V
Month three
That day when Bapo dragged me from my cell, I didn’t resist. There was no point. My body, gaunt and depleted, lacked the strength to fight back. My mind had already retreated, bracing for the familiar horrors he would inflict. Bapo wasn’t imaginative in his cruelty; he relied on a few favoured tortures—the lake, the chase, the whip, or hanging me from the ceiling like a broken marionette.
The pain had become a rhythm, a grotesque routine I could brace for. My body had adapted in ways that bordered on miraculous. I could run for an hour barefoot, hold my breath for four minutes—impressive for someone untaught, shaped only by necessity.
But no amount of resilience could numb the agony. The whip still ignited my nerves like wildfire. His fists left bruises that lingered like echoes long after he was gone. And yet, his violence was calculated, never leaving scars. That, I knew, was ir’s doing. His “master” had decreed that my body must remain unmarred—pristine in its suffering. Bapo’s hands could only bruise the surface, but his cruelty burrowed deep.
So when he turned left instead of right, my mind jolted awake. A deviation in his routine meant something. Orders. Orders that required me alive and out of my cell.
He dragged me forward, my weightless, unresisting body moving like a doll in his grip. The dungeon’s oppressive darkness gave way to the ritual grounds. Firelight danced chaotically, the air thick with the metallic tang of fear. The followers were gathered, their grotesque masks of animal skulls and skins transforming them into nightmares. Bapo donned his mask as we entered their circle, leaving me bare, exposed.
The fire pit roared, and the symbols glowed red, etched into the earth beneath our feet. And at the centre stood ir, robed and waiting. My legs locked beneath me as Bapo released his grip, but ir’s presence drew me forward like a noose tightening around my neck. There was something about him—something darker than Bapo’s brutish violence. He was calculated and insidious.
“The time has come, dear,” he said, his voice dripping with mock affection.
I couldn’t speak. Fear clamped around my throat, and my mind scrambled for understanding. His words didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. The fire, the masks, the sigils—it all felt like the prelude to something far worse than the torments I had known.
“The time has come for the blessed one to begin the ritual,” ir continued. “For the great Azazel to grant his power, for his descent to be fulfilled.”
His words washed over me like a tide of lunacy I couldn’t comprehend. Then I saw them. Six women, dragged into the circle, their white dresses clinging to their trembling bodies. They were laid on the ground, their captors holding them down. Their eyes darted wildly, searching for salvation in a sea of monsters. And then they found me.
ir’s hand on my shoulder snapped me back to the moment. He pushed me forward, his grip unyielding as he forced me to kneel beside the first woman. Her eyes, wide with terror, locked onto mine. Silent tears streamed down her face, her lips trembling as she pleaded without words.
“You must draw the blood of the sacrifice,” ir said, pressing a black dagger into my shaking hands. “It is your duty as the blessed one.”
The world spun. My hands trembled so violently that I thought I might drop the blade. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t. My head shook vehemently, a desperate denial of what he was asking. My tears blurred the scene, but nothing could obscure the malice in ir’s eyes or the despair in the woman’s.
“If not them,” he whispered, his voice low and venomous, “then it will be you.”
I had braced for that. I had made my peace with dying. But then his voice cut deeper.
“Or your sister.”
My breath caught. The blade in my hands felt impossibly heavy. I shook my head, sobbing, choking on my resistance. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. But then the woman’s hand, trembling and weak, reached up to touch mine.
“Do it,” she whispered. Her voice was steady, almost serene.
“I can’t,” I sobbed, my voice breaking.
“Please,” she urged. “Let it end.”
Her eyes, once frantic, now held a strange peace. The other women echoed her plea, their voices barely above a whisper. They weren’t begging for release; they were begging for mercy.
My hands shook so violently that the dagger nearly slipped. The choice was no choice at all, and yet it shattered something fundamental within me. The hope I had carried, the defiance I had nurtured—it all crumbled as I pressed the blade to her skin.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice breaking as her blood stained my hands.
One by one, they came. Each woman walked to her death with the same haunting serenity, their tears mingling with mine. The blade grew heavier with every life it claimed. The final woman’s tears burned against my skin as I took her life, a searing reminder of what I had become.
By the end, I knelt in a pool of blood, my soul as hollow as the pit before me. I stared at my trembling hands, now stained with crimson, and knew there was no redemption. No going back.
