Chapter Thirty-Eight Violet #2
I leaned closer, twisting the knife. His eyes bulged, his body convulsing as if his soul itself resisted leaving. When his hands came up, it wasn’t to push me away—it was to keep the knife buried deep, to hold me there like part of the ritual.
I twisted harder, deeper, until his gurgled breath turned wet and final, a choking rattle filling the barn. His knees buckled, his body collapsing backward as the knife slid free, still in my hand, his blood running warm and thick down my wrist.
He lay staring up at me, sputtering, red froth spraying from his mouth as his chest pumped sluggishly. Blood pooled across his robe, spilling into the carved grooves of the altar where so many had bled before. The iron stench swelled until it was everything I tasted, smelled . . . thought.
Before death claimed him, Marcus let his mouth stretch into a blood-foamed grin. “You . . . still . . . served . . .”
I had killed him. After years of running, after nights haunted by his voice, I had ended Marcus with my own hands.
The barn seemed to exhale. The disciples stood still, as if in a trance, as if this moment was as shocking as it truly was.
In unison, they all closed their eyes and looked down, hands clasped behind their backs. Sound to my side had me looking to where Grayson was lifting himself off the ground. We stared at each other for a moment before he grabbed me, his iron grip around my wrist.
“We have to go—now,” he rasped, urgency and desperation bleeding through his voice. Blood flowed steadily from his nose and mouth, but he didn’t seem to care.
I wanted to wrench away. The betrayal was too fresh, too raw.
But before I could move, one disciple broke from the line, seizing a taper and pressing it to the straw piled high against the wall. Flames licked greedily upward, smoke curling into the rafters. Others followed, chanting as they orchestrated their own end.
And still they stood there—disciples swaying, chanting, letting their own hell burn down around them.
“They’ll burn with him,” Grayson rasped, yanking me toward the door. “That was his last command.”
We fought through the crush of bodies, smoke clawing its way down my throat. The air was thick with fire and madness. They pressed against us, hands grasping, stroking, trying to hold us in, as if dying in the flames was their salvation.
I screamed, kicked, clawed, nails raking flesh. Grayson tore through them, shoving, striking, coughing so hard his body shuddered.
“Go,” he choked, pushing me forward. “I’ll hold them back.”
“Grayson—”
“Move!” His shout was raw, and something more than pain shredded his voice.
I burst through the doorway, and the night slammed into me like a wall. Cold air collided with smoke-scarred lungs. My body hit the dirt, trembling, heaving, retching bile and ash into the ground.
Behind me, the barn roared alive, greedy flames devouring dry wood like it had been waiting centuries for this feast. Screams rose inside, shrill, rapturous, and agonized. The disciples didn’t flee. They burned alive as the rafters collapsed, their worship ending in fire.
I staggered back, horror tightening every part of me as the inferno climbed higher. Movement at the corner of my vision froze me. Grayson.
He staggered out of the smoke, shirt torn, soot streaking his face. His eyes—bloodshot and hollow, as if something vital had already burned out of him. He took several steps, then dropped to one knee in the dirt, hand braced to keep him upright.
That was when I saw it. His hand clamped against his ribs, fingers sticky, blood spilling steadily and dark between them. It was too much, too fast. My heart stopped.
“Grayson . . .” My voice was a rasp, broken and useless.
He coughed, crimson slicking his lips, but when his eyes found mine, there was nothing left to hide behind—no mask, no lies, just the raw, stripped-bare truth of him.
“Marcus . . .” His voice rasped like broken glass. “Before he fell, he—he got me. Buried a knife in my ribs. I didn’t want you to see it. Not in there. Not when you needed to get out.” His chest shuddered as he dragged in air heavy with smoke. “I wanted you to focus on surviving . . . not on me.”
The fire blurred into a smear of orange behind him as my vision filled with tears. I crawled to him on trembling knees, clutching his face in my hands, his skin hot beneath my palms. Love and devastation lived in the same breath within me, splitting me open from the inside.
My heart hurt as if it had been cut in half and flayed open.
“You lied to me,” I whispered, my voice breaking on every edge.
“Again and again. You put me in his hands. You knew what he wanted.” My throat closed, the words shredding out of me.
“And still you . . .” The last syllable splintered and died, collapsing under the weight of everything I’d lost.
“I know.” His eyes shut, and his expression was like someone was being crushed from the inside out.
Smoke curled around us, but his confession burned hotter.
“I was born into their poison. Raised on it. We both were. I was brainwashed to believe my only purpose was to deliver you—that we were bonded, that I was made to bring the Vessel home. Marcus told me it was destiny.”
He coughed, dark blood spraying across his chin, but still stayed upright, arm trembling from the effort.
“At first I didn’t even see it as betrayal.
It was just . . . my role. My reason for existing.
But every moment with you chipped away at that, reshaped me.
It made me see the truth, something Marcus could never twist into prophecy.
And still every step I took dragged you closer to him.
” His voice was painful, like an open wound bleeding.
“And yet—I fell in love with you. I couldn’t give you up.
I couldn’t let them hurt you. I made you a promise when we were two scared kids standing in those woods, watching hell open up. ”
Tears streaked down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away, hot tracks cutting through ash and blood.
His gaze clung to mine, fevered, wrecked, pleading without ever daring to ask forgiveness.
“But in the end . . .” His voice fell to a rasp, nearly devoured by the fire.
“I betrayed the only thing I swore to protect. I never stopped loving you, Violet. Every lie stripped another piece of you from me. If I could take it back—if I could burn alive in there just to spare you one scar—I would.”
My chest broke wide, pain tearing through me, because even as I held him, I knew he wasn’t walking away. I shook my head, words breaking on ash and grief. “You don’t get to say that now. Not when it’s too late.”
“I know.” His breath hitched, shallow, faltering. “But I need you to hear it once. Not for me—for you. Hate me forever. I earned it.”
Behind us, the barn roared as the roof caved, sparks exploding into the night sky. Firelight slashed across his face, painting him in a haunting way.
I bent down until my forehead pressed to his, hands cradling the jaw that once kissed me with promises I foolishly believed. My tears streaked through soot and mingled with his blood.
“I can’t forgive you,” I whispered, the truth ripping free like a wound torn open. “Not for everything. But I don’t want you to die thinking I never loved you.”
His eyes slid closed, peace stealing across his features for the first time since this nightmare began. His lips brushed mine in the faintest ghost of a kiss, weak and fleeting, yet it broke me all the same.
“That’s enough,” he breathed.
Grayson sagged heavier in my arms, his blood soaking my palms, the flames behind us shrieking as the disciples burned to silence.
The night blazed like dawn itself, but still I clung to him, my heart torn between love and hate.