Chapter Ten #3
The bathroom glittered with modern mosaic tiles, pearlescent white with burnt orange, making everything seem as if we were inside a crystal tangerine.
It felt odd to be in a different room, but Ily didn’t seem to care as she turned on the shower and adjusted it to her preferred temperature of Hades.
I managed to keep my temper the entire time she stripped off her disgusting nude-coloured underwear—now grime-covered and paint-soaked. I chewed on self-hatred as I followed her into the shower and reached for the soap to bathe her.
But then all my fury twisted into despair as she held up her hand and shook her head. “Don’t...please don’t touch me.” She kept her eyes downcast. “The bruises just keep getting worse. The pain is almost too much. I think...I think I’ll pass out again if you touch me.”
I wanted to ask her so many things.
I wanted a comprehensive list of her pain and how to erase it.
I wanted to drop to my knees and press my forehead to her badly bruised belly and just hold her.
But that black abyss smothered me down.
A dam of misery blocked my throat.
I merely nodded.
Leaving her to wash, watching how gently she touched her swollen, black-and-blue skin, I stood under the hot spray and fought the urge to scream.
I’d been too late this time.
I hadn’t stopped him.
That blackness kept billowing, pouring, suffocating...
Rivulets of crimson poured off my skin, but the water didn’t stand a chance at cleansing my insides.
My soul was putrid, fetid, corrupted. Red water swirled around our feet, vanishing down the drain.
Every drop rivered over my mind, a waterfall pushing me into the deep, dark depths of whatever entity that’d taken hold of me.
My stab wound blazed beneath the hot spray, giving me something to latch onto.
I liked the agony.
I deserved it.
The urge to find another blade and open the scar on my leg flickered in my coal-black mind.
For ten minutes, Ily and I shared a silent shower, taking turns to rinse beneath the heavy pummel of water. Our bodies became clean, but my soul? That became darker than death.
Wringing out her hair, squeezing clear water not scarlet, Ily swayed into the wall.
“Oops.” She giggled.
My heart wrenched to a stop.
I’d never heard her make such a light-hearted sound before.
It was the quickest flare of brightness in my otherwise wretched existence.
Every atom in my body urged me to reach out and support her wobbly steps as she tripped drunkenly out of the shower and clung to the towel rail.
She giggled again as she patted the fluffy towel. “Sorry.”
She’s apologising to the furniture now?
I thought whatever that damn doctor gave her was supposed to be mild?
Wrenching off the shower, I stepped dripping wet onto the bathmat and caught my reflection.
The glass above the white vanity fogged with steam, my image hazy and clouded.
But even in the mist, my eyes seemed to burn a dull grey full of bone-deep exhaustion.
A tiredness that didn’t just come from physical activity or the mental weariness of murder, but something so much deeper.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the wasted man staring back at me was on a slippery slope to burn out, and I didn’t really want to stop it.
If I burned out...this all ended.
I can finally rest.
Alone.
Wrapping herself in a towel, Ily hissed between her teeth, then walked with great concentration out of the bathroom.
Snatching a second towel from the rack, I dried off my hair and swiped my body dry. Agony bellowed in every inch. My arm never stopped bleeding, hinting that the lightheaded wooziness might not just be from thickening depression but also blood loss.
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I strode into the bedroom and spied Ily resting on the bed.
She lay star-fished beneath her towel. Arms and legs spread as if not wanting to touch any part of herself. Flat on her back where Kyle hadn’t been able to shoot her, she breathed shallowly through her nose, obviously still in a lot of pain.
I lingered over her.
The urge to cup her cheek and promise I’d make everything better almost broke whatever wasn’t broken inside me.
Everything I touch gets hurt...
Turning away, I fought the urge to run into the night and sacrifice myself to the churning, clawing chasm inside me.
I couldn’t cope like this.
I couldn’t be this way.
I wanted out.
I wanted to forget.
I want...
Christ.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I backed away.
What I wanted I could never have, and if I tried, I’d only hurt her worse.
With shaky hands, I grabbed the medical supplies Rose had gathered for us, then carted them back into the bathroom.
Wiping off the mirror, I rummaged in the packets of bandages, arnica cream, and other salves.
I found salvation in distraction.
I did everything I could to avoid looking into the black maw growing ever bigger inside me. Tendrils of midnight wrapped around me, tugging me closer, closer...
My breath came faster as I found a small packet with a sterilised needle and surgical thread. I stared at my stab wound and imagined sewing myself together like a cobbler with leather.
The room tilted.
My breathing turned raspy.
My chest expanded until the contusion on my side glowed with dirty colours.
I fell into that swirl of pain.
My eyesight blurred at the edges.
I hyper-fucking-ventilated.
Blackness exploded through me, strangling me, throttling me—
My knees buckled as a fear I’d never felt before hammered into every bone.
Clutching the sink, I bent over the vanity, and panted.
I fucking panted and gasped, shaking and quaking as frenzied panic ripped through me.
It vised my chest, gagged my throat, and murdered me with every bad thing, wrong urge, and despicable desire.
I almost lost her.
I came face to face with it all.
Every decision.
Every choice.
I fucking despised myself.
The things I’ve done—
I retched.
Empty stomach acid burned my throat and splashed into the sink. Black despair spewed up and out, purging with every choke. Sweat dripped down my back as I pressed my forehead to the tap and rode out the spasms. The familiar regurgitation that’d punished me my entire life did its best to cripple me.
And for once, I was grateful.
So fucking thankful that the overload of insidious poison inside siphoned down the drain. I didn’t vomit food. I vomited up my very essence.
By the time I stopped, I could barely stand.
She needs you...
Groaning, I commanded my muscles to brace and spine to straighten. Catching my stare in the mirror, I flinched at the creature staring back. My skin was bone white and eyes haunted as a graveyard.
But at least I hadn’t been devoured by the darkness...
Yet.
Finding a paper-wrapped toothbrush in the drawer, I brushed, rinsed, then grabbed the largest gauze in the medical supplies and slapped it over my arm. My blood dripped over the vanity and floor. I didn’t want to bleed over Ily while I tended to her.
I couldn’t exactly do much for her apart from coating her entire body in arnica.
I was familiar with the homeopathic cream, thanks to my mother.
She’d always been jumpy. If I walked into a room without her hearing me, she’d often crash into a cupboard or doorframe as she turned around and noticed me.
I’d hated seeing her hurt because of me.
I’d accepted that every bruise she carried were constant reminders that even though we were family, she acted as if I was her enemy.
And now, Ily is bruised.
Because of you.
The clawing in my chest returned.
The swirling blackness and wretched depression.
While she’d been covered in paint, it’d been hard to see the totality of her bruises.
But now?
Fucking Christ, every inch of her wonderful body was a blazing reminder of what I’d done.
She hates me...
Swallowing hard, I did my best to shut down the slicing pain in my heart.
The abyss pounced all over again.
I sank into the black.