Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Beibhinn
The Present
Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone.
―Edgar Allan Poe
I slam my brother’s Mustang into park next to Lucas’s car, and my knuckles blanch because my grip on the steering wheel is so tight. My heart is a jackhammer in my chest, pounding against my ribs, but I ignore it as I step out into the brisk coastal air. I’ve had three hours to stew in my anger, and I’ve reached a boiling point.
“Beibhinn.” Lucas’s drawl greets me, and my name sounds like a joke on his tongue as he leans back against the hood of his sleek black car. “I’ve been expecting you.” He holds up Cadden’s phone, where Cadden’s Snap Map is displayed, my avatar glaringly present in this desolate location. His thumb swipes over the screen with a smugness that makes my blood bubble. “And honestly, I couldn’t have timed your arrival better if I tried.”
My pulse throbs in my ears, a drumbeat of betrayal; this lighthouse, once a beacon of solitude, now feels like the epicentre of my demise.
“Lucas,” I spit his name out like venom, my hands curling into fists at my sides. The sea crashes against the cliffs below, thunder to match the chaos unfurling within me.
The scent of tobacco slithers into my nostrils as Lucas exhales a lazy plume of smoke, the sea air doing nothing to cleanse the taint. His posture is one of irritating ease—leaning against the bonnet of his gleaming car like he hasn’t a care in the world. “Nice to see you too, Beibhinn. Pleasure as always.” The words curl off his tongue, wrapped in that infuriating facade that’s become his signature. It’s a thin veneer over the serpent beneath, but I’m not fooled—not by his smile, nor by the deceptive calm in his green eyes.
“Cut the shite, Luc.” My words are clipped, a dagger thrown with precision. He just stands there, a wry smile dancing on his lips, cigarette smoke curling around him. Every line of his body speaks of arrogance, from the way his arms fold across his chest to the casual tilt of his head that casts shadows over his too-sure features as he flaunts the electronic Judas. “You’ve been tracking me?” The words tumble out, laced with disbelief and tinged with an edge sharper than the rocks around us. What the hell have I just walked into? “Where the fuck is he?” The demand is a raw scrape against the silence, my voice gravel and gunpowder, ready to ignite. I need to know where Cadden is, to confront the chaos he’s sewn into the fabric of my life, thread by bloody thread.
Lucas’s smirk doesn’t waver, and for a moment, all I can think of is shattering it with my fist. I stand there, hands clenched, every nerve ending screaming for action, for something to break the stranglehold of helplessness that claws at my insides. I’m waiting to erupt, and the air around us is charged with enough electricity to fuel me when I do.
“Sorry, princess, but your boy is a little preoccupied.” That wink—it’s like oil on fire, and it ignites something feral within me.
“Occupied?” I repeat, the question a hiss between my teeth. The idea that Cadden might be tangled in someone else’s embrace so soon after the world we knew crumbled into dust—a world where my brother was still alive, before Cadden built the bomb that snatched him away—is unfathomable. Lucas is playing a game, but I’m not here to be a pawn on his chessboard. The taste of bile rises in my throat as the implication of his words sink their venomous teeth into my already raw nerves.
He thinks he can bait me, does he? Let him try. I’m Beibhinn Devereux, and I don’t break—I burn. And right now, I’m about to blaze through this twisted charade like wildfire does dry bush. I stalk closer, my boots crunching on the gravel like the ticking of a bomb. Lucas’s words are a riddle wrapped in a sneer, but the puzzle pieces don’t fit—Cadden wouldn’t… couldn’t. Not after everything. Could he?
“You’re lying,” I spit out, the words tasting like betrayal. My mind races, images of Cadden flashing like lightning—a caress turned explosive, his hands that once held me now marred by guilt and soot. Would he seek comfort so soon, while Liam’s laughter is still a ghostly echo in my head?
“Maybe I am… but maybe I’m not.” Lucas tilts his head, a predator baiting its trap, and gestures towards the lighthouse with a jerk of his chin. “Only one way to find out.” It’s a dare, pure and simple, and he knows I can’t resist. He’s always known. From that very first summer, Lucas never liked me, and the feeling was, and still is, mutual.
Could I stomach the truth, whatever twisted form it takes? Or is this just another game, another chance for him to plunge the knife deeper into my already bleeding soul?
“Fuck you, Lucas,” I snarl, but even as I say it, my feet betray me, carrying me towards the looming structure that stands sentinel over my and Cadden’s dark history. With each step, the heat of my anger fans higher, a blaze that won’t be quenched until I uncover the lies—or face the devastating reality.
