. I can see she’s so tired, just like me.

Like so many on this earth from the hands of others.

I watch as she faces her démon head-on, taking her time to inflict all the pain she felt back on him tenfold.

I’m proud of her, not for what she’s doing to him—this isn’t her first time—but how she’s carrying herself while doing it.

Belittling him, striking him in the most unlikely places with the different tools on offer.

Right now, she’s torching his body hair off and laughing. I really hope this will set her free.

After I’d confessed about holding him down here, after it had sunken in, her only reply to everything I’d spilled in that space between us was that she wanted to be the one to hurt him. I gladly offered him up and she asked me to be there while she did it.

It’s the least I can do for her.

I know this doesn’t make up for not telling her about Rai, how he’d been right there all along for her to reach out and hold. Now she has a choice to make; tell him, or lead him to believe she was dead, actually dead, not this version we occupy.

What would be worse to him? Finding out your sister died, or that she lived, died, and then came back as something other, as a vampire?

I don’t envy her choice, but I will respect her request to not tell him yet, not until she knows what she wants to do. I promised her that I wouldn’t. It’s not my secret to tell anymore, which only adds to my guilt, that I’ve forced her into this position where nobody wins.

I watch as she singes off the last of his hair, but I’m not really paying attention, my mind playing a carousel of nightmares from every bad situation I’ve been in, to the bad decisions I’ve made throughout my time on this wretched earth.

I bit him.

I recall the burst of hot blood on my tongue, the cinnamon notes dancing on my tastebuds and making me want to take all of it. The way he held me to him and I had to fight myself to not drain him dry.

I feel a tear slip free and I wipe it away because I don’t deserve to be upset right now. All this mess is because of me; I have no right to be sad when I’ve always known what a monster I am. I never expected to have people who cared about me despite it, people I’ve now let down and hurt.

I think of Rai, hoping he’s not in too much pain, and that Sunny told Nico everything he needed to know about making him feel better after losing that much blood. Mon ame, the tether between us stretched thin and if my heart were beating, it would be in time with his.

A soul-tie.

I didn’t know this was possible, to have a soul-tie, especially with a human. I’d only ever heard whispers of it. A folktale shared over dinner, and yet here I am, aching to be close to him, to make him permanently mine.

If Sunny asks me to forget him, for him to never see me again, then I’d do it.

It would kill me, not physically of course, but everything within me would wither into dust. Watching him grow old from afar, to be in love with another, knowing he would never be mine.

If that’s the cost of my betrayal to the only friend I’ve ever had in this life, I’d pay it.

Love comes at a price, and I sold my soul a long time ago.

But I am falling in love with him and there’s nothing I can do to stop it; the soul-tie doesn’t care how long or how well you know someone. There is no escaping the hooks that hold your heart in a punishing grip.

“How does it feel, huh? To be at my mercy and feel pain inflicted by my hands? You took everything from me, and now I’m going to be the one to do the same to you.”

Sunny clears the thickness from her throat, holding the crank for the chains and, inch by inch, pulls his body taught until his bones creak and crack, dislocating his limbs from their sockets.

A symphony of agony explodes past his lips as he shrieks in protest, the pitch is piercing and I grit my teeth against the sound.

I glance away from the stretched body and take Sunny in. Her eyes are squeezed shut and I see the tears streaming down her face. I’m in front of her in an instant, my hands raised to comfort her, but I hesitate, my hands frozen in midair as I calculate the likelihood that she’ll reject it.

Fuck it, she can reject me if she wants to, but I’m not cold-hearted enough to walk away when she’s in pain. I grab her and pull her into me, crushing her in my arms tight, as if that will leech the hurt from her body.

To my surprise she doesn’t push me away, her hands grip the red sweatshirt I’m wearing as if it’s her lifeline. I stroke her hair and hum softly. It’s the tactic I use whenever her mind wanders down a bad path to bring her back to me.

Her sobs dwindle and she sniffles before pulling back from me. I let her go until she’s taken a full step out of my embrace. I look down at her face, stained with tears that are now drying on her pink cheeks. I hate seeing her like this.

“I—I think,” she clears her throat and meets my eyes, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.

Can you finish it after I leave? I need to be alone right now, and you’re so good at hurting people, I’m sure you’ll have no problem inflicting excruciating pain.

Afterall, you’ve been a monster for so long, you’ve lost all sense of humanity, so it’ll be easy. ”

She storms away from me, catching me with her shoulder as she storms past me.

I stumble back from the impact, my mind and body numb from the strike that has sliced me to the bone.

Her words inflicting more damage than if she’d hit me.

I’m unable to move from where I stand as her footsteps fade away, staring at the dreary concrete wall staring back at me.

I knew this day would come, when those around me that had somehow thought they’d seen something good in me realised that there is nothing. The space where my soul should be is just a dark abyss, a direct portal to hell.

Realising I am the monster I always knew I was.

I snap out of my numbness, but my mind remains still like the dead heart in my chest as I stalk forward to the crank on the wall.

Killing people is what I do, so I don’t think or feel anything as I turn the crank tight and elicit more screeching from my next victim. I don’t stop until his skin stretches and tears, shredding open, as if I’m tearing paper with my hands.

I stare at the concrete.

I turn and turn the handle until he splits in half, his insides spilling out of him as though a bathtub is overflowing, his spine ripping free from his pelvis with a loud pop.

Everything in him explodes then, as if I’ve pulled the string on a party popper and his body fluids, organs, and all the other bits that make someone human are sprinkled around the space like confetti.

It covers me in a shower of blood and gore.

I get to work adding him into my maze of horrors and cleaning up what remains of him from my underworld. Anything to avoid the thoughts and feelings threatening to storm in and rage lying under the surface.

I take my time, not wanting to go back up and bump into anyone living with me right now. I shower in my underworld and changing into the spare clothes I have down here, then burn the gore-covered ones so I never have to see them again.

I don’t want to see the disdain for me on etched anyone’s faces even though I deserve it. They don’t need to be reminded that they’re living with Lilith.