Epilogue II
Zedediah
Iexhale the cold and bitter menthol laced smoke.
One habit of many that I’ve picked up over the time during our separation.
I toss the cigarette butt onto the sidewalk before crushing it under my boot.
I underestimated my girl. I thought it would only take me a few days to find her.
So the fact that we’ve been playing hide-and-seek for over two years now is infuriating.
I thought distance made the heart grow fonder? This has just pissed me off.
She hasn’t changed her look or her name, so I don’t understand how she has been able to hide from me for so long.
I brush strands of hair out of my eyes before tucking the envelope I’ve been safekeeping into my coat pocket, and watch her stroll through downtown.
Was my obsession with her—no, is my obsession with her just as sick as his was?
I wish I would’ve kept him alive, if only to drive a blade under his skin before filleting him.
Especially after learning so much. I didn’t know what would come next after finding her.
If I’m being honest with myself, I still don’t.
But as it turns out, I can be very innovative when something matters enough, and she does.
There isn’t a home we can go back to. Fenris’ Beulah land rests in its final form of ash. Fire and brimstone. But, not knowing doesn’t matter anymore because here she is.
She’s exactly how I remember her yet entirely different at the same time.
Something about the way she carries herself, speaks of the life she now lives.
The life I wasn’t supposed to bear witness to.
She’s written herself a new story that no longer includes me.
The expression on her face holds the new Catarina.
Which I guess is fair, I also have a new expression on my face—her final gift before abandoning me.
The sight of her stirs something primal in me.
I lift my phone, tightening my grip before hearing the shutter as I snap her picture.
I adjust myself when the blood starts surging through my body, directly to my dick.
She thinks she escaped me. I smile at the thought of her believing she’s free.
My father deserved what he got; his blood was always destined to stain her hands.
But she didn’t run from him. She ran from me.
Over seven hundred days of dead ends. Of staring at walls, hearing her distant laughs through the silence, and seeing her dimples when I close my eyes. I’ve kept chasing pieces of her, but the more times I lose, the more I’ve questioned if she was even real. But here she is. In the flesh.
I’ve been anticipating this moment, waiting for my turn to break her the way she broke me, and I’m done waiting. She’s bound to me by sin, and soon, she’ll remember exactly what that means.