Page 16

THE GRIM REAPER

Isolde

Something rumbles underneath me, and it’s impossible to tell what it is. I can’t see anything with the blindfold still on, and my hands are still tied behind my back.

Nervosity starts creeping into my pores, spilling inside me until it grows and turns into paranoia. The rumbling stops, and I’m pushed against something hard and solid, bumping my head. Straining my ears, I attempt to hear anything out of the usual around me, but I can’t make out anything.

It only heightens my unease.

I lay still, waiting for something to happen, while listening intently to a sound erupting from far away. Something closing with a loud thud. A car door, maybe.

Gravel crunching underneath shoes fills my eardrums as it comes all the closer, and my pulse quickens with the suspicion of what it might be.

A gust of cold air washes over my half-naked frame, chilling me to my very core when the trunk lid opens. My body is rigid, waiting, unable to move.

The ghost of a touch on my bare thigh causes me to flinch, panic taking root inside me.

“Such a beautiful sight,” a feminine voice whispers. Celine.

I hear her shifting closer to me, fingers trailing against my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear. It’s not until then that I realize I’ve been crying. Tears soak my cheeks with the terror that takes over my insides, leaving me paralyzed.

“Shh, no need to cry. We’re just going to play a little game of chase with you,” Vernon muses.

Suddenly, I’m roughly forced out of what I assume is the trunk of a car. Coming to my feet, my body sways with the discomfort of not having stood up for quite some time. Nature’s raw scent, earthy leaves, wet soil, and bark all rush into my nose, sharp and jarring. Along with the icy sharpness.

Someone removes my blindfold, and yet it’s as if I still can’t see. I realize it’s too dark—the only thing illuminating the surroundings is the car’s headlights, casting eerie shadows behind us.

Vernon and Celine are two shadows haunting me, their smiles equally as twisted as they stare at me—tear-stained cheeks, ruffled hair, hands tied behind my back, half-naked, with only my legs free.

Only my high-laced boots and an oversized T-shirt—not even mine—cover me, stealing the very body warmth from me.

I don’t remember anything after being led out of the castle.

Celine takes a step forward, her feminine perfume washing over me until I feel light-headed. She then pushes me away from her, into the other direction.

“Run along now, my little traitor.”

“You know the rules,” Vernon adds.

I don’t wait to see the grin I know is stretching across his face—I don’t dare.

Instead, I bolt deep into the merciless forest. Gnarled branches reach for me, clawing at my bare skin as I run with no clear goal in sight.

The damp snow clings to my feet, sucking me deeper with every step forward, as darkness devours the landscape.

If I trip now, I’m done for.

The forest swallows me whole as I hear a crack of a branch behind me, followed by the slow footsteps crunching against snow. Not even the nightly creatures are awake to save me.

They’re both toying with me.

With my pulse slamming against my ribcage, I fight to breathe properly as I push harder. Muscles burning in protest won’t stop me from escaping them, for good this time.

What will Casper think when I don’t come home? Will he be worried? Or will he be mad?

Every shadow in the forest shifts, twisting into something alien and alive, watching and waiting for me to fall.

I don’t even register the cold because of the adrenaline fueling me.

I’m so preoccupied with not falling to my death on a root or running into some icicles hanging from the branches that I don’t notice the huge obstacle covering the small path until it’s too late.

I stumble, something sharp jabbing into my foot with the pain of needles splitting through me.

I fall right to the forest floor as I’m unable to catch myself with my hands still tied.

Coldness instantly invades my senses as snow and mud envelop me, panic glazing over me like rapid frost.

The footsteps behind me halt, and the silence drapes over the forest. I know they’re behind me, but I can’t see them. The only thing illuminating the path is the moon desperately trying to make itself visible through the treetops.

Ignoring the sharp pain in my ankle and the sting of snow-packed mud against my palms from the brunt of the fall, I attempt to stand as best as I can when my leg meets something soft.

My eyebrows furrow as I try to make out what it is, but it’s hard with the moon and the moving treetops from the heavy wind.

Making a final attempt to stand on trembling legs, something slippery meets my skin.

At first, I can’t make out what it is. Then, suspicion begins to creep in just as the wind ruffles the trees, allowing the moon to filter its light on the ground.

The color of red—the stickiness of it.

