CHAPTER 39 AILEEN
CHAPTER 39
AILEEN
As I sat between Zoey’s and Isora’s beds in the infirmary, watching their faces, pain spread through me. Neither had opened her eyes yet, but at least the graying spots on their skin were gone, and they seemed less bony than before, thanks to the blood infusions they were receiving nonstop.
And yet I couldn’t help but think it was all my fault.
Logically, I knew their situation had nothing to do with me. Isora was bound to become a blood slave eventually, and I hadn’t even seen Zoey since the Auction. But the guilt gnawing at me told me differently.
It told me that no matter who was near me, they would all end the same way the little birds did in my father’s basement.
Glancing at Neisha, I saw she was talking with a nurse near the entrance, their backs to me. Turning my gaze to the other end of the room, where a bed was hidden with a curtain, I made a split-second decision.
As quietly as I could, I stood and gave my friends one last look before tiptoeing toward the curtained bed.
Earlier, when Neisha and I had arrived, I asked the nurse to see Tansy. She had refused without leaving room for argument. But I wasn’t one to listen when told no.
After slipping through the curtains, I made sure to shut them before I turned to the bed.
Confused, all I could do was stare. The bed was empty. I put my hands down on the messy sheets. They were still warm.
“What are you doing?”
I whipped around to see the nurse glowering at me, Neisha right behind her. I was about to speak when the nurse’s eyes went to the bed, and she paled. “Shit,” she hissed and started running toward the exit.
“Wait!” I called and began running after her, Neisha following behind.
The nurse seemed to know where to go, because she took the staircases leading upward, to where the greenhouse was. She pulled the greenhouse door open so strongly, it almost got torn off its hinges.
Ribs aching, I kept on running after the nurse, deeper into the greenhouse, until we arrived at a staircase leading to a door. The nurse practically kicked that door, causing it to break, and when I followed her, cold, fresh air hit my lungs.
We were outside.
I had no idea there was an exit in the Rayne League other than the main one.
The outside was a plain of grass that seemed eerily familiar. If the sky above was purple instead of dark and the grass was wilted, it would’ve looked exactly like the field in my mind, where Eliza had visited me in my dreams.
The resemblance was far too uncanny, really, that for a moment all I could do was stop and stare, momentarily forgetting why I was even here.
That is, until the nurse screamed.
Snapping out of my ruminations, I ran toward the nurse and saw she had arrived at a cliff. And near the edge of the cliff stood a petite woman with knee-length strawberry blonde hair.
“Tansy?” I blurted out, shocked.
The woman turned around, her huge baby blue eyes staring right at me. They were as dreamy looking as they always were, as if her head was somewhere else, but there was hardness in them that hadn’t been there before.
“Tansy.” The nurse stretched out her hands, shaking as she took a careful step forward. “Everything is okay ...”
Tansy’s eyes left me in favor of the nurse, and the hardness in them increased, taking over the dreamy glassiness in them. I’d never seen her look this angry.
She didn’t speak, though. All she did was turn back around and face the cliff’s end.
“No,” the nurse whispered, horror in her eyes. “Don’t, Tansy ... This won’t help ...”
The nurse’s words made my heart freeze. If Tansy jumped, it probably wouldn’t kill her—she was a vampire, after all, and unless she was decapitated or had her heart carved out, she wouldn’t die.
“Then what will?” Tansy suddenly said, her voice so empty, it was like a slap to the face. “They told me nothing mattered. They said it was for the best.”
The nurse was in tears. “There are no voices, Tansy,” she said in a broken voice. “They’re all in your head.”
“Liar!” Tansy screamed and turned around, her eyes glowing. She snapped those eyes to me, and her face, which used to be all innocence and dreaminess, was now contorted in rage. “Tell them,” she snarled like a wounded animal, “tell them that the Morrow Gods are real and that they want—no, need—me dead!”
I froze.
The nurse glanced at me. “She’s suffering from schizophrenia,” she whispered, agony in her eyes. “The voices in her head, these ‘Gods,’ they’re merely a by-product of her mental illness—”
“No.” I cut her off, cold sweat coating my skin as things began to make sense. “If I’m right, your diagnosis is incorrect.”
