Cardinal House (The Blackwell Brothers Book 4)

12. Luna

The pain pulsing in my eye sockets is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, heavy and dull and sharp all at once. There’s a pressure in the front of my skull, and a burning along the left side of my head. My fingers twitch, my arms running with pins and needles, and my legs feel like jelly.

I take a deep breath in and the air is hot, humid, like glue in my lungs when I inhale, but my body is trembling with cold even beneath the blanket covering my bare skin. And if I could feel my flesh properly, everything feeling asleep, numb, I’m sure I’d have goosebumps springing up along my flesh.

Swallowing hurts my dry throat, my tongue thick and heavy in my mouth. I part my lips, sucking in more sticky air, my throat feeling like razor blades have slashed through my vocal cords. I twitch my fingertips, wanting to rub my fists over my eyes, my lashes glued together with sleep. I lie still for a moment, squeezing my shut eyes, attempting to open them whilst my hands come back to life.

It takes me too long to get my brain to tell my fingers to reach up to the side of my head, to feel the searing, dull ache. To rub across my eyes, wipe the sticky corners of my mouth. But as I bring my arm up, the blanket slipping off and slinking to one side, my knuckles tap on something above me.

Terror races through my blood as I lift my hand again, only a few inches above my body, my knuckles collide once more with something hard, covered with silky fabric. I drag my fingers along the material, loose where it hangs from whatever it’s attached to. Straining hard to open my eyes, panic gnawing inside my chest, clawing at my bones.

Everything is dark, my eyes open in slits, but I can’t see my hand over my face. My elbows tight to my body, only inches between them and the sides of whatever is over the top of me. My breathing is harsh, and my voice cracks when I open my aching jaw, crying out at the pulsing pain in my temples, but words don’t come as I realise I’m in a box.

How did I get here?

Without thought, the humid air funnelling wildly in and out of my lungs, I cry out with unrestrained panic. My fists banging on the top of the box. My movements are limited and my elbows bang against the sides as I pound on the box, wood, I think.

I can hear nothing but my quick, rasped breaths, my eyes wide and bulging despite the pitch darkness. My heart hammers so hard inside my chest, I can hear the rushing of blood in my ears, the sound of it pulsing through my veins.

In this moment, nothing hurts, my panic elevating high above everything else. My head doesn’t hurt anymore, there’s no feeling in my limbs, but I curl my hands into fists and punch as hard as I can into the wooden top above me. I grab the silky fabric between my fingers, my nails snagging in it as I fist it tight, trying to split through it. It shreds eventually, my jaw clenched, teeth gritted, my chest tight with a held breath as I tear it apart, my muscles screaming in protest.

Panic ebbs and bleeds as I start to picture what my box looks like. Shiny wood, a curved top, brass handles, two on each side.

Please, please, please, don’t let this be what I think it is.

I kick my feet, punching everywhere I can reach, panting hard and sucking in too much air.

I still. Terror like fire in my veins, but I’m getting dizzy and the air is too thick with my panting breaths, I just need to stop for a moment. I let my sore eyes close, slow my panicked breathing into something slower.

Carefully, like a caress, I slip my hands into the torn fabric, running my fingers along the wood. Bending my knees as much as I can out to the sides, a bit like frog’s legs, I slither down the length of the box on my back, tearing more material with the flex of my elbows as I continue feeling along the wood.

A sharp breath pains my lungs when I feel it, the wood is punctured, caved in from the outside, long, sharp pieces like daggers piercing through the silk. A hole. A rush of air leaves my lungs, and I shimmy my way back up so I’m lying straight and flat once more, and then I crunch my aching body upwards as far as I can, bending my knees out to the sides, pulling my feet together between them, and then on a deep inhale, holding my breath, I kick up.

The cry shreds my throat as it tears its way up from my chest, the large wooden shards piercing my feet, but I don’t stop, kicking and kicking and kicking. The entire box rocks side to side, but the wood is giving way, the sound of it splitting, my pounding kicks. Then my toes slip through, and there’s air on my skin, cold, and icy. No dirt. It feels like the single greatest moment of my life.

I shimmy back down the length of the box, reaching for the hole, my shoulders protesting at the stretch, and then with all of my strength, I punch through. Gripping the pieces of wood, I tug and tear and bend and flex. Yanking and pushing and shoving the broken pieces with all of my strength. The box rocks side to side like I’m in a canoe on a rough sea, the top splintering more and more.

Wet warmth dribbles down the backs of my hands, my palms, curling around the insides of my wrists, but I don’t stop, this new surge of energy fuelling me on. I fight my way through the barrier trapping me inside the box and then I can finally kick my legs out, using my forearms and elbows to keep my weight, I push and wriggle my way out of the jagged hole I enlarged. Wood scraping and cutting my naked skin as I thrust my hips up, using my palms to help push me free. My legs flop down, nothing but cool air beneath my stretching toes, but I don’t let it deter me, I don’t worry about what’s around my flailing legs, I just want to get out of the box.

The wood scrapes my breasts, chafing my nipples, splinters embedding themselves into my skin. I thread an arm up, squeezing my elbow close to my body and shoving my hand out of the hole, my fingers slapping clumsily over polished wood to help me hook my way out.

Shoulders shimmying through next, one and then the other, and then my spine is bowing, my head slung back, neck arched, my body slithers its way to the floor.

With a thud, I land in a heap, my forehead scratching along the split wood, vinyl flooring like ice beneath me.

It takes a moment to adjust, my chest heaving, mouth open, gasping in the cool, fresh air. Eyes blinking in the darkness of the room, lighter than the pitch blackness of the inside of my box, but dark all the same. I peer around the space, cataloguing the things I can make out as the pain returns to my body.

