8. Ostara
Ostara
A ll of my life I have been subjected to the darkest parts of the world.
I remember when I was only six years old, my father beheading a man on our dining room table.
Zoe was two. She had red splatter across her chin and bib, and she smeared it all through her white-blonde hair with chubby fingers, giggling as she did.
Our mother was still here then, and I remember hearing Amelia telling Naomi that night that the man was someone Mother was having an affair with.
When I was ten, I killed a girl.
She was a few years older than me, a friend of Naomi’s.
The girl would constantly pull my hair, yanking on it, making my scalp sore, my neck ache.
So I put crushed peanuts in a chocolate milkshake, offered it up to her with a striped paper straw and watched her suck them up.
She was highly allergic and went into anaphylaxis.
I left her fitting on the ground behind the brambles at the rear of the garden.
They found her the following day, stiff and very dead.
When my father asked me about it, I said nothing and stared at him, unblinking, unbothered. He smiled, patted me on the head and told me what a clever girl I was, rewarded me with a lollipop and sent me out to play with Zoe.
As I got older, he had me do more, always poisons, toxins, druggings.
I never got my hands dirty, I never had to bludgeon anybody, never had to learn martial arts or self-defence, not like my sisters did.
But I liked it, the killing, watching the different concoctions rush through a body, fizzing and frothing and popping.
I went too far, killing his favourite chef, just because I wanted to.
Colin Stone told me that day, when I was fourteen years old that I was sick.
‘You’re a sick, sick girl, Ostara, you’re not beyond my control, little girl, and it’s about time I taught you that lesson.’
That was when I was locked up. I didn’t see the sun again until I turned eighteen years old and I was sent to Blackgrave Academy. That night, wandering through the woods my family and the Carnells were at war over, I met Caelus.
And even though it was night, the moon a silver sliver in the sky, stars hiding behind black rain clouds, I saw the sun.
In him.
And now I’m here, naked, strapped to the same metal table I’ve been laid on too many times to count, leather straps locked over my throat, forehead, chest, waist, wrists. Feet spread, knees bent, ankles bound, I am completely and utterly defeated.
“This won’t take long, Miss Stone,” Doctor Butler coos mockingly from between my legs, sending a shiver down my spine.
Goosebumps prick my skin, my nipples peaked from the icy chill of the room. I can hardly keep my eyes open. The thought of Cal being killed, only feet from me, in an explosion set by my father makes me want to die too.
He’s the only one to ever see me, to love me.
He promised he would love me for eternity, in this life and the next, they weren’t the vows he was asked to recite when he took me, only hours ago, as his wife, so I know he meant them.
Caelus Carnell loved me.
And after this, when the last little piece of him is taken from this earth, I will kill myself to be with him. Them .
Tears track down my face as I feel Doctor Butler running his fingers down the length of my thigh, his gloved hand cold and overly friendly when he reaches my sex.
My fingers curl into fists at my sides, my teeth gnashing before I bite into my lip, sucking the blood from the broken flesh and swallowing it down.
A sob hitches my chest, and I’ve spent years ensuring I never cry in front of this man, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
My entire body trembles, despite being tied down, the straps can’t hold back a bone deep quiver.
Pain lances through my chest, my heart squeezing as I choke on my tears.
I fought for so long to get my freedom, doing things I never wanted to do, following orders whilst trying desperately to hang onto my autonomy.
It’s all gone now.
The fight leaves me quicker than it should, the pain inside my heart echoing in my head, a thumping in my temples as I strain the tendons in my neck with my cries.
I thought I was strong, I thought after everything, I could navigate the world and find my place in it.
But I can’t do that now, not without Caelus.
Sucking in a sharp breath as something enters me, I go still. Frozen on the table, my eyes ping open, and I stare up into the bright white light overhead. The low humming buzz of the strip bulb is like a screech in my ears. There’s pinching, in my tummy, and-
The door ricochets off the wall as it smashes open, my eyes darting to the left to try and see who, but through my blurred vision I only see a dark shadow rushing across the space and tackling the doctor off of his stool.
Doctor Butler grunts, the thing that was inside of me falling away with his touch, and it’s like I can breathe. As though my head is pushing up above the rough waves of the sea, and I’m breaking through the surface of the water, inhaling my first real breath since I went under.
There are grunts and groans and fists on flesh, the doctor screams, and then he gurgles into silence. The seconds after that are long, and I hold my newfound breath to wait.
Is this all inside my head?
“Ozzie!” My feet slip off of the stirrups, my legs freed. Buckles clang and straps fall away and I’m hauled up into strong, lean arms. “ Ozzie ,” Cal breathes into my hair, his arms tucking me up into his chest, my toes just brushing the floor.
“I thought you were dead,” I sob, tears soaking into his t-shirt, my fingers clawing into his back.
“I thought he killed you,” tears stream down my face, my sobs choking.
Pressing my mouth to the bare skin of his neck, I inhale him, the dark, masculine scent of him, woody and deep calming my trembles.
“We need to leave, we need to get out of here.”
