Chapter 33 #2
“Cap’n,” he greeted as we approached. “Dahlia. I trust you’re feeling better?”
“Debatable,” I said.
“Should I fix you somethin’ to eat?”
“I would like that, thank you,” I said, realizing that my stomach was feeling very hollow. I hadn’t had a real meal in days.
Boil stood, brushing his hair off his scarred face. I enjoyed that he didn’t care to hide his less desirable features. He wore the remnants of his past without complaint like I wore the remnants of mine.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Vidar gave him a pat on the shoulder as he walked away.
Inside the cage, Lyla was motionless. I wasn’t sure that she had even blinked.
Vidar and I stood over her, waiting for some kind of indication that she was even breathing, but she looked even less conscious than she had before.
I lowered myself in front of her, hoping she’d at least acknowledge me.
“She can sleep with her eyes open,” Vidar pointed out.
At his suggestion, Lyla’s smoke-gray eyes turned up toward him, veiled in the shadows of her brows.
“Lyla,” I said, drawing her glare. “Will you talk to me?”
“For what purpose?” she whispered flatly. “To help you? What reason do I have to help you?”
“What reason do you have to help him?”
“There was never a reason, Dahlia. It simply was.”
“Yes, because he claimed you long ago. I know how he toyed with your thoughts.”
“You know nothing. A mere stroll in the darkness does not mean you know its secrets.”
“No, but you do. I severed your bond with—”
“You only made him angry,” she snarled. “You think you severed his connection to us? You’ve severed nothing. You cannot tell me you don’t feel him still. He’ll be a part of us forever like a scar you cannot erase.”
“I do feel him, but its mere remnants. And I know you understand that.”
She shifted against her tight binds, jaw tensing as if to bite back her words. Her gaze wandered into the trees, staring at nothing again.
“I understand nothing,” she murmured. “I have nothing. No thoughts. No dreams. Nothing.”
“You don’t hear what you’re saying? Without him, you don’t even know yourself. Your desires. Your needs or your wishes. Does that not bother you?”
“I have no desires.”
“But you could. Lyla, you said you hoped. In our dreams, you told me that, do you remember?”
“Do not try your games on me.”
“You hoped you would be pulled from the darkness.”
“I hope for nothing.”
“But you could! Because he does not hold the keys to your fate anymore.”
“Quiet yourself.”
“You could help us destroy him. Destroy everything he’s built.”
“Shut up!” She lunged toward the bars, baring her teeth and shaking the entire heavy iron cage with the force of her body when she slammed against the side.
“You think there is a chance for you and your beloved hunter? You have not felt him wholly. You have not felt his power. The way he can split a mind and control anything he likes. That any of you think you can fight him is proof that he enjoys the game. Otherwise, this would all be done already. He is laughing in his solitude, certain we will return to his prison soon because we will, sister. Because we have no choice.”
She lingered close to the bars, staring into my eyes. I was so near to her that I could see tiny, brown freckles in her irises that set her apart from me.
“That is what makes us so different,” I whispered. “You are prepared to give up at every turn. No wonder he grew bored of you.”
I stood, turning my back on Lyla. Vidar had his hand resting on Lady Mary’s hilt, his fingers flexing around it like he’d been ready to draw his blade since we arrived.
I began to walk, the anger and frustration following my failure with Lyla.
I wasn’t sure I would ever get answers from her and it made me question why I asked Aleksi to bring her back or why I let her live in the first place.
Perhaps I was the weak one. Too weak to let go.
“If you think yourself strong enough,” she said. “Then go back.”
I spun back around, furrowing my brows. “Back where?”
“Is this what it’s like to be human? You have the answers and you ignore them? Just as your hunter knew he had to kill you, and he let you rot in that hellscape instead.”
I tilted my head at her, ignoring her feeble attempt to turn my attention on Vidar. When the answer came, it was not surprising to me. But it was in no way an easy solution to anything nor was it a comforting one.
“Theloch,” I whispered.
Finally, that smile settled back on Lyla’s lips as if it had been waiting for a door to open, but it was only half of what it used to be, drained of the energy she needed to taunt me properly. She was tired. Unmotivated. I wasn’t sure who that helped or if it helped anyone.
I turned to Vidar to see him already looking at me rather than the enraged Lyla as if he was waiting for a command.
“What is Theloch?” he said.
“It’s where I was born. And perhaps where we’ll find what we’re looking for.”
“You know where it is?”
“Yes.”
He stole a quick glance at Lyla with a sigh. “If you wish her to live, she cannot be able to use her voice against us. I won’t have something so temporary as a gag to silence her.”