My muscles tensed to a snapping point. I walked toward Tansy, not taking my eyes off her for a second. “The Morrow Gods have been dead for centuries,” I told her in a quiet voice, calculating the pace of each step that I took so I wouldn’t frighten her. “We can’t bring them back. Everything you learned about them was a lie. Everything.”
She shook her head, her hair flying around her. “They need me,” she said tautly. “If they have me, the rite will be complete.”
Memories flashed in my head, and I had to slowly breathe in and out, in fear of having a meltdown right there and then myself. Coming to a stop only a step away from her, I held her desperate gaze. “The Gods are dead,” I repeated as softly as I could, my heartbeat like drums in my ears. “You are free ...”
The words died on my lips as the anger was suddenly gone from her face, replaced by a smile so pure and delightful, the sudden contrast made me stagger back. “You can help me,” she said in her familiar dreamlike voice. “You’re his child, aren’t you?”
I began to shake. I tried to speak, but my lips were dry. I tried to breathe, but I was suffocating.
And just like that, Tansy took a step back into the open air.
But she didn’t fall.
As fast as lightning, Neisha bolted forward, grabbed Tansy’s arm, and pulled her back. Tansy’s eyes grew impossibly wider when Neisha chopped at her neck, causing her to lose consciousness.
Lifting her in her arms, Neisha glanced at the nurse. “Let’s go, Leah,” she said before turning her eyes to somewhere behind me. “She’s all yours, my Lord.”
I barely noticed when Neisha and the nurse, Leah, were gone with Tansy. Instead, I turned around to see Ragnor standing there, in the middle of the grassy field, like he did in that dream of mine so long ago.
His gaze, as midnight blue as the sky, landed on mine. “We need to talk,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question.
He raised his hand toward me. With shaky legs, I approached him, took his hand, and succumbed to my fate.
My mind was in disarray when Ragnor and I arrived at his suite. My chest felt hollow, as if Tansy’s words and actions had sucked out every little emotion I’d ever felt.
Everything began to make sense. Why Tansy was the way she was. Why she knew about the Morrow Gods. Why she was oddly fixated on me.
Ragnor led me to the couch in his suite’s living room and gently helped me sit. He then walked to the kitchenette and started the coffee machine running.
I stared at his back, feeling like how I viewed my life as a vampire, or even life in general after I fled my hometown at eighteen, had just burst into flames right in my face.
I was foolish to think I would be able to atone for my sins by being there for Cassidy in the past, despite later realizing she did not want my help.
When I befriended Isora, I thought I could help her too. I thought I could save her from her cruel fate as a second-timer and then a blood slave sold off to the Jinn.
But what I seemed to have forgotten was that no matter what I did, the souls of those I’d helped kill, the lives I’d taken myself, would never allow me to find peace—and rightfully so. Nothing I did, no amount of saving innocents like Cassidy, Isora, or Zoey, would change what I had done. Nothing would make up for the lives I’d ruined.
Because I was a monster.
A mug of coffee appeared in my hands as Ragnor took a seat next to me. I felt his eyes on me, burning my cheek, but I felt such a sense of shame, of self-hatred, that I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
When he spoke, I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt my heart plummeting. “What happened out there, Aileen?”
That was a far more loaded question than it seemed on the surface, and I imagined he knew it. As loaded as him asking me about being a Child of Kahil. But there was a substantial difference between yesterday and today.
Yesterday, I believed the truth had to be forgotten. Hidden.
Today, I knew Ragnor had to know what kind of monster I truly was.
Because the truth was so horrible that any interest Ragnor had in winning me back would go up in flames.
He wouldn’t be able to have any sort of feelings for me after he learned about my sins.
I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes, and let out a shuddering sigh. “My father’s name, as you know, is Amir Zoheir-Henderson.”
