Chapter 21 - Azrael
Azrael
Tick tock tick tock tiCK TOCK.
I snarled, feeling her cling to me as I sprinted through the woods. They were just flesh wounds.
They were just flesh wounds.
My Scarlett was not dying. Not today. I wouldn’t allow it.
“Azrael?” I heard Olivia call the second I broke through the trees.
“Havoc,” I sang, my voice sounding cracked and not my own.
He ran up the stairs with me, rushing forward, hitting the button on the elevator, his phone already in hand.
“Azrael,” Poppy said, joining my side. “What happened? Where is the blood coming from.”
“Just a flesh wound, just a flesh wound, just a flesh wound,” I chanted in a sing-song voice.
The elevator doors opened, Havoc spitting out a slew of words as all three of us stepped in.
Havoc pushed the second floor button and hung up. “He’ll be ready when we get there.”
“Azrael,” Poppy tried, reaching for Scarlett.
I snarled, jerking her into me, her body flopping. “Don’t touch her, Poppy. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Her eyes only filled with worry and slight fear, her lips parting.
“You said my name,” she breathed out, glancing to Scarlett and back.
“Why are you…” She shook her head, her eyes hardening.
“Don’t say my name. Don’t. You’re Azrael, you’re not allowed to be fucking scared, do you hear me?
She’s fine, look at her,” she snapped. “It’s not pouring from her, it’s slowed.
She’s not bleeding out. Get it together, you fucking asshole. ”
My grip only tightened around Scar, my heart pounding in my throat.
The world was spinning, and I couldn’t stop it.
I felt like I was back in that fucking asylum.
Snow and walls surrounding me. The sound of a clock, the sound of a whip, Lady Elise laughing when she forced me to kill those animals, those kids. Laughing and laughing and laughing.
I could still hear the cries of the cub, screaming for its mother. The dying, strangled calls of the fox and the hound, the wind ripping through the ever steady, unmovable mountains.
I could see the crimson red blood pouring over the gray steps as I held onto that cub, apologizing. Apologizing. I could feel it’s soft fur, hear it’s soft, playful voice.
The ding of the elevator ripped me from my thoughts and I started running. Sprinting down the hall to the doctor’s door.
I walked in and placed her on the table. “Fix her,” I demanded, feeling her blood soaking my sleeves, my jacket. “Fix her,” I roared as the doctor started working.
I walked over to his table and grabbed the disinfectant, pouring it on her leg as he worked on her arm. “Havoc,” I said, setting the bottle to the side and grabbing my supplies. “I saw fresh blood on her face too.”
He appeared at my side, and the next hour was a blur.
All three of us cleaning, disinfecting, stitching, and wrapping her wounds.
Cutting off her clothes and washing her, scrubbing off the dried blood from our fucking early this morning and the fresh blood from today to make sure there weren’t any other wounds that we weren’t seeing. That I had missed.
I thought it was the blood of one of the boys. I thought the fresh blood was theirs, not hers.
Not hers.
A mistake.
I had made a mistake.
I never made mistakes. I was always sure. Always. I spent years at that church to be sure. I kept my family in the dark to be sure. I manipulated and lied and calculated to fucking be sure, and I still hurt my family. I still hurt them.
I still hurt them.
I still hurt them.
I still hurt them.
I still hurt them!
I spun around and stormed back towards the elevator.
“Azrael!” I heard Poppy shout after me.
I ignored her and headed for the basement, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, my mind racing with disjointed laughter mixed with rhymes that didn’t make sense.
She did this.
She did this!
She made me lose control. She made me lose focus. It was her fault. Her fault.
Olivia’s voice drifted down the hall as the grunts of the people we had found met my ears.
Seven in total. A holy number. They were fucking mocking me, I could feel it. They were mocking us.
“Azrael,” Olivia stated firmly the moment I walked into the room.
Carl was already hanging from the shackles, primed and ready for me.
“No,” he tried scrambling back. “Wait, please!”
I grabbed his throat and slammed my fist into his face.
He coughed, blood pouring from his nose. “Please,” he tried again. “Stop.”
I laughed and grabbed a pair of pliers from the table on the wall to my right before returning to him.
“You know about the ritual,” I told him, grabbing his jaw and forcing his mouth open.
“You know where I lived. You know my name.” I grabbed one of his front teeth and found his eyes, his strangled cries filling the room, mixing with the whimpers and groans of the others they had captured for questioning.
“You threatened to rape my wife and then you fucking shot her. I don’t care about your name, I’m going to kill you anyway, what I want is very simple; who sent you?
Give me a naaaaammme,” I sang, tugging on the tooth slightly.
He was sobbing, blood and drool sliding over his chin. “Please,” he tried to say. “She’ll kill my kids.”
I tilted my head to one side. “I. Don’t. Care,” I hummed and ripped his tooth out.
He screamed, jerking on the shackles, tearing at his wrists and I grabbed his jaw again and clamped the pliers around another tooth.