Without another word, I stride past him, refusing to give him the satisfaction. My fury is a living thing, hungry and relentless, as I storm towards the lighthouse. The door puts up no resistance when I shove it open, meeting the spiralling staircase that rises before me like a coil of stone. My boots echo off the walls, a drumbeat that matches the erratic rhythm of my heart. I climb, fuelled by a cocktail of grief and adrenaline.
Finally, I reach the threshold of the library, but before I can mount the ladder to the loft, Cadden’s voice stops me cold—my name on his lips, a moan that sounds like a plea. It pierces through me, sharp and unexpected.
“Beibhinn…” His voice is a frayed thread, unravelling the remnants of a bond I thought unbreakable. Does he dream of me, even as he betrays me? Or is this some eerie echo, a mockery of what we once were?
For an instant, I am frozen, caught between the instinct to flee and the need to confront. But the moment passes, and the rage within me roars back to life, consuming any trace of doubt. I need to do this, face whatever reality awaits me. I owe it to myself, and to the love that bloomed in the darkest of places and withered in the light of tragedy.
Gritting my teeth, I prepare to scale the final ascent, the ladder to a truth I’m not sure I want to witness. Because whether it’s closure or damnation that waits at the top, I won’t cower from it. It’s not in my nature.
My hands tremble, each rung of the ladder an icy bar against my fever-hot palms. With every step upward, my fury builds like a storm surge. I climb, propelled by a force more potent than gravity—vengeance.
The loft materialises before me, and in it, a blonde woman, her lips locked around Cadden’s cock as if she could suck the soul right out of him. The sight sears into my retinas, a brand marking the end of everything. Anger boils within me, a cauldron of hate frothing over with each heartbeat.
Cadden remains oblivious to my presence—his head arched back in illicit pleasure, eyes veiled by lashes thick with sin. His hand is in the girl’s hair, fingers entwined in the tresses, claiming her as his own.
“Beibhinn,” he breathes. The sound of my name on his lips is sacrilege. “Fucking hell, I’m gonna come.”
I stand rooted, the spectre of the show etches itself into my memory. In this moment, I am Medea, I am Kali; I am every scorned woman who has walked the earth, and my wrath knows no bounds. But beneath the inferno of rage, there is an ache, a hollow void where love used to live. Grief and loss are the silent undertow pulling me under, even as anger keeps me afloat.
Lucas’s smug taunts echo in my mind, a cruel chorus to this grotesque opera. How could I have been so blind? How could I have thought that any semblance of good lay within the ranks of the syndicate—a world where darkness reigns and hearts are traded like chips on a poker table?
With each laboured breath, I steel myself, ready to unleash the storm inside me. This ends now. It ends with the destruction of everything we’ve built and burned.
I will emerge from these ashes, not as the girl who loved a boy blindly, but as the woman who avenged fiercely. And when the last ember burns out, so will the version of Beibhinn who believed in fairy tales.
My vision tints red, the world around me blurring into nothing more than a backdrop to the treachery unfurling before my eyes. Wrath propels me forward, feet pounding against the wooden floor like the drums of war. My teeth grind together in a silent snarl as I witness the blonde’s head bobbing obscenely, her lips wrapped around what I once claimed as mine.
“Stop,” I hiss. With each step, my temper builds, hot and wild, until I’m upon them—a feral creature hell-bent on retribution.
I seize the blonde’s hair, my fingers curling into the white strands with a ferocity that matches the scream clawing its way up my throat. I shove her head down, forcing her closer to Cadden’s pleasure, making her choke on the very sin that has shattered my world.
“Beibhinn?” Cadden gasps, and only then does he catch sight of me—real me, not the illusion of ecstasy that dances on his deluded lips. Confusion etches his features, contorting the lines of pleasure into a mask. “Why… why are there two of you?”
His words strike me, a perverse mockery of the intimacy we once shared. His voice, thick with desire, now feels like the vilest poison. With one swift motion, I yank the imposter away from him, tearing her off like a leech feasting on stolen blood. She stumbles, surprise painting her face as she skids across the floor, a discarded plaything in this twisted game.
“Only one Beibhinn,” I spit out, my rage a living thing between us. There’s no room for tears, no space for the ache that hollows out my chest.
Everything spins as I stand over the crumpled form at my feet. The taste of bile is thick on my tongue as recognition sears through me like a branding iron.
“Meila.” Of course. Her name is a curse that spills from my lips, venomous and vile. “You fucking bitch.”
She recoils, scrambling to regain her footing, her eyes wide with shock and something darker—fear, perhaps, or the realisation she’s awakened a storm no amount of sweet-talking can soothe. There’s a wildness in her gaze, a mirror to the savagery that tears at my insides.
