Chapter 50 Kali
KALI
Ididn’t see the faces of our customers as I weaved between the tables at Vice.
I didn’t hear Tarri’s questions about where I’d been yesterday and where Jayla had disappeared and that Ava was searching for her.
I didn’t smell the alcohol in drinks the bar was putting on my tray to bring to the tables.
I didn’t notice customers trampling my feet by accident.
And I didn’t say anything when the lights went off and the show on stage began.
Everywhere I looked, Alora’s face shimmered. Everywhere I turned, her voice flowed in my ears. Everywhere I went, I could feel her soft hand in my own.
A hundred memories of Alora later, the lights came back on and Tarri shoved me out, stating she would close the bar by herself.
I dragged my feet down the deserted streets, the pitch dark of the night having lured everyone to huddle inside their homes.
Safe and sound. Not like Alora, her ashes probably used by the city as fertilizer or however they’d deemed to wring the most use out of them.
I was supposed to not exist right at this moment. Not her.
I strayed into the forest, but the low branches snagged on my uniform t-shirt, spiderwebs stuck to my nose, and my heavy steps mashed the rotting leaves dotting the forest floor.
Fog had descended, encircling my clearing as a protective wall, and my eyes watered.
The field sought to hide from me—a vile creature formed out of betrayal and cruelness.
Humidity stole my body heat as I trudged to the center of the clearing. So much space surrounded me that I could practically hear it talking to me, its vastness slithering up my legs and waist, its tentacles forcing themselves into my throat and tearing me from the inside out.
The first teardrop trickled down and fell into the small hole the tip of my boot had dug out between the dewy blades of grass.
Starlight rained down on me, stripping me bare, and I choked.
The gods weren’t laughing at me tonight.
They were flickering in white steadily, a defensive rhythm of sorts, a shield.
They were disgusted by me.
My knees buckled, and I collapsed on the ground. My head dropped low as sobs wracked my lungs and tears scorched my cheeks.
Alora was dead.
Because of me.
Because of my treachery.
Which she’d never revealed to anyone. Had taken my secret to the grave.
Only she didn’t even have that.
My fists curled at my sides, and I screamed at the grass glistening with tomorrow’s dew, serving as a sign that it would never come. At the night, so quiet, as if all life had vanished. At the sky, so far away, yet crushing my chest so hard it felt like it was crashing onto me.
I thought cold blood coursed through my veins, but now it burned, it burned so painfully the blaze was consuming me inch by inch.
Alora had been erased from the face of our world, and I pleaded with the gods to take me with her.
To incinerate my heart, to turn me into a flame, so I could reach for the stars and settle in the darkness between them with her.
Crunch.
I flinched at the harsh sound of a branch snapping somewhere in the tree line. Scrubbing at my damp cheeks, I stood up, oblivious to the mud clinging to my knees. I had told both of them to leave me alone.
“Hey, beautiful.”
I spun around, blinking away the wetness clouding my eyes.
“I didn’t take you for a quiet one. Or am I so good-looking that you’re at a loss for words?
” His crooked smile stirred my nausea. “Please, do take a look.” As he spread his arms wide, dread settled in my bones.
Black cargo pants and a dark green, skintight shirt covered his slender form. Ilasall’s military.
“I’m who you’ll serve once we return to the city,” he said as he removed the two knives from their sheaths and tossed them aside.
“Who are you?” I took a step back, my foot sliding in the soggy mush of grass blanketing the clearing.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry; if you run, I’ll catch you.”
A chill of familiarity flushed my system. But I wasn’t in Ilasall anymore. This was just a nightmare. If I closed my eyes, I’d soon wake up with smooth bedsheets under me and cold sweat coating my skin as a reminder of the bad dream.
Everything would be okay. I could breathe. In and out, in and out, and I would wake up.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
No. No.
But the freezing night peeled my eyelids open. Gloom materialized in the shape of a man in a predatory stance.
“Who are you?” I hissed. “What do you want?”
“A messenger from Ilasall,” he said, and launched toward me.
I gunned for the tree line, yelling at my laden legs to move faster. If I could get to the forest, I could hide. I roamed these woods often and could lose him in there. Many paths led back to the compound, and I could sprint back home without him gaining on me.
The dew erased the friction my boots desperately needed, and I swayed, almost losing my balance—
But I ran. I ran as fast as I could, the night breeze tousling my hair, whooshing in my ears, blocking out his thudding footfalls.
The tree line.
There it was.
A brutal grip on my upper arm roughly yanked me back—
I hit a hard body.
He grinned. “They didn’t tell me you were a runner. But I won’t complain. We’re going to have so much fun, you and I.”
“Get off me!” I thrashed, trying to wrench my arm out of his grasp.
He squashed my flesh, bruising it to the bones. “Your screams make me so hard.”
I froze.
A messenger from Ilasall.
No.
I could not be the message.
I would not.
Over my dead body.
I’d rather not exist than allow Ilasall to use me to their advantage.
