12. A Violent Purge
12
A Violent Purge
Antonio
Antoinette is across the room and on Darius before I even have a chance to move. He doesn’t attempt to fight her off; he takes the full brunt of the impact right in the chest, falling back against the wall and immediately going to the ground with her on top of him.
I rush forward, but Tony is right there, his hand on my chest as he shakes his head. “Wait.”
I step back, keeping my eyes trained on the knife that she now has pressed against Darius’s throat. She’s breathing heavily, her teeth bared in a grimace as she leans on her free hand that’s placed beside his head.
She glares down at him, and he’s motionless, barely even breathing as the fine edges of dark and light collide. A sigh of frustration falls from her lips, and once again, her features twist, morphing from rage to sadness to anguish and back again. And then, she whispers, “Did you leave me there?”
He flinches as if slapped, unadulterated rage blossoming on his face as he spits out, “What? No, how, why?” he stammers, his hands fisting on the floor at his sides as he forces himself to remain still.
The hand holding the knife at his throat relaxes, her expression softening at his words. She searches his gaze briefly, and then her expression shifts again to hurt and anger. The knife presses in, blood slowly welling up around the edges.
But Darius doesn’t move. He stares up at her, an injured fragment of the notorious Beast we know.
A fluttering behind her catches my attention, and Lilith is there, indicating that I should move closer. She looks pointedly in Antoinette’s direction, motioning with her hand, so I follow her cues, moving closer slowly, slowly, slowly.
A low whining noise draws my focus to Antoinette’s face, and her features are twisted as if agony has wrapped its ugly arms around her and won’t let go.
“He told me you knew,” she says in a broken whisper. The hand on the knife grips tighter, the blood slowly seeping around the edges now slowly dripping along his neck. “He told me you knew where I was this entire time and just left me there.”
“Never,” Darius spits out. Fury emanates from his features, his earlier relaxed pose now strung tight. “I would have gotten you out of there the very first moment I knew where you were.”
“But you didn’t,” she seethes. “You knew.” She pauses, looking around at all of us before focusing back on his face and snarling, “You all fucking knew. And still, you left me there.”
I go to respond, but Lilith touches my arm and shakes her head, so I don’t. But then Darius answers, “You didn’t remember. You know the drill, baby girl.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” she shrieks. “You’re not allowed to call me that.”
“I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want,” he retorts gruffly, his aggravation with the situation obviously overriding any self-preservation he may have as this wild woman holds a sharp knife to his throat.
Her bellow of rage reverberates through the room, and for a moment, I brace myself, watching the blade still pressed against Darius’s neck. Then the knife goes skittering across the floor, and her hands ball into fists. She rears back, both fisted hands coming down and walloping him in the face.
Again, I take a step forward, but Lilith is right there, stopping me. I watch on as Darius brings his hand up, gripping onto her wrists, finally making an attempt to defend himself as she fights to pummel him.
She shrieks and yells, the pain in her voice ricocheting around the room. “You left me there. You left me there thinking I was married to a man who worshipped me. Do you hear me? Do I have to explain what worship means?”
Darius roars beneath her, his body twisting as he gets his feet under him, and he thrashes around until he manages to flip them over. She continues to fight, but her words are the most lethal weapon she possesses as he presses his large form into her, her hands now shackled above her head. “You left me to be used in a manner even worse than brute force. You left me to wedded bliss. Wedded fucking bliss, Darius. Do you know that?”
“Of course, I fucking know,” he spits out violently. His hands holding her wrists in place squeeze until his knuckles turn white, and he leans over her until his nose is practically touching hers. “The whole time you were gone, I knew it meant one of two things. Either an absence that is forever or an absence that may only bring part of you back to me.”
Her head lifts off the floor, and she screams into his face, “And what of the nothing? Because I am nothing.”
He shakes his head violently, releasing her wrists and moving his hands to the sides of her head as he shouts, “Everything. Regardless of what has happened, you have always been and will always be everything.”