Our dance is brutal, primal; we are two lionesses locked in combat, our bodies instruments of wrath. My fingers entwine in her blonde locks, yanking hard enough to draw a strangled cry from her throat. My knuckles connect with the soft flesh of her cheek, the satisfying crack harmonising with the cacophony of my pounding heart.
“Beibhinn, stop!” she pleads, but her words are drowned out by the roar of blood in my eardrums. This isn’t a plea for mercy—it’s the lament of a cornered animal, desperate and defeated.
“Never,” I growl. There’s no room for reason here, no space for forgiveness. Only the relentless drive to reclaim the power she’s tried to strip away.
Her fist swings toward me, a pathetic attempt to counterattack, but I’m faster, fuelled by pain that refuses to be quenched. Dodging, I weave into her space, close enough to feel the heat of her breath, tainted with panic.
“Did you think you could replace me?” The question is a blade, sharp and unforgiving, and my voice is steady while wielding it. “Did you think you could take what’s mine?”
With a final surge of adrenaline, I pull back my arm and let loose the culmination of every shattered dream, every whispered lie. My fist crashes against her nose with a sickening crunch that resonates through the marrow of my bones.
Blood splatters across her face, painting her features with the scarlet hue of guilt. She crumples, her body hitting the floor with a thud.
Victory is bitter as I stand over her unconscious form, my breath coming ragged, torn from the depths of a soul darkened by too many losses. My hands tremble, not with fear but with the weight of the knowledge that this violence is only a shadow of the war that rages within me—a war where love and hate are indistinguishable foes, and the battlefield is my own broken heart.
Cadden’s hands, those traitorous tools of comfort and destruction, fasten around my waist, wrenching me from the crumpled form of Meila. His grip is iron, unyielding as the chains that bind my heart to this saga of love turned venomous.
“Let go of me!” The words rip their way out, ragged shards of glass that shatter against his unrelenting resolve. I turn in his hold, a wild thing cornered by betrayal, but he is steadfast, an immovable force shaped by streets that demand hardness to survive.
“Beibhinn, stop!”
A bitter laugh bubbles up, laced with cynicism. “Let me fucking go, Cadden!” My demand is punctuated by a thrash of limbs, but he’s a boulder against the tide, absorbing my fury without faltering. In his eyes, there’s a plea for reason, a silent call for the woman he knew before grief became my shadow.
He doesn’t understand. How could he? He’s the cause and the cure, the architect of my pain. Each touch from him is both salve and brand, a reminder of what was lost and what can never be reclaimed.
“Listen to me,” he urges, a whisper amidst the chaos. But his words are drowned out by the thread of my pulse. He tries to reach me, to bridge the damage that his actions have carved between us.
In defiance, I buck against him once more, a last-ditch effort to escape his confinement. It’s not just about freeing myself from his physical hold—it’s a desperate attempt to sever the ties that bind my soul to his, to take back the fragments of myself that he has marked as his own.
“Beibhinn,” he breathes, and there’s a tremor in his voice that almost— almost —halts my assault.
“Let me go.” I will not be held captive, not by him, not by anyone. I am my own reckoning, unleashed upon the world that dared to break me.
As I fight against the man who once promised me forever in the shadows of this lighthouse, I vow to ruin him and turn everything he loves into ashes at his feet.
Cadden’s grip slackens, a surrender to the storm I’ve become. Seizing the moment, I whirl on him with anger that could shatter the world itself. “Fuck you. I never should have come here.” The words are bullets, and I aim them straight for his heart.
I pivot sharply, boots slamming against the worn floorboards as I make my escape. The ladder looms before me and I descend with reckless abandon, each rung a step further from the chaos above.
“Beibhinn!” Cadden’s voice chases me. “Wait, just fucking listen to me!” His plea echoes, bouncing off the spines of ancient texts and forgotten lore. He swears it—that he didn’t know it was Meila, that alcohol and drugs veiled his sin. But his words are just another melody in this dark, twisted symphony we’ve composed.
“Listen?” I scoff, my tone a razor’s edge. “I’m done listening to your lies.” My feet find the solid ground of the library, its musty scent a balm to the venom still dripping from his tongue.
“Please, Beibhinn,” he begs, his footsteps a frantic rhythm behind me. “You have to believe me—I didn’t know.”
“Believe? In what, Cadden? That you’re anything but the monster you’ve revealed yourself to be?" I spin to face him, eyes ablaze. “You’re as transparent as these glass panes we once watched the sunrise through.”
“Damn it, I’m telling you the truth!” His hands reach out, grasping for something beyond his reach—forgiveness, redemption, me. Who fucking knows.
