Chapter Eight
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Henri
CARNAGE AND BLOOD.
Blood and death.
Nothing else existed.
Just darkness and dying and the despicable need to slaughter.
To eradicate this world of filth.
To end all life that didn’t deserve to live.
To end myself.
I lost count how many times I killed him.
How many times I drove that blade into his flesh.
It became meditative.
Calming.
Freeing.
This was what I was.
Death.
And alone.
Always, always alone.
I would’ve kept stabbing if a voice didn’t call me back.
A voice I recognised but wasn’t the one that leashed me.
A voice that caused jealousy and annoyance and worry.
Such worry that I would never be worthy.
Such fear that I would always lose.
“Master H…”
A man’s baritone.
I ignored him.
I drove the knife into another gristly part.
“Henri.”
I shook my head from the unwanted noise.
“Henri!”
I paused.
The smog slowly lifted.
I blinked.
“Henri…”
I gulped at that one.
Feminine, soft, afraid.
Ily.
The world slipped back into focus.
I gagged on the mess I’d caused.
Shoving away from Kyle’s corpse, I shot to my feet and glowered at the knife in my hands. My fingers thick with another’s blood.
Such thick, cooling, congealing blood.
“Put the knife down, Henri.”
That voice again.
Giving me orders when he had no right to do so.
“Put the knife down so you don’t hurt her.”
Ily’s hand landed gently on my shaking forearm.
My head snapped up.
I looked past her to Peter.
He sat upright in a thicket of tussock. Bloody hands on his thighs, pain carved deep into his face. “Please, please don’t hurt her.”
“Henri…you’re okay. It’s over.” Ily reached for the knife. “Can I have this?”
My fingers tensed but then relaxed.
Opening my hand, I presented it to her on my red-dripping palm.
But I didn’t speak.
I didn’t think I would ever speak again.
Animals weren’t allowed the gift of words.
And only an animal could’ve done what I did.
“We need to get rid of the body,” Rachel said, cutting through the buzzing in my brain.
“Tie a few rocks to it and toss it into the ocean,” Peter muttered, faint and swaying. “The tide will drag it out to sea. That’s how Victor gets rid of all his other…” He faded off, swallowing hard.
With a soft gasp, he fell backward.
Ily and the two girls dashed toward him.
I followed silently, almost as if a tether lashed Ily and me together, binding me to her even now.
I was her animal.
Her nightmare.
Towering over Peter, I let the girls stroke his pallid cheeks and mutter worriedly to one another. Things like how they’d get him back to the castle. And how much he needed Dr Belford.
In the middle of their whispered debate, his eyes popped open again.
They locked on me.
And he smiled as if he saw an angel instead of a devil looming over him. “I see what she does now.” Almost dreamy and completely high on agony, he smiled. “You did come for us. You’re going to free us. I know it—”
And then, he passed out.