She frowns at him, those bright blue eyes glaring as she grits out hoarsely, “Fuck everything. Fuck you and everything I used to be.”
This time, Lilith attempts to move forward, and I grab her, yanking her back, knowing that whatever is happening here needs to come to a full head before we intervene. I glance around the room and see Tony holding Agatha the same way I’m holding Lilith. When his eyes meet mine, he nods, confirming we’re thinking the same thing.
A violent purge of broken hearts.
Darius and Antoinette are quiet, staring at each other, chests heaving, and then Antoinette lets loose a bitter laugh that has a chill running down my spine. “Good luck trying to make everything out of nothing.”
He stills completely, grief and rage openly warring on his features, and Lilith curses beside me as some of the fight bleeds out of him. And then, he whispers, “Don’t fucking say that. I know you. I know you don’t mean that.”
“I know I fucking hate you. I know I can’t fucking stand the sight of you. I know the only thing that got me through all that worship was the idea that you were fucking dead, and that’s why you didn’t come save me.”
“Oh, shit,” Lilith mutters, and when she takes a small step back, I go with her, knowing full well what’s about to happen.
The Beast unleashed.
Darius doesn’t say anything, but all those emotions I saw warring on his face before are now shuttered. Unbridled rage darkens his features, and without any comment, he once again shifts, coming up on his knees and yanking her into a sitting position by the grip he has on her head. He manages to come to his feet, taking her with him as if she weighs nothing, and she just watches him, fearless and challenging.
Then she gives him an almost bored look as she says, “Imagine my shock to find that you’re not dead. That you just stood by and did nothing.”
He moves so quickly that one minute, they’re standing in the middle of the room and the next, he has her slammed up against the wall, his hand against her throat, holding her steady. “Not fucking dead?” His pained words come out one step above a whisper, and even though I see she’s struggling for breath, she doesn’t fight against him. Then he leans in close and says, “I’ve died at least a thousand times in your absence. First, from fighting against the acceptance that you possibly were gone to me forever. And then, upon the realization that you were likely alive but so out of my reach, I couldn’t touch upon your existence. And then, after all that, knowing that at least in your current state, you most likely were no longer hurting.”
“No longer hurting,” she spits out. “No longer fucking hurting?”
He nods and responds fervently, “Yes, because at least you could live each day oblivious to torment. Oblivious to that swarm of nightmares buried deep in your psyche.”
She deflates a bit, whatever she must see in his eyes immediately affecting her. “But a nightmare all the same.”
“A nightmare I will follow you into until the end of times,” he replies softly. His hand slowly eases up on her throat, and then both his hands move to her shoulders, where he grips her almost tentatively. He says something incoherent, and almost immediately, wet tracks are carved into the blood splattered on her face.
She nods as he speaks softly, her reply a broken whisper, “I know.” Her hands, which had been gripping onto his suit jacket, move up to his face, and she wipes at his cheeks as she repeats, “I know.”
The entire room seems to breathe a sigh of relief as just as suddenly as it had begun, the violence in the room dissipates.
Darius snags both of Antoinette’s hands, pulling them away from his face. He kisses the back of each one and then steps away, pulling her off the wall as he turns to Lilith. “She needs you now.”
Lilith immediately steps forward, nodding as she closes the distance between them, and Darius places Antoinette’s hands in Lilith’s.
Lilith doesn’t make a big show or attempt any sort of reunion spectacle. Instead, she grips both of Antoinette’s hands between her own and then calmly turns to lead her from the room.
Darius remains where he was standing, but now, Matt and Tony flank him, each with a hand on his shoulder as they lean in, whispering what I can only assume are words of encouragement. Darius nods and says nothing, and then I frown and turn toward the doorway where Lilith and Antoinette are slowly walking. “Antoinette?”
They both stop in the doorway, turning back to me with matching questioning expressions. “What happened to Dmitri?”
Antoinette frowns at first, but then her eyes spark, and a brilliant smile blooms as she responds, “Oh, he’s in the basement.”