26. The Forsaker
Ican’t breathe. No air is entering my lungs as my chest compresses painfully, pushing against my broken ribs, and it feels like a stretched-out balloon that may pop at any moment. I’m terrified that if I even blink and take my eyes off of them, they will disappear, and I will wake from this nightmare, once again, trapped and alone. This is not happening. This is not real. I’ve taken too many blows to the head.
She can’t be here; this is my mind playing horrendous tricks on me. This is some sick torture that my father has devised, to force me to the brink of delirium and finally break me. He will finally win with this cruel and merciless trick. I watched her die. I plunged that blade inside of her soft, warm body, her blood coating my hands in the evil of my deeds. I watched that light leave her beautiful gray-blue eyes, eyes that always remind me of a winter storm.
I did that, me, the man who had promised before our God to love her. The man who had made that promise long before, when she was just a gangly, long-limbed girl with a crooked smile. My beautiful Snow White, with skin made of porcelain and lips as red as blood.
I was there, present, without the ability to escape, without a way to save her when she uttered her last request to me in her small despondent voice, and I could not answer and reassure her, for fear that my demonic father would hear my words, and renege on our deal and kill Abe anyway. I had no choice. Can she not see that? Can she not see inside of my soul and know that I bled on that floor with her? I carved my own heart out of my chest at that moment. Her warm, red blood burned into my skin, searing me forever.
Now, here she is, alive and filled with vexation and madness, pointing a gun at my head and demanding to know where her lover is, when I was about to once again betray her. The magnitude of the actions I was about to commit, finally forces the air out of my lungs in a harsh wheeze. I would have married that girl, regardless of if it was demanded by my father. I would have married her, and defiled that marriage bond between Dinah and me. I would have severed the thread that keeps her bound to me, with just a few words and the strike of a knife. Monster. That is what I am. A beast who would have betrayed the only woman he has ever cared about.
Did my father know she was still alive? Is it possible he’s known all along, and this was just one more way for him to hurt me? I wouldn’t put it past the bastard. His cruelty knows no bounds, even when directed at his only child.
“You have one chance to keep breathing, Ezekiel. One. Where is Sammy?”
I recoil, pulling back on myself at the cruelty in her tone. Her words are filled with malice, and none sound like my kind Snow from our childhood. There she stands before me, a dark warrior and an unrepentant goddess, with a powerful stance and eyes alight with rage. Just by observing her in her majestic form, I know that I have never been worthy of her. No one will ever be worthy of her, because we are but mere mortals, and she is more. She has always been more.
My eyes keep sliding between her and Abe. My Abe. Who won’t even acknowledge me, who it seems has forsaken me and picked a side, and it’s not mine, despite the years of love and companionship we have shared. Is he only hers now? Have I lost my claim on him with my actions? The consequences were and are so harsh. I have lost everything, even him, it seems.
Despite doing it all to protect him, to keep him breathing, the stains on my hands and soul are so dark and can never be cleaned. Tarnished, broken, forsaken. Yet here he stands before me doing just that, breathing. My heart should be overjoyed, but sadness reigns supreme, knowing that he has turned away from me now and perhaps forever. I’ve lost him. The most important person in my life, gone with a foul plunge of a blade. Mysoulmate, my best friend, my love, gone.
Her words vibrate back through my dazed mind. Sammy. That is the key to getting her back, to getting both of them back. He is the key to my survival, and getting everything that I have lost back. I have protected him the best I can. I have kept him alive using my own life as a bargaining tool for him, a shield against my father. Surely, when she sees that, she will forgive me my trespasses against her. I can’t lose both of them, all three of them now. I. Can’t. Be. Left. Alone.
My mind warns me that it will not be enough. No forgiveness and exemption will be provided for what I have done, regardless of whether I did my best to keep him alive. I will be discarded, abandoned, and left to either die alone, or murdered at the hands of the only people I have cared for in this miserable life. Fate is so cruel and sadistic to have the tables turn on me, and my actions mirrored back to me. Death will be a kindness that I do not deserve, after all that I have done.
“Alive,” the word leaves my battered lips in a whisper. Emerald green clashing with stormy gray-blue as she determines the honesty of it. “Basement.”
