Page 3 of These Hallowed Bones (Bloody Desires #3)

Micah

I stepped back from the canvas with a frown.

St. Sebastian hung suspended in exquisite agony, arrows piercing his flesh, his face turned skyward in transcendent suffering.

The technical execution was immaculate. I’d captured the perfect balance between light and shadow, the subtle tension in every muscle, the moment where agony transformed into ecstasy.

I'd spent weeks on it, perfecting every brushstroke, every subtle gradation of color.

It was beautiful.

Too beautiful.

Something dark and cold stirred inside me, spreading through my veins until my fingertips tingled. The perfection of the image mocked me, trapped suffering in aesthetic beauty that diminished its truth. The saint's serene expression lied about the nature of pain.

I reached for the palette knife on my workbench. The familiar weight of it grounded me, cooled the panicked heat rising to the surface. For a moment, I simply stood before the canvas, knife poised, watching my reflection distorted in its surface.

The first cut into the face of St. Sebastian felt like releasing a scream I'd been holding since childhood.

The canvas gave way beneath the blade with a sound like tearing flesh, a resistance and then surrender that sent a shudder of pleasure down my spine.

I dragged the knife downward, peeling away layers of paint to expose the raw canvas beneath.

I didn't stop with one cut. I worked with methodical violence, scraping away the face until nothing remained but a ragged void. Where his features had been, there was now only absence, a wound in the canvas that felt more honest than any expression I could have painted.

Not satisfied with only the knife, I reached for the turpentine.

I poured it directly onto what remained of the face, and let the chemicals dissolve years of technique, the careful layering of pigments melting into rivulets that ran like tears, transforming the composition into something alive.

My painting was no longer a static image, but a moment of violent becoming.

In some places, I used a lighter, burning small sections until the canvas blackened and curled. The scent of burning linseed oil and acrylic filled the studio, acrid and intoxicating.

My breath came in short, controlled bursts as I worked, a rhythm learned through years of containing whatever lived inside me. This wasn't random destruction but a deliberate unmaking, a revelation through ruination.

This was the third canvas I'd transformed this week.

Each time, I'd painted a saint, then torn their face away.

Each destruction felt like lancing a boil.

Painful, necessary, and strangely satisfying.

My thesis advisor called it "artistic catharsis.

" My therapist called it "expressing unresolved trauma.

" Neither of them really understood. The ruination wasn't an expression of anything.

It was a containment strategy. A controlled release of pressure before something worse burst forth.

I stepped back, surveying the transformation.

The once-immaculate painting now featured a gaping wound where divinity should have been, arrows still piercing a body whose identity had been obliterated.

Where the face had been, paint thinner continued to dissolve the layers, creating a melting, weeping effect that seemed to animate the figure.

Around this void, the remaining elements gained power, intensity, as if feeding off the absence at their center.

The technique was perfect. My grandmother had ensured that, funding art lessons from the moment my talent emerged. Painting was the only acceptable outlet for a boy with my... peculiarities.

My phone chimed, breaking the silence of my small apartment studio. The reminder flashed across the screen: Meeting with Professor Bishop, 10:00 AM.

My heart rate accelerated. Being selected as Ezra Bishop's protégé was both an honor and a terror.

His reputation at Ravencrest was legendary.

Brilliant, demanding, transformative. His own exhibitions commanded international attention, though he'd become increasingly selective about where and when he showed his work.

The chiaroscuro series he was currently working on had the art world buzzing with anticipation months before its debut.

The paintings I'd glimpsed in promotional materials featured a mastery of light and shadow that seemed almost supernatural, as if Bishop had discovered ways to manipulate darkness itself.

Faces emerged from blackness with an unsettling intimacy, every subject caught in moments of profound revelation or quiet horror.

They reminded me of something I couldn't quite place.

Something I'd seen before I learned to look away.

I checked my watch. I had just enough time to shower and change before meeting the man who could either elevate my career or destroy it with a dismissive glance.