I wasn’t the girl my parents raised. I wasn’t the sister Iyra loved. I wasn’t a victim anymore.
I was a murderer.
* * *
To survive in a place designed to break you isn’t strength—it’s defiance. It’s a constant war against the darkness trying to creep in, an exhausting dance to preserve the smallest shred of light. In a world where cruelty is a religion and despair grows like weeds in the cracks, hope is never a virtue. It’s a liability. Yet, like a fool, I clung to it. I carried it as if it might save me. I believed, against all evidence, that goodness could still exist.
I was wrong.
When I was younger, I thought pain was the worst they could do to me. When the agony grew unbearable, my mind would fold, leaving me adrift in nothingness. But nothingness was merciful. And mercy doesn’t exist there.
Then Willow came into my life—a fragile spark in the abyss. For a moment, I let myself believe she was a gift, some cosmic attempt to balance the scales. I should have known better. In a place like that, gifts are curses in disguise, and kindness is the sharpest bait.
I didn’t know who I became after those first kills. The blood on my hands wasn’t just theirs; it stained the pieces of me I’d thought were untouchable. Still, it was Willow who tethered me to what little humanity I had left. She never asked what happened on those nights. She didn’t need to. She would just talk, her voice filling the silence I didn’t dare break.
The second time they sent me to kill, it wasn’t hard. I’d stopped needing much persuasion. The women they shoved toward me were already ready, their face a mask of hollow acceptance. Before it was done, I heard their thanks.
For what? For choosing survival? For slaughtering someone else so I could live another day in this nightmare? They acted like I’d done something noble, as if there were honour in clawing at scraps of hope. But hope had long since curdled into self-loathing.
The hatred in me grew like rot, spreading through my veins, consuming me. I could feel it—this dark, violent thing coiling around my heart. Willow kept it at bay. She was the only thing that did. But they couldn’t let me have that. They couldn’t let me keep her.
The day they tore her from me began like the others: suffocating silence, cold stone walls, the reek of decay. I was staggering back from the punishment shed, my body screaming with every step, when I heard the commotion. It came from beyond the ritual grounds, from the other side of the forest—the one place I’d never been.
I didn’t make it far before Bapo found me. He shoved me toward the dungeon, locking the door behind him. I didn’t care about the pain or the freezing dampness of the cell. I only cared about Willow’s empty cot. The door to her cell was ajar, and she was gone.
Panic clawed at my chest, sharp and relentless. When Bapo returned, dragging me into the clearing, I saw her. Willow was on her knees, held down by two men, her face beaten into something unrecognisable. Her arm—the one that hadn’t healed—hung limp at her side.
My breath hitched, and fear surged like fire in my veins. I thought they knew about the miscarriage. About the secret she couldn’t afford them to find out.
I fought like a wild animal, my nails raking Bapo’s arm, my fists connecting in desperation. It didn’t matter. He kicked me to the ground and dragged me forward by my hair.
“Let her go!” I screamed, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar, but my defiance only amused them.
I crawled, ignoring the boots that kicked painfully on my stomach. It was so painful that for a second, my vision clouded, but his kicks didn’t relent. Willow was still fighting, cursing them through bloodied lips. The sight shattered something in me. Getting to her was the only thing that mattered. When one of the men raised his boot toward her, I scrambled for a nail buried in the dirt and drove it into his shin with all the strength I had left. His howl of pain was my only triumph.
Bapo let me go, walking away, and I didn’t care where. For a moment, Willow and I were together again. She held me, her trembling hands brushing my hair from my face.
“What happened?” I muttered, my voice breaking
“There was something I needed to do,” She whispered.
“What could possibly matter more than escaping?” I demanded.
She didn’t answer. Her eyes darted to the men behind us, wary and resigned.
“A message,” she murmured.
Before I could ask, Bapo returned, ir in tow. His fury was palpable, his smile a chilling contrast to the violence that dripped from his every word.
“Made a friend, have we?” he sneered, crouching in front of me. “Then perhaps you’ll teach her a lesson.
I froze as he pressed the hilt of that same wretched dagger into my palm, his grip ironclad. He pushed me closer to Willow, who looked at me with something that broke me further: understanding.
“I don’t want their filthy hands on me,” she whispered, her voice steady despite everything. “Do it.”
My tears blurred her face, her bruises dissolving into a swirl of colour.
“Don’t,” I begged, but ir forced my hand.