All the strength I had left leaves me, and I crumple to the cold floor, unable to keep myself sitting up any longer. My adrenaline is gone, and my purpose for forcing myself to keep going is gone. The knowledge that Sammy will be safe now fills me with a calming glow. I allow my eyes to finally be parted from hers, as I hear orders being issued and movement all around me. It is done now. Over. I can finally rest. I allow my eyes to close, knowing that I may never wake. There is nothing more that I can do. I am at the end of this tragedy, which I had a starring role in.
Forgive me, Snow.It’s my last thought as the world goes dark around me.
“Wake him up. Slap him again if you have to,” feminine words greet my ears, but there is no softness within them. They are spoken without warmth or consideration for the magnitude of the pain soaring currently through my body, even though the voice is familiar to me. Even unconscious, my mind and soul will always recognize her. Snow.
I try to crack one of my sore eyes open, just as a heavy slap across my face blares pain along my aching jaw and down my neck. A groan leaves my dry lips, my mouth once again tasting of iron, and I feel something cold and hard pressed against my temple. Fucking hell, was that necessary?
“Where is he, Ezekiel? You lied. He’s not in the basement, and your demon of a father hasn’t been found either.” Panic. I hear the edge of panic and perhaps madness in her voice.
Confusion circles in my mind. Snow, basement, demon of a father? I force my tired eyes open as wide as I can and realize I’m sitting up against a wall. The sight that greets me has my senses reeling. Dinah.
Dinah before me, so close that I can smell her scent of amber, smoke bergamot, mixed with the scent of blood. So near that I can see the outline of the tattoos along the flesh of her shoulder and arms. So near that if I reached out, I could stroke my finger down those scattered freckles she has along her nose. My Snow.
The reality of her words hits me like a freight train. Sammy is not in the basement where I was last with him, before my father dragged me up here for this farce of a wedding with that young woman. More frightening even than the knowledge that Sammy is not where I left him, is that my father is also missing. FUCK!
“He… he was in the… basement,” I cough, blood rising to my lips. “Left him… there, when… I was forced… to marry… her.” My coughs wrack my body, causing me to have to lean forward to brace myself against my legs, but even then, the muzzle of the gun pressed to my temple follows the movement, refusing to release me from its grasp. I’m going to die. She’s going to shoot me. She has no further need of me, and she believes I’m lying about Sammy.
“Where is your father?” The coldness in her voice terrifies me. Is Dinah really gone, and been replaced with this blood-covered woman before me?
“He… was here… when the attack… started.” Another fit of coughs takes me over, and finally, she pulls back and turns to speak over her shoulder. “Get the girl.”
I want to look past her, my mind reminding me that Abe is here somewhere. Abe, who no longer loves me, and believes I betrayed him, betrayed her, and, even worse, betrayed Gabriel and was a party to his death. How could he think that of me? Doesn’t he know how much I loved him too?
A shriek and begging fill the air as the girl, Ruth, tries to release herself from the tight hold on her hair as she is thrown mercilessly at my feet. My gaze travels up the long, dark fabric-covered legs before me, over the bare, hard muscles and broad tattooed chest, until I meet a pair of amber eyes heated with an internal fury—eyes that I have loved all my life—eyes that used to look at me with joy, now filled with hate.
“Answer her questions honestly, girl, or you will take your last breath with my hand wrapped around your throat,” Abe addresses the pitiful, crying woman before me.
Dinah turns her attention to Ruth, positioning the gun underneath her chin and forcing her head to rise at an uncomfortable angle. “Please… I beg of you, don’t murder me.” Tears cascade down Ruth’s blotchy face, her brown eyes large and terrified. Sympathy rises within me for this poor girl, who had no choice in the world she was born into. She was a captive long before today, and I may end up being the reason she takes her last breath.
“Where is Noah Rothesay?” Dinah’s words are clipped and cold, as she holds Ruth’s and everyone else in the room’s attention. Will she really murder this innocent girl? This girl who had no choice in marrying me, much like she herself didn’t? Does she not realize that she could have been this girl, if she had not had Sammy and become the Unholy Ghost?
“I don’t know! I swear! He was here, by my father’s side, when the marriage ceremony started.”
“Your father? This father?” Dinah asks with a nod to the right. A trembling man with pale blue eyes is hauled forward between two soldiers wearing rebel attire. Jesus fuck, he’s a mess. One of his ears has been blown off, and his face is caked in blood that soaks the expensive fabric of his shirt, making it stick to him like a second layer. Tears and snot leave a trail down his ruddy face, and he’s trembling like a leaf, even with the two soldiers holding him up.