He froze, and I kept my eyes on the brown swirls of coffee in my mug. “My father was a very smart man. Some even called him a genius. He was top of his class both in his bachelor’s and master’s studies at Harvard, and eventually he went on to do his PhD at the University of Maine.”
I sipped my coffee, holding the cup with shaky hands. “There are many holes in my father’s stories regarding the past. All I know is that his paternal family have been devout believers in the Faith of the Morrow and called themselves the Children of Kahil for generations. My father was raised as a devotee, and he never abandoned his religious studies.”
Pain and disgust filled my insides. “The Children of Kahil, like their name, are all descendants of the Kahil family, which supposedly existed sometime in the year three thousand BC. The Kahil family believed in divine beings called the Morrow Gods.”
Ragnor said nothing. He was as still as stone, so much so that it was almost like he wasn’t breathing.
“To explain what my childhood was like, you need to understand the Morrow faith,” I said, and the first verse of the Tefat, the book of the believers, rose to the forefront of my mind. “‘In the morrow that follows the dawn of the world, the Gods shall emerge as its masters, heralding a divine epoch.’ This verse is what this stupid religion is all about.”
I put my coffee mug down, still half-full. I wasn’t thirsty. “The Children believed that once upon a time, way before the world as we know it, there were three Gods who commanded the universe,” I said, thinking back on the Tefat chapters my father had forced me to memorize, anxiously thumping my foot on the floor. “Those Gods were given power from Bennu the Maker, their ancestral spirit. Then, according to the Tefat, the world shifted and changed, causing the Gods’ demise. But their supposed descendants, the Children of Kahil, have one divine mission: bring them back to life.”
This was so convoluted and terrible, I didn’t want to continue speaking, but I forced myself to go on. Ragnor needed to know just what kind of monster I was. He needed to know what he was getting into. Twisting my hands together, I continued. “The methods the Children used to resurrect the Morrow Gods, according to the writings in the Tefat, require pagan rites of shedding innocent blood. At some point in the past—I don’t know exactly how or when, but the Children of Kahil were hunted down and killed for their fanaticism,” I said, bile in my throat as I shifted in my seat, anxiety rising inside me. “I don’t know who hunted the Children of Kahil followers, but eventually, only one person remained, and that person was my great-great-great-grandfather, Anan Zoheir.”
I glanced at Ragnor. He seemed to be lost in thought when he spoke. “Do you know if anyone else survived?”
His question caught me off guard, and I nibbled my lip before replying, “Well, according to my father, everyone else was killed.” I looked away, hands clenched to fists on my lap. “Somehow, Anan survived and managed to continue the legacy of the Morrow faith, obscuring the traces of his bloodshed from those who wished him ill. For generations, the Zoheirs, my father’s family, succeeded in hiding their existence as Children of Kahil. My father had also made me promise that I would never let anyone know about our existence. Of what we believe and what we practice. He’d said the world wouldn’t understand.”
A bitter, hysterical laugh burst out of me. Ragnor’s hand grabbed mine and squeezed, offering comfort I couldn’t quite feel at the moment. “Unfortunately, I broke that promise unintentionally, thanks to Atalon and his powers, so I guess it doesn’t mean shit anymore.” My laughter died down, and I closed my eyes, feeling him shifting closer to me. “In any case, my father took it upon himself to continue the legacy as he saw fit.” I paused, feeling sick to my stomach, before I said, “The thing is, it was the perfect opportunity to give an outlet to his specific ... tendencies.”
The basement flashed in front of my eyes. The bodies and the screams. The smell of smoke and fire and burnt flesh. For a moment, my throat clogged, and I found it hard to breathe, let alone speak.
Ragnor’s arm came around my waist as he pulled me toward him. “Tendencies?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Letting out a shuddering breath, I found it in me to continue as I rested my head against Ragnor’s chest. “My father kidnapped young girls, tortured and raped them, then killed them brutally and burned their bodies. Every month, he took me to the river near our house to make the ritual to offer the sacrificial blood to the Gods.”
