Chapter 11 Zaria
ZARIA
Tommy's fingers dig into my bicep as he drags me down a hallway. My feet stumble beneath me, leaving smears of dirt and red on polished marble.
We stop outside a door where others are.
The hallway smells weirdly like vanilla and clean sheets, the opposite of the damp stone and dirt that have clung to my skin for days. Two of Callum’s men stand next to me while others are rummaging inside the bedroom, removing anything that could serve as a weapon.
"Anything sharp," Tommy says. "Anything she can use."
They nod and keep working.
I lean against the wall because my legs won't hold me upright anymore. My head still throbs from the drugs, from everything, but I watch them strip the room anyway.
As they work, a small part of me feels relieved to not be in the dark.
The fear hasn’t left me, not fully, but now that the lights are on, even these warm hallway ones, I can breathe without clawing at my own skin. It’s humiliating and irrational, maybe even pathetic, but it’s real.
The Order used the dark for everything.
For punishments and choosing sacrifices.
For the branding, for the rituals where you begged the Morrígan to spare you.
Dark meant chosen, it meant pain.
Dark meant you only screamed if you wanted to live.
I swallow back the memory. My eyes burn.
I see them take a letter opener, a pair of scissors, a glass vase and a few other bags of things out. All of it gone.
One of them glances at me, his expression blank, then returns to his work without a word.
I don't blame any of them.
I just tried to kill myself. What the hell are they supposed to do?
Tommy adjusts his grip, fingers digging into muscle, not cruel, just impatient. Just doing his job.
Finally, the man inside the room steps out. "Clear."
The grip on my arm tightens, and then he pulls me toward the door and I’m shoved forward.
I stumble into the room and fall hard to my knees, catching myself too late. Before I can inhale, the door slams behind me and the lock clicks.
I stay on my knees for a few seconds, head down, hair falling around my face, and take a few deep breaths.
Slowly, I lift my head and I see the room.
It's nice.
Not just compared to a basement or a forest or a ritual ground, but by normal standards I barely remember.
There's a bed, an actual bed, with a mattress and pillows and a comforter and clean sheets. A nightstand with a single drawer. A dresser against the far wall. And a window, tall and framed in dark wood, with curtains pulled halfway open.
I blink at everything, feeling disoriented. It feels like I stumbled into someone else’s life. Someone who’s allowed softness.
I push myself to my feet, my legs shaking, and take a step forward.
Then another.
The window draws me in, and I walk over to it. It's dark, but I can see a huge garden and pool. Trees line the property, and it all looks so peaceful.
I try the latch and it's locked.
Of course it's locked, but I don't care. It's the best view I've gotten in a long time.
I walk over to the bed. My fingers brush the edge of the bed frame. It’s solid. Real wood. Smooth beneath my skin.
My stomach twists.
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve anything close to this.
I turn away and notice another door. I push the door open, turning on the light. It's a bathroom.
It's got a toilet and a sink with a mirror above it, and a shower.
For a moment, I just stare at it.
Then I step inside and turn the handle.
Water bursts from the showerhead, steaming instantly. Warm mist peppers my face.
"Oh my god," I say, sticking my hand into the stream. "Hot water."
I stare at the stream like it's a miracle and suddenly I don’t care about anything else.
Not the fact that I’m in a locked room.
Not the fact that Callum Killaney could decide to kill me at any moment.
Or the fact that I tried to kill myself on a basement floor less than an hour ago.
All I want, the only thing I want, is warmth.
I peel the torn bloodstained robe from my body, letting it fall to the floor in a heap. It sticks to me in places where dried blood and dirt cling to my skin.
Then I strip off the rest, the thin undergarments stained with mud and God knows what else.
I step into the shower and lean against the wall as the hot water hits my skin.
It burns at first, too hot, but I don't move. I let it scald me.
Let it wash away the filth and the feeling of being hunted through the woods. The feel of hands grabbing me, dragging me, throwing me into the back of a van.
And the smell of smoke and burning flesh that I feel still clings to my skin.
I close my eyes and tilt my head back and the water streams over my face, my hair, my shoulders.
Then she enters my mind and makes me think.
I shouldn't like this. This isn't for me.
I don't deserve clean water. I don't deserve warmth or comfort or anything resembling kindness.