It wasn’t gone before, but it was numbed, for my fight to freedom. That’s what it feels like as I squint hard, eyeing the strange room. It’s mostly bare, what looks like steel countertops running along both sides of the space, a tiled table in the centre, and then, at my back, off centre, but still nothing around it, a stand holding my box.

Coffin.

My breath shudders in and out with a trembling exhale, my knees protesting as the caps grind into the hard floor, fingers slapping and curling clumsily over the edge of the countertop to pull myself up.

Dizziness rattles around my skull, my legs like jelly as I grip tight to the side, my head hanging forward between my shoulders. Pain pulses through every inch of me, my insides feeling like they don’t belong, my skin feeling wrong somehow. There’s agony in my knuckles, my fingers numb, wrists and forearms shaking with the effort of holding myself up.

Other than the fact this room looks like a morgue, I don’t know where I am, or how I got here. I’m vulnerable, bleeding, naked, and I really want a glass of water. Without much more thought than escaping this room, hands slapping down against the metal worktops, I make my way towards the door, three steps up to reach it. I grapple for the handle, my movements sloppy and uncoordinated, but it opens easily, unlocked.

My head feels fuzzy, floaty and light, but the pain in it is heavy, pounding in time with the hammering pulse in the side of my neck. The corridor beyond the door is dark, and I can’t make much out with the strain in my eyes, but the walls are light coloured, the wallpaper one of those textured ones with foamy swirls.

My hands propel me along the wall, my body slumping heavy into it, shoulder dragging as I claw my way forwards. Exhaustion rolls through me like a spell of death, and I don’t know why I was in the box.

Coffin.

Blinking hard, my eyelids heavy, I come to a wide opening, stopping to catch my breath, I peer down the corridor, a vast open archway at the very end of the hall with a soft flickering glow cast across the carpet.

My feet welcome the softer surface as I stumble towards the next wall, my toes curled, bleeding. I can feel splinters in the bottoms of my feet, blood running down my hands, and my head spins again, a tightening in my belly. It feels like my organs rearrange themselves inside my gut as my head spins, my stomach dropping.

Suddenly, the hallway seems so long, the soft orange flicker of light stretching further and further away from me. I swipe a hand over my face, dislodging tangles of black hair away from my cheek, shoving it from my lashes. The thick, straight lengths hang down to my lower spine, brushing over my hip bones where long strands slip forward, curtaining my face as my head hangs low.

Still clawing at the wall to keep myself up, I stare at my bloody feet the whole way towards the light. Sagging with relief when my toes touch the circular glow cast out over the carpet, the flickering orange spilling across the wide archway.

Through the overwhelming dizziness, I lift my head just enough to roll my eyes up to the top of their lids, staring ahead with pain in my temples as I strain my eyes.

The room is large, rows of chairs separated by a long aisle I find myself standing at the end of. Ahead of me, at the front of the room is a table, dressed with a white table cloth, a large gold cross standing in the centre of it. There are candles on either side of me, the source of the light, white pillar candles nestled beside flower arrangements that have wilted and died, petals limp and rotting, their leaves curled and dry.

My nose twitches against the smell, and I slowly move forwards, my feet shuffling almost silently across the carpet. I cling to the backs of the seats as I make my way down the aisle. Ankles rolling and elbows bowing with my weight as I finally make my way to the front seats.

Breath ragged, my chest aching and pulling, the dizziness like a black veil starting to drop over my vision like the final curtain call, I choke back a sob. Fear lacing through my veins again like liquid poison as my head rocks.

There’s a man that I couldn’t see before, sitting in the centre of the front right row of chairs. His knees spread wide, his broad back bare, warm, sun-kissed, olive skin dark in the shadows. Silently, I move closer, my mouth working to speak, to call out, to ask for help, but nothing comes. My head spins, white sparks exploding across my vision.

I focus on the man, his eyes closed, chin-length, black hair draping across his face where he hangs it forward. His muscles bunch in his arm as he suddenly throws his head back, eyes creased tight as he lifts a bottle of amber-coloured liquid to his mouth. Lips suctioning over the top, bubbles drawing upwards in the liquid, Adam’s apple bobbing in his stubble speckled throat, he gulps the liquid down. His cheeks hollowing with each pull of the alcohol, before he stops, the bottle clenched precariously between his thick fingers. He’s gasping for breath, spluttering with a dry cough, and that’s when he opens his eyes.

Vision aimed at the ceiling, he leans his large body back in the chair, the wood creaking as he rests back. The button of his black jeans popped open, zipper lowered, the bottoms hanging low on his carved hips. He blinks hard, letting the bottle between his fingers thud softly to the carpet. With a swipe of his hand over his mouth, he rubs the back of his wrist across his eyes, sniffing hard as he holds his forearm there.

Licking my dry lips, I breathe hard, my vision blurring in and out of focus. Pain pulsing through my pelvis, my lower spine stabbing, I wince, a tiny, animal-like, whimper escaping my teeth like a hiss.

The man whips his head in my direction, throwing himself out of the chair, his bare foot kicks the bottle, knocking it over, the liquid splashing out onto the carpet. His mouth hangs open, his jaw and cheeks covered in a light layer of black stubble, his eyes glowing like kindling embers in the shadows.

He steps towards me, and I don’t flinch, I don’t try to dodge him when he dives forward, catching me in the hooks of his large arms as my knees finally give out. The man crashes to the floor with me, cradling me in his arms. And a sob escapes me at the same time it does him.

His warmth sinks into me, my eyes too heavy to keep open, I’m limp in the cradle of his body, and despite not knowing him, the stranger holds me tight and all I feel with the foreign feeling touch is safe.