Chapter XI
Cassandra
Returning to Clayton feels like embracing death, but I have made up my mind. I know what I need to do.
I’ll never forget the look on Izcacus’s face when I told him that I need to go home. The horror before it was hidden behind a mask of silent pain will linger in my memory for eternity.
Izcacus was quiet as he escorted me back to the outskirts of the town, but he did not try to stop me, nor force me to stay within his castle. While it breaks my heart to know that I hurt him, it is important to me that he let me go.
I stick to the shadows to avoid anyone who might recognize me, making my way through Rose Falls. I know Izcacus is lurking. His magnetic presence is palpable, and I suspect that, no matter how long we’re apart, he will remain. He’s the monster in the dark that keeps me safe.
Rose Falls looks completely different as I creep through the almost silent town, weaving my way over rickety wooden bridges and stone paths carved by the hands of men long passed.
The oil-lamp posts illuminate the way to the house I share with Clayton.
The moon doesn’t reach this far down the ravine.
The town, despite having electricity in homes, still prefers to do some things the old-fashioned way, including the morals that many of the townsfolk maintain.
When I first arrived in Rose Falls as a young bride, it appeared magical, especially since it was so different from the place I had been born.
Lush greenery hung from the bridges, flowers bloomed in even the darkest of spaces, and the townspeople planted trees and nurtured them all the way down the ravine.
It was as if an overgrown forest had planted roots within.
It’s a shame that poison contaminates Rose Falls. While it never felt like a real home, there is a unique beauty in this place.
After my time away, everything seems to have changed. In truth, though, I am the one who has changed. The town and her people are the same, but I now see them differently.
Hierarchy shapes Rose Falls, the divide between people—the wealthy and the less fortunate folk––deepening with every passing year.
Children are raised on division, and we are fed the belief that some lives matter more than others.
The distance from Deadwood Forest is one measure of that belief; the higher a home clings to the ravine’s edge, the closer its inhabitants are to the forest of savage beasts, and the closer they are to the nightwalker.
It’s a dangerous place to live––people regularly lose their lives to both farming accidents and encounters with animals.
The wealthy, though, live far from the top, their homes safe in the heart of Rose Falls.
Clayton’s family—the Ackleys—have been in control of Rose Falls for generations, and as only the second family to rise to power, they nurture the town’s segmentation and toxicity.
Given my husband’s status, the Ackley family home, or rather my cage, is located at the very bottom of the ravine. The speed of my heart picks up, making my head dizzy as though I’m being swept downstream.
This place is my hell, and I’m walking straight back into it.
I walk down the pebbled path towards the multi-story home built into the ravine and focus on what I need to do.
I take several deep breaths, steadying myself, and strengthening my resolve.
Clayton won’t be back for a while. I expect he’ll be at the tavern as is his usual custom in the evenings, drinking to excess, so I have time to prepare myself.
“Where have you fucken’ been, Cassie!” Clayton yells. His steps are thunderous as he storms towards me.
Staring out the kitchen window, I pretend to ignore Clayton and instead focus on fighting down a smirk, taking satisfaction in knowing that it will enrage him because how dare I. In this moment, it feels good to be disobedient.
As I take in everything around me, I notice the overgrown, neglected gardens, a pile of dirty, mold-infested dishes languishing in the sink, and a general smell of rotting cheese and wet socks.
Izcacus’s castle of dark temptation and ruin released me from my rose-colored glasses, and now I see the world clearly. Everything has changed.
My thoughts find their way back to my monster as I drown out Clayton’s heavy, laborious breathing.
I wish I were over there, with him, instead of here in this cesspit.
Izcacus didn’t want to let me go, and if I’m being truthful, I didn’t want to leave him.
My body aches for the sinful beauty of his underworld and what it offers me, what he promises.
But first, I need to save myself from the chains that are slowly killing me. I need to fly towards freedom.
Only I have the power to defeat the rot that is infecting my life.
My head abruptly jerks back as Clayton fists my hair, demanding my attention.
“Answer me, you dumb bitch!”
My neck is bent backwards to meet his stare, his eyes flaring with rage, spittle flying from his mouth.
Where that once would have sent me spiraling, scrambling to fix what I had done and begging for his forgiveness, now I grow cold.
I had thought I loved him and desperately wanted him to love me.
In this moment I can see it all for what it is, and what I see repulses me—I despise everything about him, down to his very bones.
“Another man fucked me,” I tell Clayton plainly, a smirk toying at the corners of my lips.
Disbelief flashes across his face and he splutters with indignation. I grin up at Clayton, twisting to face him as his grip loosens in shock.