“I know.”
“Stop your whispering,” Lyla teased, mimicking our tone.
“I have no attachment to my tongue, but I will not make it easy.” She nudged herself closer to the bars, resting her forehead against the metal.
She gave us a hard stare and then shifted her gaze further into the clearing. “Unless he does it.”
In unison, we followed her gaze to find Cathal standing next to one of the campfires carving into an overripe apple with a sturdy knife.
He ceased chewing when he caught us looking at him and quickly, his brows raised, the realization flowing over him like a splash of cold water.
He swallowed, clearing his throat as he shifted his weight to one leg.
“Am I missing something?” I asked.
“Only that he cut off her finger when we were questioning her on how to wake you,” Vidar said.
“What game is this, Lyla?” I asked.
“My game,” she admitted. “I will fight every single one of you and I will succeed in hurting someone, but for him? I will be a good little siren.”
I found myself looking back and forth between Lyla and Cathal, trying to figure out what reason she would have for focusing her attention on him.
I barely knew him, but it certainly seemed that she had her sights set on the man.
For what, I didn’t know, but I could only assume it was a ploy of some kind if he truly had taken a finger.
Sirens were vengeful. I knew that better than anyone.
Finally, I settled my gaze on Cathal and stared, waiting for him to answer the question that every single person in that camp was silently asking.
He moved his attention from me to Lyla a dozen times before he finally shrugged his shoulders, letting out a deep sigh as he passed his half-eaten apple off to someone standing nearby.
He wiped his knife haphazardly on his shirt as he strolled toward us.
Mullins and Vidar moved toward the cage and pulled Lyla out and onto her feet.
She stumbled a bit, betraying the fact that she hadn’t properly used her legs in days.
She was shoved before Cathal, who was still casually chewing on his last bite of fruit.
I watched as she stared up at him, unyielding.
Cathal, a big man who was very clearly no stranger to violence, stared right back, tilting his head to one side with disturbed intrigue.
Lyla then lowered herself to her knees before him, her eyes still locked on him and a hint of a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.
“Go on, then,” she said. “After this, you’ll have taken more pieces of me than Akareth has.”
Cathal let out a ragged breath, flipping his knife skillfully in his hand.
Vidar and Mullins continued to restrain her, but she showed no intention of trying to escape.
In fact, as Cathal inched forward, she opened her mouth invitingly, stretching her tongue outward and holding his gaze like it was a dare.
Across from me, Aeris stood with Nazario. Before any cutting started, she lowered her head, quietly shifting behind some of the men as if trying to hide from the violence that didn’t seem to bother anyone else.
Cathal gripped Lyla’s jaw, tilting her head back as he raised his knife.
She did not let her eyes stray as he focused on the task.
It was almost predatory. When Cathal began to cut, the only indication that she felt anything at all was a slight and almost unnoticeable wince in her eyes and the way she flexed her hands behind her. Otherwise, she was silent.
In two swift swipes of the blade, Cathal pulled Lyla’s tongue away, letting out a breath as if he’d been holding it to do the job.
He stepped back, tossing the small mass of flesh into a fire.
The sound of the sizzle filled the clearing as Lyla hunched, letting the blood drain from her mouth and onto the ground in front of her.
Acting on impulse, I moved to her front and crouched, lifting her face in my hands.
Her chin glistened dark red, the blood painting the front of her neck and chest.
I wanted to say I was sorry, though I didn’t know what for. Lyla had done nothing but monstrous things since we met. Now, when we did something monstrous in return, she only had smiles to give.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered anyways.
She chuckled, choking lightly on her own blood as Vidar and Mullins dragged her back to her prison. Once secured inside, I stood, facing Cathal as he cleaned the blood off his blade with the length of a sash that was wrapped around his waist.
“She’s going to kill me when this is all through, isn’t she?” he said.
I nodded. “If she’s anything like me, then she’s already planned a hundred creative ways to do it.”
“Is she like you?”
“Worse, I’d wager.”
“Oh! What wonderful news. I’m not regretting coming on this journey at all. Fuckin’ hell.” He started to walk backwards away from me, pointing his knife. “I wouldn’t have taunted her so much if I didn’t think we were killin’ her in the end. Christ,” he laughed.
Cathal’s tone was casual, but the words were anything but.
Lyla likely was plotting a gory revenge, but no one was safe from danger either way.
Perhaps Cathal had just been blessed with the possibility of a swift end.
It was more than the rest of us would be afforded if things were to take a turn for the worse.
Or maybe she was fonder of playing with her food, in which case, Cathal was doomed. In the end, none of it mattered.