The hot water sluiced over my body, and I closed my eyes, trying to center myself.

Instead, unbidden, the image of my mother came rushing back.

I squeezed my eyes shut as images of her body suspended above the kitchen floor flashed through my mind.

The overturned chair. The strange blue-gray of her skin.

The absolute stillness that had seemed so wrong in someone normally so frenzied.

I'd stood there for nearly an hour, just watching her. Not screaming, not running for help. Just... observing. It was almost comforting to see the way death transformed her anxious features into something peaceful. In life, she’d been so sad, so busy, so…angry. But now, there was only peace.

I spent the entire long weekend in the apartment while she hung there. I slept on the couch where I could still see her, eating cereal dry because I knew opening the refrigerator door would disturb the scene. Even at eight, I'd known something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t help it.

It wasn't until Monday, when my teacher asked why I hadn't completed my weekend math worksheet, that I finally spoke the words: "My mom is hanging from the ceiling fan, and I can't reach her to cut her down."

I shook myself from the memory, turning off the shower with shaky hands.

All the years of therapy, medication, and careful self-monitoring had taught me to function.

To appear normal, even exceptional in certain contexts.

My grandmother's rigid religious structure had provided a framework for containing whatever darkness had begun growing in me that weekend. Art had given it a sanctioned outlet.

And now Professor Bishop had seen something in my work that others missed. Something that made him choose me specifically from dozens of technically proficient graduate students.

That thought both thrilled and terrified me.

I dressed in dark jeans and the slate-blue button-down that my last boyfriend said brought out my eyes.

After a glance around the room, I picked up my blazer off the back of my chair and shrugged it on before going to the mirror.

I practiced my expression, the one that made people feel comfortable enough to maintain eye contact.

"Just be yourself," I murmured, then laughed humorlessly at the absurdity of that advice. No one wanted me to be myself. Not really. Even I didn't want that.

The campus quad was busy with first-day activity as I walked to the Fine Arts building. Students lounged on the grass, professors hurried between buildings with coffee cups and leather portfolios. Normal life unfolded all around, oblivious to the effort it took me to appear part of it.

The familiar itch crawled beneath my skin, the restlessness that signaled danger.

Sometimes I imagined it as a shadow self, pressing outward against my carefully constructed exterior, looking for cracks.

On bad days, I could almost feel it moving inside me, restless and hungry.

Today it was especially active, perhaps responding to my anxiety about meeting Professor Bishop.

I entered his office precisely at 10:00, knocking softly on the open door.

The space was immaculate. His white walls were adorned with a few pieces, most notably a small, haunting portrait that appeared to be an original Goya.

Books lined custom shelves, organized by color.

The desk was polished walnut, its surface holding only a leather portfolio, a silver pen, and a small, abstract sculpture that appeared to be bone or ivory.

The man himself stood by the window, his back to me, tall and still, a silhouette against the morning light.

"Micah Salt," he said without turning, my name in his mouth sounding like an invocation. "Your punctuality is appreciated."

He turned then, and the full force of his attention struck me like a fist, driving the air from my lungs. I'd seen Professor Bishop before, of course. At faculty exhibitions, in hallways, always from a distance. But never like this, never with his full focus directed solely at me.

His eyes were the pale gray of winter mornings, penetrating and unblinking. They didn't merely observe; they consumed. For one dizzying moment, it was as though he could see past bone and tissue to the very essence of what I was, what I'd always been, and found it not wanting, but worthy.

"Thank you for selecting me, Professor," I managed. "It's an honor."

"Is it?" The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing the edge of a canine tooth. "Tell me, Micah, what do you know about my work?"

I'd prepared for this question, rehearsed an intelligent analysis that would showcase my understanding without seeming sycophantic. Instead, what came out was the raw truth.

"It scares me," I said. "Not because it's frightening, but because it feels... familiar. Like you've captured something most people never see or refuse to see." I paused, the words rising unbidden. "It's as though you've found a way to paint what exists beneath the skin of the world."