I twisted and drew back to strike him with everything I had, setting my target on his nose, the easiest target to squish on his face.
Calloused fingers wrapped around my left wrist, stopping my fist in mid-air. “You’ll pay for this,” he snarled, and my knee flew toward his groin. He moved aside and my kneecap connected with his thigh instead.
I was not prey. I would not let him see me as such. But his malevolent smile fueled my fear.
“Your tears are so pretty.” He leaned in so close his disgusting breath rained on my cheek as I strained to turn away. “Cry more for me.”
“Get away from me!” I swerved backward from his sickening tongue running over his lips.
His foot hooked behind my ankle as he forcefully let me go. I tripped, and his face morphed into the night sky as my back hit the ground. Air exploded out of my lungs and paralysis set in my diaphragm.
I gasped for a full inhale. My throat had closed and tears streamed in rivulets down my temples. Stars shimmered in the sky, the ceiling to the expanse of my safe place, but not a single puff of air drifted into my windpipe.
He lowered to his knees, straddling my hips, and his cold hands slid under my t-shirt and jacket. But the repulsive touch jolted me awake, and I jumped onto my elbows, viciously kicking at him.
“You like it when it hurts, don’t you?” Grabbing my jaw, he roughly hauled my head up, only to slam it back into the ground.
Something tiny but solid hit my skull and blooming pain blinded me. Everything went woozy and my arms fell to the sides, useless.
“Do you think we didn’t check your medical records?
We know what you did. You still owe us for that.
When they learned that you were here, helping these assholes, they decided it was time to send a message.
Do you know what they said? That I can do anything to you.
Anything. So I won’t kill you. I’ll drag you back to the city and lock you up.
I’ll make you my pet. I’ll chain you to my bed like the bitch you are.
And I’ll make sure you have my children.
” He lifted my t-shirt over my breasts. “But I’m not obsessive.
I like to share. My friends will love meeting that ass of yours. ”
The picture he’d painted pulled me out of the state of dizziness, and I shrieked, reaching for his eyes to gouge them the fuck out.
He clamped down on my throat, compressing my trachea. I gasped as I pulled on his grip, writhing underneath him. All the while, he repeated his promise. “That mouth will belong to me. That pussy will belong to me. That ass will belong to me. You will belong to me.”
The world gradually melted away. I couldn’t kick, punch, scratch, or yell.
I was…away.
Drifting.
A jab of pain.
He’d ceased strangling me. My back bowed as I galloped oxygen and a second sting shredded my nerves. Rubbing my throat, I found him biting my nipple, his abhorrent mouth all over me. Releasing the bud, he smiled, red coloring his teeth, and I screamed.
“Shout all you want, but no one will come to save you. Where are your boys, huh? Hiding in that compound? Not for long.” Squeezing my neck with increased force, he cut off my airflow.
“I’ll peel your eyes open to watch us crush your pathetic leader and his sadistic dog.
And I’ll punish you for each tear you spill for them.
” He spat on me, and my tears couldn’t wash away the slimy sensation of his drool sliding down the side of my nose and into the crook above my upper lip.
He smothered my gagging by throttling me.
This time, the stiffness took over quickly. Calmness washed over me with each passing second without air. My peripherals melted away. As the last bits of energy left me, my body convulsed.
He let go of my throat, taking hold of my head and slamming it into the ground. A breath I was so desperate for lodged itself in my lungs as the night sky above me blurred.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see anything. I floated in darkness, no light to be found. I felt so shallow. Empty. The endless nothingness morphed into a soothing embrace, like a cloud, and I relaxed as I slowly ebbed further away, becoming a vessel without a pulse, a mind, a heart.
Hooking the hem of my jeans, he tugged them down together with my underwear.
But I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t have any muscles anymore. My body didn’t belong to me anymore. It wouldn’t listen to me. It was just a shell I was a prisoner of. I had been reduced to a passenger observing the events from afar. No emotions, no feelings, no sensations.
No pain.
He pried my legs apart. “They can’t get real pussy in Ilasall, so you’ll have to do. Who would want you otherwise? You’re used. That’s all you are—a bitch. A whore. Worthless.”
A silhouette crossed my vision, and the messenger’s head was suddenly jerked back. A flash of movement, and hot blood spurted on my chest, my stomach, my thighs.
The shadow wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into him, and his body warmth seeped into me from a million miles away. I simply didn’t care for it. I’d ceased to exist and the only scrap of me surviving—my soul—resided in the eye of a hurricane. So calm. Peaceful. Soothing.
Far away, behind the bellowing wall of air, was a world, and the shadow who had come for me. Except there was nothing left of me to save. I was trapped in my own body. My capillaries had frozen like a spiderweb and cold ate at my bones. Their crumbs turned into frost, sealing me shut.
A promise reverberated in the wind, rocking me back and forth. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m not letting you go. I’m taking you home. I’m here. You’re safe.” The deeply familiar voice cracked. “Fuck, do you even hear me? You’re safe, Kali, safe.”