Chapter 51
Iwoke up in the fucking dark.
My head felt foggy, like someone pulled warped glass over my eyes, making everything hard to see and understand. Xanthy wasn’t beside me anymore. I was naked, lying on what felt like…hay?
Did my psycho take us out of the mansion? Where am I now?
I was cold. A bone-deep chill, clawing through my every muscle and every joint. This looked like a shed. It smelled the same as my father’s, and that fucking billowing spicy tobacco. I inhaled, trying to steady my breathing. He was playing another game. This was to hurt me. And fuck with me.
It did.
Every fucking sound in this wooden hell made me shiver. A drip from the leaking ceiling as rain found its way through the cracks. The creaks in the darker parts of the area where I couldn’t see. It all slammed into me like the past hadn’t ended at all, but had waited for this moment.
Then his voice cut through the dark.
“Shiloh.”
I froze. My chest squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. I blinked, forcing my eyes open, trying to fight the haze.
Did he really drug me?
There he was. Carrington Harding. Beautiful and fucking dangerous. He was flipping around a knife in his hand, trembling in a way that betrayed him, even though his posture screamed control.
I wanted to run to him, to collapse into his arms, and to beg him to stop breaking me like this. I knew I hurt him, but putting me in a shed that reminded me of my father was beyond even his cruelty.
Wait, not like my father’s shed…
I looked around the area again, really looking this time, and now I couldn’t push the breath past my lips. I recoiled and sank into a corner…my name.
My name was carved into the wood.
It was a small scrawl I remembered doing as a kid. He took me to the place where my entire life changed. I swallowed the vomit bubbling up while Carrington silently watched me explore the area, twirling the knife in his hand.
“No…” I said on a sob. “Why…?”
The knife was mine.
The same handcrafted hunting knife I ended so many hearts with as a kid. The dried blood from the woman all those years ago that my father tried to force me to kill was still there.
Haunting and real.
The altar.
The woman…the ritual.
My gaze shot past Carrington, the cruel love of my life, to the slab centered at the back of the dark, small area.
There she lay.
Xanthy.
My fucking fiancée.
Helpless.
Wide-eyed.
Paralyzed.
Her eyes were expressive, but her body wouldn’t move. She was wrapped in ropes with the same yellowy liquid that burned my eyes. My breath felt like it was sawing through my insides, and I felt faint.
“Carrington…what did you do?” My voice was ragged, barely able to push past my trembling lips. “She’s your own blood.”
“I had to,” he said, stepping closer to us. “You’ve been hiding for so long, Shiloh. Clinging to her. Pretending you’re not who you know you are. Your father tried to open your eyes all those years ago, and you rejected him. It’s time now, Sunshine.”
The knife with my name twirled in the illumination of the overhead, shitty tin, hanging light.
I shook my head.
“No. You can’t…stop this. I am begging you.” Panic lanced through me. My hands twitched, trembling, while my heart trilled in my ears, making me feel deaf to everything else. “You’re insane, don’t do this. You can stop this. Please. Don’t hurt her.”
He laughed softly, the sound sharp in the silent air as he walked to stand behind her.
“Insane? Maybe. But she’s your leash. You cling to her because she keeps you from seeing what’s real. I am real, Sunshine, and so is this choice. You will see. You will finally see.”
I stood from the hay and stepped toward him, desperate and terrified.
“Carrington…listen to me…I love you. I-I can’t forgive you if you do this to me. I will hate you with everything in me.”
“Good. At least you will no longer be blind. You will finally understand who you are.” He lunged toward her, my knife slashing forward.
I couldn’t think, my body pulled by terror and desperation. I reacted before my mind could catch up. I ran forward, leaning over Xanthy and grabbing his wrist as the knife hovered over her bare chest. Panic fueled me.
“Please, Care Bear. Stop!”
“No, you need to accept your true self.”
We grappled in a dangerous dance, twisting, shoving, our movements jerky and violent, yet weighted with something more that we couldn’t deny…all the love, fear, and desperation, waiting for the other to submit.
The knife slid between us, over and over, slicing Carrington and me with shallow cuts. The blood on our bodies gleamed in that damn swinging lamp, catching the flicker of the single bulb above.
“You don’t have to do this,” I shouted, my every breath jagged as I tried my hardest to take the knife away from him.
I had to stop him.
I couldn’t let him kill Xanthy.
She didn’t deserve this—two bastards who used her for a means to an end.
“I can’t let you hide behind her anymore.
Can’t you see she’s your crutch? If killing her means you are free…
then so be it. You have to see. Why can’t you just let me show you how to love me?
I know I’m fucked up. I know I’m not good for you, or anyone, but if you just let me show you.
I promise you can love me back. Please let me open your eyes, maybe I can show you I’m not just darkness.