I'm a traitor. A runaway. A failure.
My throat constricts and a sob breaks out of me before I can swallow it. Then another. And another. I bury my face against my arm and let the water drown the sound of my crying.
I don't even know what I'm crying for.
Maybe it's where I am. Maybe it's the drugs still rattling around in my system or the exhaustion clawing at my bones.
Or maybe it's because this is the nicest shower I've had in years.
On the Morrígan compound, cold water became normal. Cold meant purity. Cold meant clarity, and it was how they cleansed us of sin.
Hot water was a privilege I hardly ever got.
I grab the soap and scrub my skin until it's raw, trying to wash off the feel of the woods. The ritual. The basement. The gun pressed against my temple.
I scrub harder.
My arms. My legs. My stomach.
I spend extra time on the scar burned into my forearm, the M that marks me.
The soap glides over it and it stings. Not physically. It healed years ago, but sometimes when I touch it, when I see it, it stings anyway.
I move to the scars along my side, small crescent shapes, some old, some newer. Shadows of punishments. Ritual cuts. Offerings I never believed in, not really, but I did them anyway because the alternative was worse.
"Because your body belongs to the Morrígan," he'd said as my blood fell onto the altar.
I shake the thought away and then just stand there, letting the water run over me, waiting for the heat to burn away the memories.
It doesn't, so I turn off the water and step out, dripping onto the tile floor.
I stand in front of the mirror, watching beads of water drip down my skin in shaky lines. Then all I can see is a body marked by a lifetime of someone else’s war.
I look like someone who died a long time ago but hasn't figured it out yet.
Shame twists in my gut, sharp and vicious, and I turn away.
I look down at my old clothes piled on the floor. There is no way I'm putting that back on, ever, if I don't have to.
Looking around, I spot a very nice and clean white robe. The one people are supposed to wear.
I hesitate for a moment and then reach out and grab it. I slide it on and pull the belt tight around my waist, then walk back into the bedroom.
The bed looks too clean and I stare at it for a long moment.
I sink to my knees and curl up on the floor beside it.
Not on it. Never on it.
The thought repeats in my head like a mantra, drowning out everything else.
You don't deserve comfort. You don't deserve safety. You don't deserve anything.
The guilt crashes over me in waves.
Guilt for running. For leaving. For abandoning the only family I've ever known, twisted as it was.
Guilt for the girl who screamed in the woods while they burned her alive.
I close my eyes, but all I see is her face.
Her wide, terrified eyes. Her mouth open in a scream that never stopped.
Her hair on fire, the flames climbing up her braids. The brothers held her down, chanting, while the Sisters swayed with their palms open toward the blaze. The Morrígan must be honored. The prophecy must be completed. The blood must be pure. Her screams turned to choking sobs, then stopped.
A rattling sound outside makes me flinch.
My eyes snap open, my heart hammering in my chest.
He found me. Cormac found me.
I hold my breath, waiting for the door to burst open, for his voice to fill the room, for him to drag me back to Shadowharbor and finish what he started.
But the door stays closed and the rattling fades.
It's just the wind.
I exhale slowly, my hands trembling.
Another memory claws its way to the surface.
Cormac's office. His hand slapping across my face, the shock of pain bursting in white sparks behind my eyes. The cold fury in his voice when I questioned the ritual.
"How dare you question me?"
"I just…"
"You're a woman, Zaria. You have one purpose in this Order. One."
His fingers dug into my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes.
"Do what all women do for the Morrígan. Sacrifice your body. Now, go to room eleven and see Brother Ted for your punishment."
I didn't move.
He shoved me toward the door.
"Now."
I press my fists against my eyes, trying to block out the memory.
But it doesn't work, it never works.
I can still feel his hand on my face. Still hear his voice in my head.
"You belong to the Morrígan. You belong to me."
I curl tighter into myself, pulling my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.
The floor is hard beneath me and cold, but it feels right.
I'm nothing and I don't deserve anything else but coldness, and no matter how far I run, I'll never be anything else.
My eyes grow heavy as I lie there on the floor in the fetal position, holding myself because there’s no one else alive who would, and I wait for whatever comes next.
For him. For death. For whatever comes first.
Because mercy isn’t something girls like me get twice.