There’s no doubt about what it is.

Blood.

My stomach starts twisting and turning until I don’t know where to go, the silvery light casting a glow over the patches of blood on the forest floor, mostly covered by the foliage.

Struggling, I pull myself up and am left staring down at the blood pooling there.

But what sends my heart reeling, pounding ever harder inside my ribcage, is the body part lying right in front of me.

I almost think it’s the severed hand that was in my stone hearth before it mysteriously disappeared, until I catch a glimpse of the distinct birthmark between the thumb and forefinger. It instantly identifies who it is.

Nausea bubbles up inside me, almost corrosive as it rises up my esophagus .

A step back takes me nowhere, because something else is there, blocking my path.

With utter terror, I slowly turn around, waiting with bated breath for the wind to move the branches just the right direction again so that the moon can cast its gleam on the ground.

Thunder erupts inside me with the force of a thousand lightning strikes. A concoction of dullness and pain that sucks the oxygen from my lungs like a vacuum cleaner.

The scream builds deep inside me until it tears free, echoing through the trees. Revealing where I am, but I don’t care anymore.

Let them find me.

This reality is far worse than they could ever put me through.

I fall right back on my knees, legs unable to carry my weight any longer. For there, right in front of me, lies a severed head. Empty and lifeless eyes staring straight at me, blood dripping from skin that’s been slicked and cracked.

This was no ordinary death—this was torture of the highest order.

“Liking what you see?”

I flinch, backing into a sharp object meeting my back, but unable to look away from the mutilated head spread over the forest floor, or from the red liquid staining the icy grass.

Gasping for breath, the smell of death locks me in a whirlwind, lingering with dirt and snow. Right on cue, snow starts falling. Slowly but surely covering the speckles of blood surrounding the gruesome scene.

A pointed finger distracts me, and my gaze shifts to a new direction.

To where the rest of his mutilated body is. This time, the nausea turns into vomit, and I expel everything I have inside of me.

No, no, no. This cannot be happening.

A cry rips through my throat as Vernon kneels behind me, his arm wrapping around me possessively, a knife in his other hand.

“Please, don’t touch me,” I beg, trying to push him away.

He doesn’t move an inch, his grip only tightening. The knife gently trails my arm until he presses down, causing skin to rip underneath his touch. I hiss, blood trickling down, blending with the morbid scene. Vernon watches in fascination.

“What the fuck have you done?” I cry out, staring at the body, vomiting again. Vernon only rubs my back in soothing circles, that knife teasing my skin.

I won’t lie—it offers the perfect distraction from the overwhelming nausea.

“We did this for you, darling,” Celine’s voice slithers through me.

This is all wrong—some sick and twisted nightmare that must have projected itself into my reality.

It cannot be real. I refuse to accept it.

“We killed him so we could finally be together again,” Vernon replies. “This little fantasy you had built up would only last that long.”

A sob tears its way from my throat with the knowledge that this is truly it.

The end of my new life.

“You were supposed to stay in jail!” I scream, tears streaming down my face.

“Shh, you’re okay,” Celine whispers, her head leaning against my shoulder.

I try to shove her away from me, but it’s hard with my hands behind my back.

“Okay? This is not fucking okay. You ruined my life! You…you killed my parents, and now you killed my boyfriend?” My breath comes out in short pants as I sit there, on my knees in the middle of the cold night.

The knife glides against the blood on my upper arm, smearing it out. “Are you going to kill me?”

There’s terror in my eyes.

Vernon’s eyes darken. “No, but I’d rather see your blood on my hands than your love for someone else’s. The blood keeps you distracted from him ,” he spits out.

“You didn’t love him anyway,” Celine mutters.

“And that gives you the right to kill him?” I shriek, though ultimately confirming I never loved him.

They know that now. They can see it in my confession.

“You’re murderers! You should have stayed locked behind bars for an eternity—that was the plan.

How the fuck did you even get out?” The tears that fall from my eyes dry up and are replaced by anger instead.

My hands clench into fists behind my back.

If only I could stand back up.

“I prefer the term ‘savior,’” Vernon rebuts, and I stare at him in disbelief.

Celine’s touch is seductive as it brushes away my hair from my neck. “He helped us escape.”

Oh, how I wish I could get away from them right now. Instead, I’m stuck on my knees.