“Your ‘truth’ is a lie, Cadden.” I step back, putting distance between his desperation and my resolve.
“Beibhinn—” His voice cracks.
“Save your breath,” I hiss. “You’ll need it to quell the flames of your precious empire as it burns to the ground.” I turn my back on him, on us, on the love that now tastes like ash upon my tongue.
My fingers graze the spines of books. A shrine he built not just to literature but to the love we once shared, a love that’s now a festering wound on my heart.
“Beibhinn, please.” His voice is a shattered whisper, but I don’t falter. “Don’t do this. Look at me!" His plea is desperate, but my gaze is fixed on the mahogany shelves.
“Look at what? You? The man who took everything from me?” I whirl around. “You’ve left me with nothing but ghosts and shadows, Cadden.”
“Beibhinn, I swear?—”
“Your oaths are worthless!” I cut him off, my voice a blade drawn against the veil of deceit. “You destroyed someone I loved. It’s only fair I take something you love!”
His jaw clenches, the cords in his neck standing out like ropes anchoring him to a sinking ship.
“Beibhinn, don’t,” he chokes out in warning.
The dark tide within me crashes forward, obliterating the fragile line between fury and action. With calculated precision, I reach for the first book—a rare first edition, its pages filled with words. Now, it will be the first to fall.
“Stop,” he begs.
“Too late,” I whisper, and with a flick of my wrist, the book sails across the room, its pages fluttering like the wings of a dying bird. It hits the wall with a thud, a dull echo of the chaos in my soul.
One by one, the pillars of his sanctuary topple beneath my touch: novels, poems, histories. Each a piece of him, each a fragment of the world we shared. With every crash and rip, I reclaim a sliver of myself, piece by jagged piece.
“Please,” Cadden whispers, but there’s no fire behind his words, only the smouldering remains of regret.
“An eye for an eye,” I say, my voice a serenade to vengeance. “A heart for a heart.”
When the last book falls, so too does the final barrier between us.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my weapon of choice. The lighter feels cold and alien in my trembling hand. When I flick the flint, a tiny spark comes to life. My lips curl into a devious grin, and I press the greedy flame against the delicate fabric of the curtain. The material catches instantly.
“Beibhinn, please,” Cadden’s voice is a distant echo, drowned out by the roar of my pulse in my ears.
I turn away from the growing fire, my eyes sweeping over strewn paper littering the floor. Memories of us, tangled in sheets debating the merits of Yeats versus Poe, flash before me, so vivid it’s a physical ache.
“Sorry, Cadden,” I murmur, more to the silent books than to him. “But we’re rewriting the ending.” The air fills with the scent of burning paper, acrid and sweet. Each title is a eulogy, every author a witness to the destruction of what could have been.
“Don’t do it, Beibhinn!” Cadden’s plea slices through the chaos, but it’s too late. I’m deaf to anything but the crackle of fire and the vindictive satisfaction that blooms like a toxic flower in my chest.
“Consider this my parting gift.”
Cadden collapses, his body folding onto itself as he hits his knees. His face is a mask of anguish, eyes reflecting the dance of the flames that consume his precious collection. He doesn’t move to save them, and doesn’t attempt to quench the fire. Instead, he watches, paralyzed by his own guilt.
“Watch closely, Cadden.” My voice is thick with tears unshed. “This is what loss looks like.” With each book that curls and blackens, each spine that pops and disintegrates, I feel the chains of our tormented past melt away. “Look at it. Look at your empire burn.”
Tongues of fire lick the walls, hungrily devouring years of history contained within this lighthouse. Smoke billows like storm-clouds, painting the ceiling with soot and shadows. I stand at the centre of the chaos, a solitary queen in a house of fire, watching as each book crumbles to cinders.
The heat caresses my skin. Cadden remains on his knees, broken and defeated, his eyes never leaving the devastation before him. His world is ending, page by fiery page, and he’s too shackled by guilt to save it.
“You burnt my brother alive. Now you need to watch as everything you’ve ever loved turns to ashes.”
I hold his gaze for a beat, etching this moment into memory—the way the flames reflect in his eyes, turning them into twin pools of sorrow and regret. With those final words hanging between us like a noose, I spin on my heel and stride toward the door. My steps are measured, heavy with the weight of what I’ve done, what I’ve lost, and what can never be repaired.
Behind me, the fire continues its relentless consumption. I don’t look back; there’s nothing left for me there.
The end of this story is written in fire, in pain, in heartache. But it’s just that—an ending. And so, I leave it all behind: the lighthouse, the man, the life that could have been. I let the fire have its way. I let the past turn to embers.
I am Beibhinn Annabel Devereux, and like a phoenix, I will rise.
To be continued …