Chapter 14 #3
Running to her won’t help; it’s only a memory, but I rush to the foot of the bed anyway.
Lucina can’t be more than eleven or twelve, dark curls wildly framing her face, falling over the shoulders of her white nightgown.
Her knees are pulled into her chest, hazel eyes wide on the door behind me.
She’s trembling, gripping what looks like a dull kitchen knife, her knuckles white around the hilt.
Fear erupts beneath my skin—the same fear she felt in this moment as the stomping gets louder. Closer. Rattling the whole house with each heavy footfall.
Lucina presses herself further into the corner, big eyes welling with tears.
The shadow of whoever is making all that noise stops in front of her closed door, the toes of their shoes barely visible through the gap at the bottom.
Lucina shrinks back, pulling the blankets tighter against her.
More paralyzing fear leaks into my veins when the doorknob twists. Once. Twice. Getting more aggressive with each turn.
When it’s made clear that the door is locked, all hell breaks loose.
“brAT!” A man’s voice bellows through the door, the knob rattling violently now, and Lucina jumps, smothering her scream with the hand she slaps over her mouth. “OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!”
I’m hit with a wave of absolute terror, nearly knocking me to my knees. It’s debilitating and all-consuming, and there’s no way to escape it.
I watch tears slide down her cheeks from where I stand—completely helpless at the foot of her bed. There’s not a godsdamn thing I can do. This is a memory. This already happened. There was no one there to help her then, and there’s nothing I can do to help her now.
There’s no holding in Lucina’s scream when the door is ripped off its hinges and discarded to the floor like it’s nothing. A mere illusion of protection.
The chair she’d wedged beneath the knob goes flying across the floor, and the glass jar shatters into a dozen pieces.
Lucina scrambles backwards as the silhouette of a man nearly three times the size of her fills the doorway.
What I feel then is worse than fear.
Nothing.
I feel nothing.
It’s as if she’s incapable of the terror her body is demanding. It’s as if she just turned it off.
Hands fisted at his side, the man steps into her bedroom, stepping into the moonlight beaming through the window. His eyes are dark and glossed over, and the smell that follows him into the room is unmistakable.
Liquor. Lots of it.
There’s no life behind his eyes, only rage. An insatiable wrath aimed at her. My Chaos. That terrified little girl in the corner.
The knife Lucina had been holding whizzes past my head, but it isn’t thrown hard enough, and the dull thud of the blade skidding across the floor is one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.
I lunge across the room when he snatches her blanket away and rips her from the bed, the sharp shriek of her scream ricocheting off the bare walls.
I’m thrown to the ground with her, and the pain she felt in her back when her body collided with the hardwood sears up my spine.
She kicks. Gods, does she kick. Lucina fights with all she has—arms flailing, screams falling on deaf ears—and it’s followed by an utterly empty sink in her stomach when she realizes it’s pointless.
I feel it, then. The defeat, the acceptance, the numb tingle of her limbs begging her to give up. Even still, she fights.
She knows she’s not winning, and she fights.
If it weren’t for the hand that comes down on her face, slapping her cheek so hard she goes limp, I’m convinced she’d still be fighting.
The hit is hard and fast, a sharp smack of burning pain, and then the world goes dark.
It’s in that darkness that I feel the hardening of her heart.
The betrayal, the danger, the lack of security.
It builds up around her—another layer on top of what was already there.
A lack of trust, a lack of family, a lack of love.
And in this moment, she doesn’t even want it. Doesn’t think she deserves it.
In this moment, Lucina doesn’t want to wake up.
On a gasp of breath, I come to, still standing on the platform. Still staring into hazel eyes. Every inch of me is vibrating. I don’t move, don’t speak. No one does.
Lucina blinks, trying to gauge our reactions. “Am I done now?”
Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t look at me any differently. I’m stronger.
And she is. But that horrific memory didn’t give her any extra fight; it just revealed how much she had already.
If there was any lingering doubt amongst my coven on whether or not she belonged in it, it’s dust now. Gone.
“Yeah.” I reach for her hand, forcing out a breath and forcing on a smile. “You’re done.”
My gaze snaps up at a rumble in the tree line, shaking the ground beneath the dais.
People in the audience jump from their chairs, whirling in the direction of the sound.
My fingers have barely circled Lucina’s wrist when something bursts from the edge of the forest. It’s sharp, black, and cuts through the air like a bullet.
Its intended target is unmistakable.
I yank Lucina behind me.