Dinah removes the gun from Ruth, and points it at Zakariya Dartmouth’s head. “Where are Noah Rothesay and Sammy? Are they hiding within the walls of this estate? Is there another way off the grounds?”
“Fuck you, you demon cunt. The Lord will protect and save us from your evil. He will send down his angels and cast you aside. The Brotherhood will protect us. I do not fear your wrath.”
“I see. Where, pray tell, is your Brotherhood now? Where are your angels?” An evil-sounding cackle leaves Dinah’s lips as she leans forward toward Zakariya, and a shiver dashes down my spine. “I am the only angel here, Brotherhood scum. The angel of death.The angel of vengeance. Your Lord cannot save you. Your Brotherhood has abandoned you, as it seems Noah Rothesay has.”
She trails the muzzle of the gun along his nose, pressing into his nostril before running it under his eye. “Tell me what I want to know, and I may absolve you of your sins, before you meet your maker.”
“I will go to my Lord, knowing that I have kept his covenant and followed his commands, and no demon-whore will force me to break my faith.”
“Pity,” Dinah snarls before pulling the trigger, and blowing out the back of his head, brain matter and gore splattering on all of us close to his proximity. She turns back to Ruth, her face covered in blood from Zakariya, and in that moment, she does resemble the Angel of Death that she claims to be. I’ve never been terrified of her, not even when I watched her torture men of the Brotherhood, but I am afraid now. Something has snapped inside of her, and I’m not sure she even cares any longer about who may be innocent.
“Where is Noah Rothesay?” She once again questions the girl hysterically crying at my feet.
“Please! Please, I beg of you, I don’t know. He was here, I swear it. Then the first blast happened, and he moved away towards the shadows with his men, but not before instructing my father to proceed with the ceremony and ensure that we were wed.”
“Are there other ways off this estate?” Abe’s deep voice inquires, malice dripping from each syllable, his cold and unforgiving eyes trained on her.
“Yes… Yes, tunnels hidden behind the servant’s kitchen walls lead to a pasture a quarter of a mile down the road.”
“How do you know,” Dinah inquires with suspicion.
“I… I’ve used them in the past… to meet… someone,” Ruth sobs, her face morphing into pain and embarrassment.
Well, will you look at that?It seems my innocent and dutiful bride-to-be wasn’t as innocent or obedient as her father claimed. Not that it matters. I am relieved that I never actually married the girl, not that I could legally, or morally, with my wife being still alive. Not that a little detail like that would have stopped my father from forcing me.
“Did you want to marry this man?” Dinah questions calmly, her voice evening out as if she wasn’t holding a gun to the miserable girl, and Ruth immediately shakes her head no.
“I was forced, against my will, by my father. He said it was my duty to fulfill the will of God, and my obligation to the Order.”
Dinah places the gun at her waist, tucked into the waistband of the dark pants she wears, and nods to one of the rebels, who may be a woman hidden behind her mask based on their stature. “Get her to show you the tunnels, and then take her to one of the rebel safehouses, blindfold her, and watch her, in case she is a spy for the Order.”
“Please, my mother is a prisoner too. She’s locked in one of the rooms. She tried to stop the wedding, but my father beat her,” Ruth’s shaky voice begs for mercy from a woman I am not sure has any left.
“Get her mother out of here too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The rebel tugs at Ruth’s arm and drags her to her feet, even as the poor girl jerks and protests that she is not a spy.
“What now, Dinah? Will you murder me, just like you did him?” I nod towards the discarded body of Ruth’s father.
“I should, husband, after all, I am a territorial woman. I thought you knew that, Zeke.” She turns her glare back on me, but I notice a quirk of her lips. She’s enjoying this, all this bloodshed, and death. It makes her feel alive.
“Despite enjoying being shared by the three of you, I don’t allow what is mine to be handled by others. Call me greedy, hypocritical, or even unfair. It doesn’t matter. What is mine, belongs to me alone. Yet I find my beloved husband about to marry another woman when I come calling.”
Her reminder that she was shared between us, and the memory of her body’s response to us, has me taking a sharp inhale of breath. Now would be a hundred million percent the wrong time to get a boner. I force my mind to remember that she just killed a man in cold blood, to help keep myself in check.
“You were dead. I believed it. I had no choice. I needed to keep Sammy and myself alive. This was the cost.”