I could feel his eyes boring holes in my head, but I refused to look at him. Not when what I was about to tell him would forever change how he saw me. “My first memory is of a girl as young as I was crying her heart out as my father loomed over her and ...” I couldn’t put it into words. It was far, far too revolting and agonizing. I remembered the look in her eyes vividly as I sat there, watching my father rape that girl mercilessly. I remembered the blood trickling to the floor from her crotch as my father gave me a look of exhilaration while I trembled in helplessness and fear. Because I knew what would happen if I tried to reach out and help the girl. I knew what would happen if I attempted to go against my father. I’d tried it before, when I was still naive enough to think my father wouldn’t raise his arm against me. I’d almost succeeded, too, until my father caught up to me and gave me a beating I could never forget.
Ragnor’s hand gently took hold of my chin, attempting to raise my face to meet his gaze, but I couldn’t handle it. Shaking him off, I jumped to my feet and walked away, my back to him, unable to face him. “That’s how I spent my childhood until I was thirteen. I witnessed all kinds of horrors happening in the name of the blasted Morrow Gods.” I couldn’t hide the disgust in my voice, hugging myself as I paced back and forth. “And you know something? I never did anything to help those girls.” My heart jumped to my throat, beating hysterically. “I watched them all being molested and killed one by one and did absolutely nothing. Sometimes I even ...” Tears welled in my eyes. “I wished they would just die so the screams would stop.”
“Aileen ...” Ragnor’s soft, almost coaxing voice made me flinch.
Shaking my head as the whipping sounds of my awful past echoed in my ears. “I hit them over and over again,” I whispered, “as ‘preparation’ for when my father would come and abuse them himself. It terrified the shit out of me to do it, but deep down, I knew that if I disobeyed his orders, I might end up as my father’s next victim.”
I was shaking all over now, but I had to keep on pacing, to be on the move, to hug myself, if I wanted to get through it. “I never tried to rebel. Never spoke out against him. I listened to everything he said, learned everything he’d taught me, and loved him despite seeing what he was doing in the name of his faith. But just as much as I loved him, I also feared him. I knew he could turn on me the moment I disobeyed him, and yet I wanted to have faith that he would never do to me what he did to those girls. That he loved me too. And so when he got arrested and went to jail, I promised myself to never, ever practice that faith again.”
The sound of Ragnor rushing toward me put me on edge. “Aileen, look at me.”
Goose bumps crawled all over my skin as I shivered. “There was one victim,” I whispered, “only one victim who managed to escape, even after my father brutally assaulted her. I don’t remember what she looked like. My father never told me the names of his victims either.” I lowered my gaze to the floor as I thought of Tansy standing at the edge of the cliff, looking at me with those large blue eyes. “I think Tansy is that girl.”
Words abandoned me just then. I couldn’t speak of this anymore. There was so much else he didn’t know, but I couldn’t bring myself to disclose any more than this, because I felt so dirty, so monstrous, that I wished someone would just kill me.
Now, Ragnor knew the gist of my own crimes. I wasn’t a simple bystander. Forcefully or not, I participated in those atrocities my father committed. Some of those girls’ blood, as well as their miseries, was on my hands.
Before I could read, my father taught me to kill.
And the worst thing was, when life got harder, I still turned to the Morrow Gods and pleaded for their help. Like I did in the Auction.
After everything, after me claiming to be an atheist, not part of the Morrow faith, here I was, still holding on to a sliver of belief in spite of myself. Because if they weren’t real, it meant all that pain and suffering was for nothing. That those girls died for nothing. That everything I’d gone through was ... I couldn’t bring myself to accept that so many of us suffered such horrendous things at the hands of my father and that the Morrow Gods didn’t even exist.
If Tansy was indeed the one who escaped, then that meant not only that I was partially responsible for her obvious trauma, but she would remain as a constant reminder of my sins for eternity.
Which was just what I deserved.
Ragnor’s combat boots appeared in my line of sight as he came to a stop before me. Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him, softly embracing me.
I didn’t deserve such softness. I didn’t deserve anything, really. And yet I was a selfish, horrid person because I let his warmth engulf me as the dam broke and the tears fell one after another.