He murmured what would happen to her if she didn’t die in my hands. The blade moved in my hand on its own accord—unable to hear the horror he painted—and it cut through the air, through flesh, through the last piece of me that was still human.
I watched the light fade from Willow’s eyes. I watched as the one anchor I had left slipped away. And in her place, the darkness surged forward, unstoppable.
When her light went out, so did mine.
* * *
Month four
Run.
Run.
Make sure you don’t get caught! Make sure you aren’t being followed!
The thoughts rang inside my head. Everything in my body ached. My legs screamed in exhaustion, unprepared for the strain I was forcing on them after months of disuse. I hadn’t been allowed to step out of the cage after Willow escaped. I hadn’t been allowed anywhere except the ritual grounds and the killing area—the place that transformed me into what I was now. A killer. A killer who had taken lives and would take more if it meant my survival.
I heard the rustling in the bushes. The silent footfalls following me were all too familiar. I had only been here four months, but I’d learned quickly. I knew their mannerisms, the way they moved, fought, and taunted their prey before they pounced. I could picture the wicked glee on his face as he chased me. I could imagine how he licked his lips—the same lips that had promised ruin for me and my family. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
“Got you.”
I felt his breath on my neck, smelled the stench of the blood he’d smeared across his torso the night before—the blood he’d made me collect. I heard the others on either side of me, his brothers. Those wretched creatures, more beast than human, were born for this jungle. Bapo’s hand grazed my filthy shirt, and instinct took over.
My hands moved on their own. My mind surged in a way it never had before. I felt and anticipated the movements of the bastards closing in on me, desperate to drag me back to the hell I had escaped. To the chaos, I created back there. The place that needed to burn to the ground. My hand tightened around the ritual dagger, and I drove it into the palm that tried to encircle my waist.
The blade bit into my skin as well, but the pain didn’t register. Satisfaction coursed through me as Bapo screamed. His brothers reacted exactly as I’d expected. They couldn’t stand to see one of their own hurt, though they revelled in the suffering of others.
Gir—the bigger one who branded my back—threw himself at me, and we tumbled to the ground. We rolled down the path, rocks and branches scraping our skin. His yellowed teeth parted, aiming to bite anywhere he could, but I didn’t give him the chance.
I pulled the glass shard from my pocket and stabbed him in the side of his neck. I knew that had to strike a crucial nerve. He only had minutes left.
Sin’s, the other brother’s, roar echoed before he reached me, but I was ready. I had planned this for weeks, forcing myself to stay alert, to observe their behaviour even as they abused me and the others in the cages. The punch to the side of my head made my vision blur, but I recovered quickly. Months of torture had conditioned my body to endure.
The precious seconds Sin wasted crying over his dying brother were all I needed. Bapo prowled toward me, his eyes full of fury and promises of pain. But I didn’t flinch. I met his gaze, defiance burning in mine, and he gritted his teeth.
“You will cry tears of blood, little one,” he sneered.
The nickname grated on my nerves. It unleashed the darkness within me—the part of me that no longer feared death. That darkness promised vengeance. I let it take over me as I turned to Sin.
Bapo underestimated me, just like his brothers had. Their arrogance blinded them to my strength. To them, I was nothing but a broken woman. But I wasn’t broken. I was a furious woman who wanted to take everything from them.
Sin, the most superstitious of the three and also the one who gave me the stupid book about their useless god, froze as I whispered words I had mimicked from their master.
“He dies by the hands of the blessed one, Sin.”
His devotion to his master clouded his judgment, and I used it against him.
“His death was imminent for the greater path,” I added, stepping closer.
I saw Bapo running now, but the dense jungle slowed him. He was too far to stop what was about to happen. Sin’s tear-streaked face wavered between fury and confusion as I stroked his cheek, the way I’d seen their master do.
“And so is yours,” I said.
I removed the glass shard from Gir’s neck, my movements deliberate. Bapo screamed, his rage echoing through the trees, but he was too far to stop me. I made sure to look into his eyes as I gripped Sin’s hair.
With a smile that mirrored Bapo’s when he’d turned me into a killer, I slit Sin’s throat the same way they’d made me kill so many others. The same way they made me kill Willow.
Bapo’s scream shattered the air as he charged forward, but his foot caught on a thick branch. He stumbled and fell into the steep valley. I didn’t need to check if he survived. No one survived that fall. If the jagged rocks didn’t kill him, the violent waters below would.