Chapter 11
DIANA
The stairs groan beneath my boots like they're warning me to turn back.
What else am I going to do? Just sit here with this damn rose and wait for Judge to find me, and then hand him a flower like I've gone mad? Here you go. I picked this for you in the nightmare train while running from our doomed mating bond. Isn't it lovely?
My thighs ache. The blisters on my feet from this journey throb with every step, and that sense of freedom I was clinging to for so long, the thing that kept me running, kept me fighting, kept me jumping off trains and onto horses and through snowstorms, feels like it vanished.
Poof.
Gone.
Even fear feels like a useless emotion right now.
Each step takes me deeper, the air getting colder. I’m not even that afraid. I honestly don't think I feel anything.
We pass by many, asking them if there’s another Witch Doctor down here.
Wide eyes and shrugs are the usual response, but a few do confirm there is someone.
We just have to take a left at… Yes, it’s really a copper statue of a mermaid that’s turned all green.
Okay, we veer left and stop when a sign reads, ‘Sid’s Room. ’
I do have a moment of hesitation. Am I really this desperate?
But as I hold the flower in my hand, the one that everyone keeps looking at like they’re surprised to see it, I just get pissed that I’m still stuck like this, so I trudge ahead because the witch hasn’t given me any other choice.
When Selene and I pass through, we eventually see a middle-aged man sitting on a stool next to many cages, eating a block of cheese.
“You go… I’ll keep an eye out here,” Selene says, looking back. “I don’t like that group we passed.”
“Sure thing.” I walk forward, completely numb to any dangers.
“You lost?” the man asks, his eyes incredibly pale but unlike an echo’s. It’s as if someone drained the color out of them and forgot to put it back.
I swallow hard. "Can you do what the Witch Doctor does?”
He laughs with an almost brittle sound to it. “Yes. I can do much worse than that. Depends on what you’re paying."
My throat tightens, and I look him over. He’s short, and his skin has a grayish tint to it like it hasn’t seen the sunlight in years. "What's the price?"
“What do you want done?”
“I have a mate. I’m an omega. I want that scent gland ripped out of me, so it removes him too.”
He stands, taking another bite of his cheese that kind of stinks, and I have to fight every instinct not to bolt. “Why not see witchy upstairs?”
“My soul has a deal on it apparently.”
He gives a soft nod. “Yeah, that would be a problem. Well, I can surely do what she can’t.” He holds a pause. “He will die, though. That’s the catch that witchy can’t avoid when your soul is bound.”
That’s the first thing that makes me feel something.
No.
No, that's not—
I step back so fast I nearly trip over my own feet. “I don’t want to kill him.”
He tilts his head, studying me with those colorless eyes as he continues to chew. "You came all this way to kill the part of you tied to him. You didn't expect there'd be blood?"
"Not his. I don’t know. That feels too far.”
"Then get out of my fucking face and stop wasting my time, omega." He says the word like it's a bad diagnosis.
I open my mouth to argue, but here I am again, a complete failure.
I don't even remember walking back through the hallway.
My lungs burn. My eyes sting. My whole body is shaking, and I can't make it stop.
"Diana?" Selene steps closer, her voice tight with fear. "What happened? What did he say?"
My voice is barely a whisper. Barely anything at all. “I can’t do it.”
“Why not? He won’t do it, either?”
“No, it’s because it means... I would have to kill Judge."
I raise my gaze to peer through my lashes, Selene’s expression cycles through something I can't read—shock, maybe, or confusion, or calculation. "So?"
It hits harder than a slap.
I stare at her, trying to process. Trying to understand. "So?"
"So kill him." She says it like it's obvious.
Like I'm being deliberately obtuse for not seeing the clear and easy solution right in front of me. "He kidnapped you, Diana. He locked you in an attic. He mated you against your will. That’s ignoring all the shit he’s ever done in his life. Why do you care if he dies?"
I shake my head, violent and desperate. "Selene, I can't. I can't do that."
"You don't love him, do you?" Her tone sharpens—accusing now, trembling at the edges. "Please tell me you don't love him. Please tell me you haven't—"
"I don't love him." The words come out too fast, too defensive. I swallow hard and try again. "I don't love him. But I don't hate him either. Not enough to kill him."
Not enough to feel his death through the bond. Not enough to carry that weight for the rest of my life. Fuck, I am not prepared for that.
Selene stares at me like she's looking at a stranger. Like the Diana she knew, the one who ran, who fought, has been replaced by the pathetic omega I always knew I was.
Someone infected by Judge.
"You changed," she says quietly.
"Yeah," I breathe, and my voice cracks on the word. "I did. When I was kidnapped and forced into this. What else was I supposed to do?”
She stares at me for one more second, one long, terrible second where I can see her deciding something.
Then she steps back.
Another step. Three.
Then she gives me her back and completely walks away without another word, her silhouette shrinking down the corridor until it's swallowed by the shadows.
She doesn't look back at all.
With tears swelling in my eyes, I just take off to one of the tunnels, moving until I can’t stand the weight of what this all means, and I collapse against a wall, my gaze moving all around.
I sit there, frozen, with no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do.