You can’t continue living a lie when it’s what has kept you blind, Shiloh. ”
His voice cracked, the mania fully taking over as tears streamed down his beautiful face. The tremor made my chest ache, and I fought him harder, the stings of the blade barely registering anymore as the pain from my broken heart took hold.
We slammed into the altar, knocking Xanthy onto the floor.
She was still unable to move, screaming through the thick tape on her mouth.
The knife clanged onto the slab, and my hands found his shoulders, trying to push him back. He pressed forward and forced my arms to strain.
We were slippery from the blood, and sparks of panic flared through my veins, blinding me.
Every moment carried the weight of a lifetime—the past, the fear, the love, and the fucking impossible decision he was forcing me to make.
He twisted the knife, his grip hardening, his eyes wild. “Shiloh, choose. Her or me.”
“I…I can’t…I can’t,” I gasped, my voice breaking.
I felt sweat and blood mix on my hands, the adrenaline burning my muscles, but I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let him win this.
He can’t kill Xanthy. He will never be the same.
And neither will I.
“Choose, Sunshine. The mask of light or of darkness, which do you belong to? Choose. Or I’ll do it for you. You can’t live like this. You can shut me out, fine. You can leave me, fine. But…I love you even if you can’t love me. I choose you. I always will. You are my light. Just open your eyes.”
The knife started to slip from my grip, and he secured my hands around the handle…. hard. The knife was poised over Xanthy’s frozen, terror-filled eyes. He was going to make me kill her. He was forcing me to take away the light.
“No!” I used all the strength I had to jerk away from Xanthy’s body.
It was reflex, panic, pure adrenaline, and absolute devastation. Carrington went quiet. The sounds of our struggle were muted, and his dark eyes looked right through me.
The knife.
Where is the knife?
And then I saw it sticking out of Carrington’s stomach. His white shirt, speckled with bright red, suddenly turned a deep crimson.
His eyes widened as he reached for the knife embedded in his flesh.
No. God, please no.
The warmth hit my hands before my mind could process it. His breath hitched. “Shiloh…I wanted you to see…”
I froze, unable to stop myself from watching my hands drip with the deep red of his life.
All the heat, panic, and disbelief collided into a scream ripping free of my throat.
“Carrington…no…no…please…fuck. Why did you have to do that? Fuck! No, fuck! Stay with me! Don’t you fucking dare leave me, asshole!”
He coughed as I scrambled to gather him in my arms before he dropped to the ground. His voice was wet and rasping, and he shook against me.
“I…wanted…you to see…the truth…I needed you to…choose…me…why couldn’t you…love me…too.”
Tears streamed down my face. My sobs wracked my chest.
“I…I can’t lose you. Carrington, why did you do this? Fuck! Don’t you dare leave me. I do choose you, you fucking asshole. I can’t be without you. I love you.”
His fingers brushed my cheek. A ghost of a smile on his gray lips as the color drained from his beautiful face, and the red continued to soak his body, stealing the light in his eyes.
“You…were…always…my light…I’m sorry I couldn’t…let go of…my darkness…darkness…needs…light…I need…you.”
I pressed him closer, frantically shaking and fumbling to staunch the bleeding I had caused. My hands were useless, and the blood pooled everywhere, soaking everything. My body trembled, my heart threatening to shatter in my chest.
“Please…stay…I can’t…I can’t survive this. I need you, Carrington. I need all of you.”
His eyelids fluttered. Weakly, he reached for me, pulling me to his cold lips one last time.
“Shiloh…I…love…you…my Sunshine…forgive….me…”
The sound tore me apart.
My lips pressed to his, rocking him, sobbing into him, desperately kissing him, willing my life to transfer to him.
I cried harder than I ever had.
My tears dripped onto his face.
I felt the moment his soul left his body.
I felt the second his warmth left him completely. I cried harder, unable to look away from his beautiful, unseeing eyes. Every second stretched unbearably.
I had killed him.
The man I loved more than anything. I fucking killed him. I killed…
Xanthy was on the ground beside the altar…the fucking tether to the light I so desperately needed…for what…
She was helpless and frozen on the ground. The impact of the fall had knocked her out.
I lay on the fucking ground, in the blood of Carrington, listening to his empty chest.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
The room spun around me as shadows danced on the walls. My sobs consumed the silence around me, mixing with the dripping water and the suffocating metallic tang in the air.
There was nothing but silence.
I waited there in the quiet, trembling uncontrollably. My hands pressed into his chest, his blood soaking my entire body. I whispered apologies, meaningless words, into his hair. I kissed him again and again, watched the warm heat fade further from his body, and felt every piece of my soul darken.
My light…
Was gone.
Every memory slammed into me—my father’s cruelty, my fucked up childhood, Carrington’s voice, the blood, Xanthy’s wide staring eyes, and my own love and failure. The shed pressed down like a tomb on top of me. I was broken. My heart shattered. My world had ended.
And I had no one to blame but myself.