Queen of the Damned, Part Two (Savage Stalkers #4)

43. Briella

Briella

“DO YOU WANT DEATH, brIELLA?”

Citizen Soldier Playlist

“It Can’t Rain Forever”

“Would Anyone Care?

“Never Ending Nightmare”

“Wish I Could Cry” - Citizen Soldier feat Halocene

“Death of Me”

“Live Again”

“If I Surrender”

The sky is trying to drown me.

The rain falls in heavy sheets, lashing my face like a thousand tiny needles.

My waterproof jacket shields my torso, but my hair is plastered to my scalp, the icy cold streams crawling down my neck, finding their way beneath the collar.

The canvas gardening gloves I managed to swipe and hide were not built for this weather.

My hands are frozen, numb things I barely recognize anymore.

The hiking pants cling to my legs, soaked through at the knees and ankles from the endless trudge through mud and thorny undergrowth. Every step feels heavier than the last.

The storm rages around me, thunder cracking overhead like the sky itself is breaking apart. Like it knows the inside of my soul.

I keep moving.

Not because there’s somewhere safe out here. Not because I have a plan.

But because stopping would feel too much like giving up.

Thunder rumbles through the trees, shaking the ground beneath my boots. Lightning splits the sky in jagged veins of light above the Redwood trees.

I don’t even slow down.

Every branch that slashes my arms, every stone that turns beneath my feet, I welcome them. I’m still here, still dragging this worthless body through a world that doesn’t want it.

At least the storm means any animals are already holed up, hiding. No snapping jaws. No glowing eyes in the night. No company but my own monsters.

They’re louder than ever. They cut through my mind like razors.

Why did you think you could stay?

Why did you think you could let them see you?

You always ruin it. Always.

I press the thought down, crushing it into the pit of my stomach where it festers with the rest. I keep moving, half-slipping on wet rocks and roots, my pulse pounding drumbeats in my veins.

It’s not bravery. It’s punishment.

Because deep down…I thought maybe I belonged there. With them.

Raphael, Jude, Vincent, Seth—even Rory—maybe they could look past the ruin of me and see something worth keeping.

My soul is spiraling. Because…I thought I could show them the monsters inside me.

But people like me don’t get rescued. We don’t get claimed. We don’t get to be someone’s. We’re just the latest in a long line of broken things they’ll bury and replace.

It’s easier to believe they’ll forget me than to hope they won’t.

I’ll get over this. I’ll collect all the pretty, broken little pieces and make my heart swallow them. It can bleed more. It can take more cuts. And more scars.

Would anyone care if I disappeared?

I press the thought down like a wound I refuse to acknowledge.

Of course they wouldn’t. Raphael was already moving on.

He will just wait for the next lost girl who could become their true queen, a sharper, stronger one.

Jude would scowl and call it a waste, Vincent would grunt a good riddance, Seth would crack some hollow joke, and Rory… well, he never wanted me there anyway.

It’s what they do, isn’t it? Break them down. Build them up. Make them belong, just long enough to matter.

Then watch them fall.

I’ve always been good at falling. And running.

But for once, I thought I might be able to stop running. To stop hiding. To let them see the parts Easthaven couldn’t burn out of me.

Instead, here I am, doing what I do best—breaking things and leaving, running, hiding.

Because I don’t believe I deserve any of it. Not strength. Not belonging. Not them.

If I surrender, what’s left of me?

A sick, shivering part of me still wants to crawl back, battered and bleeding, and ask to stay. But I can’t. Not when I still feel the cold metal of the restraints in Easthaven. Not when the memories flood back. A sharp crack of thunder shudders through me, dragging me back to another stormy night…

Oh, dear god in heaven who isn’t even listening!

The way they would come in the dead of night, wrench open my cell door, hold me down, strip me bare like I wasn’t a person at all. Every time I so much as whispered, the fire and ice jolt would come. My body would seize, my throat closing around a scream that couldn’t escape.

Don’t speak. Don’t breathe. Don’t exist.

And then the paralytic—locking me in, fully aware, unable to move, unable to scream, when the Prophet…I felt every inch of him.

I stagger against a tree, the memory slicing through me. I was nothing there. They made sure I knew I was nothing. Less than nothing. But they…they never took my soul, however shattered it was.

I told myself once: if I ever got out, no one would ever have that power again. And yet…

Raphael didn’t take my soul.

Jude didn’t take my broken heart.

Vincent didn’t take my fight.

Rory didn’t take my fire.

Seth didn’t take my shadows.