A wistful sigh leaves my lips as if I’m fantasizing about the moment of another man fucking me, and something stirs beneath my skin—a pulse, starting as a tremor before rising and swelling into something dark and dangerous: power.
“He fucked me so good, Clay.” My words are a whisper as I bite down on my bottom lip, looking up at him through my eyelashes.
I have never known a feeling like this. It grips me, addictive and all-consuming, and I suddenly understand—there is no going back to the person I was before my monster spirited me away into the night.
Clayton stole everything from me, but I am determined to reclaim it. My reclamation will begin with revenge. Everything he’s given to me, I will return tenfold.
With both satisfaction and joy, I watch his face burn, flushing a scorching shade of scarlet. Clayton’s forehead veins pulsate, absolutely writhing with rage. I’m almost afraid that they’ll pop and splatter all over my face.
My hands go to my throat, and I arch against the counter, my hands seductively trailing down the front of my dress, over my breasts.
“Oh, he was so big and thick,” I add breathlessly, gently squeezing my breasts, my body seeming to spark with desire. There are some creative liberties that I’m taking, but Clayton doesn’t need to know that.
My eyes slowly rake down Clayton’s body in judgment, lip curling in disgust.
“He makes your cock look like a shriveled-up snail.”
Clayton finally cracks, backhanding me across the face—the pain sharp and raw, my lip splitting as my face is violently wrenched to the side by the force of it.
My hands brace against the sink as I groan from the impact.
“I’m going to kill you, you dumb fucken’ bitch,” he screams, rage consuming his body.
The metallic tang of blood fills my mouth and I laugh, my hands quickly searching for the weapon that I had lain here earlier.
Spinning around, I latch onto him with bloodthirsty eyes. Blood spilling down my chin, I point the knife at him.
Clayton recoils, hesitation flashing across his face, and that’s when I see it.
Fear shines in his eyes. He finally understands that I’m going to rip him open, tear him apart with my hands and teeth until there’s nothing left of him but blood and ruin. I am his demise.
He stumbles back again. “You’re possessed…you’re a monster, the devil. Lord, help me.”
My laughter fills the room as I shake my head. “Worse,” I assure him with glee.
Being his nightmare feels magnificent. Here I am to claim what is owed to me—his life.
“You reap what you sow.” My words emerge in a taunting whisper, dripping with venom, and I watch as his sins begin to devour him whole.
“You’re crazy! Get the fuck out. Get out, Cassie.” His voice shakes, and he looks around, searching for somewhere to run.
“How does it feel,” I murmur, “to be so helpless?”
I won’t give him the chance to escape. I am his doom, his reckoning, the monster he created, and the monster he deserves.
Taking my chance, I leap towards Clayton with vicious intent, thrusting the knife out. He screams as I stab him through the side.
Stumbling back, he places his hand over the wound.
“Motherfucker!”
Before he has the chance to draw breath, I stab him again, the knife slicing into his abdomen.
I don’t know how to best use a knife as a weapon, never having harmed anyone before, so I’m going on instinct alone. I want to see him suffer. I want to cause him pain and see how he likes the taste of misery.
“I hate you!” I slash the knife across his chest, watching blood bubble.
“I hate what you’ve done to me! I hate that you robbed me of the person that I could have been.
You stole my innocence. I won’t think of you when you’re gone—I won’t.
You won’t destroy me, but I will destroy you.
” Vicious stabs and slashes follow each of my words as I unleash my years of suffering upon his flesh.
All I can think, and see, and feel, is making sure that he hurts.
Clayton drops to the kitchen floor with a thud, his breathing labored.
I blink past the angry tears that have clouded my vision to see him curled in a fetal position, blood flooding from his wounds.
Seeing him so broken, so helpless, is healing in its own right.
He looks pathetic, no more than an old man.
I don’t know how I once gave him so much power over me, but I never will again.
“Fucken’ bitch,” I hear him gurgle through the blood as it continues to pour onto the floor.
The blood in my veins runs cold.
Everything in me stops dead.
And the scream that leaves me is full of fury.
I straddle his body, the knife raised above my head as rage consumes me.
I become a banshee, the harbinger of death, come to take his soul and condemn him to hell.
I am the last thing he ever sees, a nightmare to torture him for all eternity.
I stab his chest over and over, over and over, screaming and wailing the hurt and abuse I’ve suffered at his hands.
His blood splatters everywhere—all over my face, my clothes, and the kitchen. I don’t stop––can’t stop––sinking the blade into his flesh, slicing and hacking, not even when he has long since stopped breathing.
I feel a burning need to ensure he can never come back to haunt me. I need to be sure that I’m free.
Vengeance consumes me entirely, a red haze clouding my vision, and there I remain until strong arms wrap around me, lifting my struggling form from the ground.