Chapter 37
Cat
There was so much rage inside me. So much grief and pain and hope and dread and love that I didn’t know where to put it.
But the rage burned in every cell of my body.
It made my inner judge writhe with the injustice of everything that had happened to me, my friends, my family.
I could practically taste Violence’s blood, my hunger for it so severe.
I could hardly breathe, the force of my fury so strong it strained my lungs from edge to edge. Nightmare tortured my Misery for centuries. Fucked with his head, his sense of safety, drove him to cut off his own power so she couldn’t use him anymore. She made him kill my best friend.
I took a breath and tasted embers. Exhaled and dripped shadows from my tongue.
She took Byron from me, drove him to secrecy and shame. Sabotaged every relationship I had. Murdered Honey and stole her face so she could pretend to be her.
I shook with it, teeth gnashing, jaw locked.
The full breadth of the cruelty she inflicted on my brother made my power thrash within me, pooling on the floor around me as I processed more and more memories. Virgil, not simply injected and transformed and imprisoned in a dank cell, but made into a murderer when his creature savaged a florist.
Memory after memory rose of the gods’ treachery, of their boundless torture, of their hunger to see everyone suffer.
And when I’d uncovered every tainted, dark memory, I found a core of soft, golden memories beneath them.
A childhood of privilege and travel, of education and laughter.
There was loneliness too, and a sharp-edged longing, but I’d always known I was loved.
Even when I was alone, desperate for company, I knew my parents loved me.
It was more than I’d dared to hope for since I’d been reborn. It was more than I’d ever dreamed of. A family who loved me. Husbands who’d gone to hell and back for me.
The rage crested, and ripped a scream from my mouth, so loud I swore it made the ground shake.
And when I’d caught my breath, I knelt before the new gates, panting, shaking. The tasks of the list bounced around my tender brain like a ping pong ball, bringing me back to a car on a lonely moor road over and over again.
“See,” Madde said to someone behind me. “Told you my lioness would be the deadliest out of all of us.”
He kissed the back of my neck, allowing me to put a cap on my fury before it destroyed me, before it robbed me of the ability to function.
Slowly, carefully, and aware of their eyes on me the whole time, I got my knees beneath me, then pushed up to my feet. My head resisted as I lifted it, a dread weight on my chest when I finally looked at Pain, my kind, brave, dorky bonded one. My powerful, loving, loyal husband.
I thought of that car on the moor road. Thought of the box in the boot of my car.
One last trick. One last headfuck from Cruelty. Because the lid of the box said Misery, but there was no ignoring the next item on my list.
A pained heart returned.