Olivia appeared behind him, finding my eyes, her own flaming. “Is my sister dead?”
I glanced to her and back and yanked another tooth out. “No,” I said as his screams filled the air. She wasn’t allowed to die. Ever. Not without me. She was mine to control. Body, mind, and heart. That includes when and how it stops.
She visibly relaxed a hair, but her eyes only hardened more. “They’re Initiates, Azrael,” she told me, but I had already guessed as much. “The one Bishop killed tried to bargain for his life, telling me that we were the same. Bishop made it hurt.”
I turned my attention back to Carl. “I thought you hunted down all the possible rogues.”
“It was never a foolproof plan. We all knew that. We knew the risks,” she explained. “We start hunting them down, no matter how silent we are, how thorough, the word spreads.”
I slid the pliers around another tooth, his sobbing turning to whimpering pleas. “A name.”
He tried to shake his head, and I yanked out another tooth, dropping it on the ground. “Okay!” he screamed, his remaining teeth dyed red. “Okay, it was Marla. Fuck, it was Marla Alascer.”
My eyes narrowed. “Pull out a tooth every three seconds until I get back,” I ordered her, handing her the pliers.
Without looking back, I headed out the door and down the hall for Marla’s room.
She was whimpering, a sound I was used to, not reacting at all when I unchained her and started dragging her by her shackles down the hall to the room the Initiates were in.
I tossed her to the floor in front of them, seeing that Olivia had taken advantage of those pliers.
“Marla ordered you?” I asked, stepping up to him. “Do you want to rethink what you just said or should we pump you full of adrenaline and gut you right now?”
His eyes were wide. “I swear she ordered it. I fucking swear.”
My smile was so wide, it was painful. “Alaric, get the P.I.P. let’s see how long he lasts feeling everything.”
“Feeling what?” he breathed out. “What does that mean?”
“Ask her, although I’m sure her experience was much different.”
Carl’s eyes shifted to Olivia who smiled, only accentuating the carved smile across her cheeks.
“It’s all about the right mindset,” she hummed, walking around him, around me, and coming to a stop on my right side.
“If you remain calm and…optimistic,” she decided, “then perhaps when we tear your fingernails off and start removing limbs, you may crave more.”
He was trembling, his eyes shifting back to mine, absolutely terrified. “I don’t know who that woman is, you have to believe me.”
I hated when they said that. I had to believe them, as if those words held any power over me. “That is Marla Alascer, Carl. Trust me, I do my research.”
“P-pull out my phone. The n-number is in there. C-call it. It’s her. It’s her.”
The rose stepped up, checking his pockets until she found his phone. She used his face to unlock it before pulling up the call log. Her face twisted. “You put her name in here as Marla Bennett?”
“She’s Rae’s mom,” he whimpered.
She shook her head. “I should kill you just for that.”
“You should kill Rae then too. Her mother is the one who ordered us to kill your Claim,” he jerked, finding my eyes. “She’s not innocent in this.”
Nobody could choose who they were born to, not even me.
Olivia couldn’t find a text thread, so her eyes found mine. “I’m going to call her.”
I nodded, hoping I would recognize her voice. Hoping I would know who it was.
She put it on speaker and waited. We didn’t care if Carl made a noise, if he screamed, if he told her to hang up, that we found her. None of it mattered. It wouldn’t matter if the warning made her run because we would find her.
I would find her.
“You worthless grunt,” the woman said in way of answer. “Just kill them. How much simpler do I need to make it for your pathetic brain to understand?”
Carl whimpered. “They caught me,” he whined. “They have my phone.”
“Baby, run!” Marla cried out. “Run,” she whimpered.
I turned at her outcry, eyes narrowing. Baby? The daffodil didn’t have any siblings to speak of. Marla had a cousin the same age as her daughter, yes, but I knew he wasn’t involved.
That cousin’s parents, Marla’s aunt and uncle, were dead. There were no female relatives of hers that I knew of.
The woman on the phone was quiet for a long time. “I look forward to meeting you, Azrael,” she spoke, her voice husky, a voice that commanded attention.
“The same to you,” I said and straightened, my attention returning to Carl.
“Wait, you’re not going to save us?”
“If training taught you anything, it was to learn to save yourselves.” Click.
Alaric stepped up, holding out the tab I wanted to give to our new prisoner.
I took it, forced Carl’s screaming mouth open, and placed it on his tongue.
“Your first mistake was stepping into my woods. Your second was going after my wife. I know you’ve heard the stories of the others, I know you know what they’ve done to save their women.
” I leaned in, knowing that what he saw was less than human.
“I am the thing they have nightmares about.”
I turned and crouched down in front of Marla, grabbing her jaw. “It’s time you tell me the truth. Alaric.”
Another P.I.P appeared to my right and I took it, forcing her mouth open and sliding it over her tongue. I stood. “Hang her beside Carl. You can get started,” I told them. “Carl and Marla are mine until she wakes up.”