In that dungeon in the mine, they didn’t see a broken girl in chains. They wanted me to survive. And after…

Raphael gave me choices. He gave me his strength.

Jude caught me when I splintered and held me when my heart couldn’t stop shaking.

Vincent treated me like something worth protecting, something worth fighting for.

Seth wanted to join me in the shadows.

Even Rory never stripped me down to nothing like his animals. Just the opposite. He loved seeing me burn and scream and claw. He wanted me alive and roaring.

They all gave me time to heal, to play, to grow. What would come next?

Maybe I did belong to them.

But for the first time…it felt like maybe they could belong to me.

At Easthaven, no one belonged to me. I was just a number, a thing to be used and forgotten.

I drop to my knees in the mud and rocks, rain soaking my face, crying for me, weeping for me because the pain is too great for me to push the tears out. Lightning flashes again.

I swear I can feel their hands. Not hurting. Not holding me down.

Holding me up.

And it makes it worse. Because it means I left something real behind.

And god, how do you crawl back after that? How do you live under the weight of what you lost when you were the one who walked away? When you were the one who ran?

I can hear Seth’s laughter in the greenhouse as he let me grow.

Jude’s voice surrounding me in the shower, holding my brokenness.

Vincent’s body language when I’d call him Vinny—how we could see past the surface of each other.

Rory calling me ‘Lass’ in his brogue and throwing flour on me in the kitchen, feeding me from his hand.

Raphael…

He barely fucking touched me, except for those predatory eyes hunting me. But never…never…catching me.

The most he gave me was this mother fucking goddamn hat!

Tearing off my gloves, I get back up, tug them off, and throw them away, clinging to the weight of my own worthlessness like an anchor. I have to hold onto the hell I’m forging for myself.

Maybe it’s all I deserve. They’re not here. They’re not coming. I’m not worth fighting a storm.

So, I scramble up the rocks, my fingers slick with mud and rain, the cold biting until I can barely feel my hands anymore. I almost rip off the newsies cap, but if I let it go, then it never happened.

Except for your scars. And the brand.

So, why do I give a fuck about the cap?

A crack of thunder tears the sky apart—but I still hear it.

“Briella!”

That voice.

His voice.

He roars my name like it belongs to him. Like it’s something he’s come to claim.

Slowly, I turn, heart hammering in my throat, wondering if I’m hallucinating—and there they are.

All FIVE of them.

I peel back the soaked strands clinging to my cheeks, my lips parting in awe.

The storm turns them into shadows, but even through the veil of rain, I see it.

The way the four of them flank Raphael, two on each side, moving in that V-formation just like they did that night. The night everything changed.

They’re wearing the skull masks. Hollow-eyed death masks.

And in the middle—Raphael. The only black mask.

Bow strung. Arrow aimed. At me.

And for a split second, my stomach turns to ice. Oh, god.

This is what he planned. This is why he let me run.

To hunt. To kill.

To destroy.

His eyes lock with mine—glinting under the mask—and in them I feel his black hell, cold and sharp, slicing through my chest like a blade, seeking my heart to devour.

I freeze, every instinct in my body screaming to move, but paralyzed in his gaze. For the second time, I stare into the abyss of the high god of hell.

“Stop,” he snarls, the sound carrying clean through the wind.

But I don’t. I can’t.

Turning and bolting, I claw and claw at the slope, mud and sharp rock shredding my palms with only one word hammering my head, my heart, my soul.

Run. Run. Run.

Something hisses past me, and a sudden, hot line burns across my upper arm. The arrow grazed me. His arrow.

“God—!” I screech through gritted teeth, gripping the torn flesh streaming blood. It’s like someone took a searing knife and dragged it across my skin.

“STOP.”

Another order. Another warning. Another chance?

How far will he go? He sees me turning my back and flipping him off. He’ll give up. Because I’m as worthless as this fucking hat, right? Ruined, rain-soaked, nothing but stubbornness and bad choices.

So, why can’t I take it off? Why can’t I give it up?

I scramble higher, muscles shaking, breath ragged, skin soaked and raw.

Another sharp hiss—and this time it hits.

White-hot agony explodes in my leg! My mouth opens in a silent scream.

A clean, brutal punch of pain, the arrow tearing through the outer muscle of my calf. Not a nick. Not a graze.

It pierces clean through me.

It feels like a red-hot rod shoved through flesh, heat bursting and then ice rushing in after it. The impact takes my leg out from under me.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I cry out, hoarse and torn, collapsing onto my hands and knees as the pain radiates like wildfire.