Caelus places me on my feet, my entire body wracked with tremors. My teeth chatter, clanging together and I can’t get them to stop. Then he slips his t-shirt over his head, exposing all of his tight, toned muscles, obscuring my view of him as he pulls the smoke scented fabric over my own head.
That’s when I finally get a chance to look at him and gasp, “Cal,” I breathe, reaching up my shaky fingers to the cut in his temple.
There’s blood drying down the side of his face, black smears all over his face and arms. I swallow dryly, threading my other arm through the short sleeve of Cal’s t-shirt as he drags it down to my thighs.
“What did he do to you?” my lips quiver and my chin wobbles, and everything feels like it’s too heavy to move through, sludge filling my brain cavity.
“It doesn’t matter, everyone’s fine. Are you okay, Little Ghost?” he asks, frowning.
Smoothing his hands over my head, pushing back my hair, cradling my face in his big hands as my fingers move to his bare chest, my palm sliding over his heart so I can feel it beat for myself.
I nod, drawing in a shuddery breath, as I count the steady thuds.
“Words,” he whispers. Commanding, “are you okay, Ozzie?”
“I’m pregnant,” is what slips out instead, Cal’s fingers stilling on my cheeks.
Panic fills me once more as I feel his heartbeat kick up, hammering now, kicking against my palm like it’s trying to break free.
“I didn’t know,” I confess honestly, worry filling me “It’s not that I tried to keep it from y-”
Caelus’ kiss startles me, his grip on my face knocks my head back and his mouth covers mine with violence.
Cal kisses me so hard my teeth ache, and I don't know whether he’s trying to make love to my mouth or destroy me.
He dominates the kiss in a way that I can only kiss him back when he allows it, my tongue sneaking into his mouth to lick over his own.
His lips maul mine, sucking and biting, and then he draws back so suddenly, leaving us both gasping, he presses his forehead to mine.
“Is it terrible of me to say I’m so happy?” he breathes over my lips, feeding me his words. “But, fuck, Ozzie, I’m so happy.”
Fresh tears lick my cheeks, and he’s smoothing them away with his thumbs, pressing the wetness into my hair.
“You are?” I ask.
My eyes flick between his own, vision blurred at our closeness but I can still see the beautiful colour of them, rich hazel freckled with deep emerald green. Mesmerising.
“I am,” he laughs, this choked, happy sound that fills my chest with warmth.
“I know it’s not ideal, right now, but, Ozzie , Little Ghost, fuck, I’m the luckiest man in the world right now.
” He smiles down at me, nuzzling our foreheads and I feel myself smiling too.
“You’re beautiful, Ostara Carnell,” he breathes, smiling wider and staring at my mouth, “but you’re even more beautiful when you do that. ”
Pain explodes in the back of my head and I’m wrenched back, my feet slipping on the tiles as I’m yanked by my hair back into my father’s chest.
“Get your hands off my fucking wife!” Cal shouts, lunging forward, but pulling back so sharply, he almost slips.
“Nah, ah, ah,” Colin Stone hums, tutting at my husband, and yanking my hair tighter, my skin pulling so taut on my face that my eyes water, but I kick my legs, claw his skin, and then cool metal digs into my temple, and I instantly stop struggling.
“You break into my house, touch my daughter, and suddenly think I’ll take orders from you?
” I can’t see my father but I can imagine his expression, an eyebrow raised, a cocky smirk on his thin lips, a pudgy cheek dimpled.
“Seems you don’t realise just how in over your head you are, boy . ”
“She is not yours, not anymore, old man, let her go, and give her to me,” my husband sounds terrifying as he makes the demand, cold and calm and powerful.
A shiver rips its way up my spine so violently it makes my breath catch.
“Didn’t you hear me, you Carnell cunt, get the fuck out of my house!” my father bellows, jamming the gun harder into my skull, making me whimper, my toes barely grazing the floor where he yanks me up higher by my hair.
“Oh,” Cal chuckles, tucking his hands casually into his pockets, “I heard you.”
His rich eyes flick over Colin’s shoulder before settling on mine, and then my knees are hitting the floor, the gun is going off, forcing a terrified scream to tear from my throat.
Cal’s hands are on my waist, his fingers digging into my ribs, hauling me towards him away from the open door my father was standing in at my back.
Cal drags me back towards the metal table I was lying on, both of us on the floor to witness my father drop to his knees, the gun clattering to the floor as his fingers just sort of give up gripping it.
Blood blooms in the centre of his forehead suddenly, it appears like a fast dribble at first, this deep, rich red trickling down the length of his nose.
And then it starts to run in rivulets down his face, over his open eyes, parted lips.
He gasps, this sharp, ugly, wheezing sound, and falls forward, face first, his arms not going out to attempt to save himself.
His face smashes into the tiles at my feet, blood pooling in a puddle around him as I stare at the perfect, round hole in the crown of his skull.
Zoe stands in the open doorway, her chest heaving, eyes downcast on our dead father. There’s a silver gun in her hand, one I’ve seen her use many times before, something she never leaves the house without.
“You can be free now,” she says quietly, calmly, even as her entire body trembles, she speaks softly, like she always does. “ We can be free now.”