49
Muffled whispers reach my ears. Sunlight dances across my cheek, along my closed eyelids. The muted colors force my eyes tightly closed. Hot breath fans over my neck.
Strong, powerful arms wrap around my middle, cradling me.
My insides feel like sludge. Never in my life have I ever felt such immense pain.
My eyelids flutter open. Kieran's form rests against the edge of the bed blocking me in.
The room around me is familiar. A double paned window.
A single dresser plastered to the wallpapered wall.
A messy nightstand full of open pill bottles scattered along the cherry finish.
The same room Kieran fucked me at for the first time.
The same bed he pierced my clit. The whispers outside the closed door grow louder.
“She doesn't want to be near him after what he's done! He killed our sister, a sister I had no clue we even had! None of this was supposed to be like this! He was supposed to save Clara, not break her and now she's been out of it for days because of him! He scares me, Zain,
and he's our half-brother. I can't . . . I just can't wrap my head around any of this—” Vesper raises her voice a pitch, hyperventilating.
“—Sometimes things change, and a person's purpose is greater than you can understand. He didn't know about Isolde or you. He never told me. But Clara was always meant to—”
An ear-splintering slap cracks through Zain's harsh words, silencing him.
Zain's voice turns raw and visceral. “Slap me again, Songbird and you won't like the consequences. Don't mistake my love for you as a weakness. I'm still a fucked up monster and I have no problem reminding you. We all need to talk, but right now isn't the time. Let him handle her.
She's his responsibility. She is his.”
I drag my ass closer to the foot of the bed, pushing myself through the sharp, stabbing pain that has me ready to spill the contents of my stomach.
As if I had anything left to expel. Kieran's body stays glued to mine.
I inch closer. So much pain. My eyes cross, but I breathe through the ache.
All I want to do is escape this nightmare I've been dropped into.
Slowly I untangle myself from Kieran. He doesn't budge.
The human part of me drags my eyes back to his sleeping form just to make sure he's breathing.
He drowns himself in pills and alcohol just like I do, it's safe to say death is always a possibility.
The steady rise and fall of his chest makes the entanglement of blankets follow the patterns of his breath.
I slip silently from the bed, fighting the urge to strangle him and kill him myself.
Each shuffled movement I silently cry at the pain radiating from between my legs.
My lip trembles remembering how heinous he is .
. . and I allowed it. Everything that’s transpired is enough to send someone into shock. His words rattle around my brain.
“All I do is feel.”
No part of me believes it. I stagger to the door, bracing myself along the dresser as a gust of breath leaves my lungs.
Stars paint my vision. My chipped nails scratch the wood varnish.
At least he dressed me in an oversize T-shirt.
It pools to my knees. My vision blurs and a pounding behind my ears makes me double over.
My hip clips the edge of the dresser, sending me careening forward onto my knees.
I lose the contents of my stomach onto the hardwood floors.
The sound of my vomiting sends Kieran surging from the bed in seconds.
He pulls my hair from my face, wrapping it around his hand.
Freedom is ripped from my grasp, or maybe it was an illusion.
“You need to lay down.” His hoarse voice murmurs against my temple.
“Fuck you, Kieran. Fuck . . . you—” I struggle to form words between gags.
I push him away weakly, but it does nothing.
Tears mist my eyes. Another wave of nausea washes over me.
The stale scent of the Void still lingers on my skin.
Before I can protest anymore, his arms wrap around me.
The warmth of his chest presses against my sore skin.
I have no fight left. He's taken every ounce of dignity, strength, and happiness I had left.
He's messed me up for life, or maybe I already was.
He gingerly lays me back down on his bed.
I clasp the sheets, my sweat soaked skin clinging to the fabric.
It's warm and smells like him. Cigars and something masculine, my eyes wander over his form.
He looks like shit, but still somehow just as delectable.
A pang of guilt fills me. I hate how I react to him, how he has some sense of control of my emotions.
I hate being stuck in this loop. His eyes are red and bloodshot.
His hair is mussed and tangled. My gaze falls to his shirtless chest.
Not once has he been shirtless in my presence, and now I see why.
Scars, welts and burns pepper his tattooed stomach, lacerating deep into his core.
It spans farther than I imagined. Shock fills my system, but mountains of rippling muscles keep me mesmerized.
He catches my gaze, turns around and slips a shirt over his body, but not before I catch a glimpse of deeper welts and marks carved into his backside.
A part of me is curious. I want to ask what happened, but I don't.
I shouldn't give a crap. He's the one who entangled me into his fucked up world. He refuses to turn and face me again.
“Go to sleep, Clara. You're staying here until I figure shit out,” he snaps. He rolls his shoulders. His back ripples with each flexed movement.
I blink a few times. Did I hear him correctly? “Under no circumstances would I ever stay here with you. I hate you. You're a sick fucker. You—you burned my body now . . . twice! I'm afraid to even look . . . down there. What have you done to me?”
I fight back the tears, silently suffering. I can't understand why he would mutilate me. None of this could be for the Void. He's got me screwed up beyond help. No one hurts me better than Kieran. His sickness is a disease. It infects everyone in his radius.
He shakes his head while threading his fingers through his loose curls.
“You think I wanted—” he stops. His voice turns cold and desiccated.
He turns slowly, at least giving me the decency to explain what he did to my face.
“I sterilized you, Nightshade.” My stomach drops.
Stars pierce my vision. The whoosh of my heartbeat pulses wildly in my ears.
I can't speak. I can't move. I sink back into the mattress.
He wouldn't. The tears fall freely now, silently.
I can't look at him. My eyes fall to his nightstand with endless supplies of pills. It's all too much.
He approaches slowly. “Clara, I had to. Let me explain some of this shit. I needed to—” He tries explaining away his megalomaniac tendencies as if I could forgive him.
“NO! You don't get to apologize. You don't mean it. You are a sadist. You enjoy my suffering and my tears. You're sick just like your crazy ass father. I don't want any part of your fucked up cult! You raped your own sister!”
I spout off, unable to stop the overflow of words leaving my mouth.
It erupts from me without thought. I spring forward toward the only happiness I'll ever be able to obtain again. This time I manage to stay upright.
Everything I've ever needed to say comes out. His face pales. He jolts forward, stopping me, but I don't relent, letting the pain fall freely from my lips. “You hurt yourself. You hurt others. You hate everything. You're not capable of feelings—”
It's his turn to cut me off. A thundering boom makes me flinch. He chucks everything off of his nightstand, sending it all crashing onto his floor. Pills fly everywhere. The bottles slam against the wall. He's a hairs breadth away from going insane.
“You don't need that shit!” he screams at me, redirecting my attention back to him.
“And you do?!” I snap back.
“Clara?!” Vesper's muffled voice shouts from the closed door. Kieran's eyes flash with danger, he's reached a peak. Those drowning green eyes never leave me. “Fuck off, Vesper. I mean it, don't test me. Clara and I need to . . . talk. There's a lot of shit to unpack.”
I hear Zain wrangle her in an exchange of words before an unsettling silence falls over the hallway once again.
“I am,” he growls through clenched teeth. His entire chest heaves wildly. My brows furrow. “You are what?”
“I am a sadist. I am like him. That's what you wanna hear, isn't it?"
The words cut through me like a knife. His lip quivers into a twist between disgust and sudden recognition.
A perceptual shift fills the air. He sweeps forward into my bubble, his mountainous arms caging me in.
The veins bulge in his forearms. He has me in an invisible chokehold.
“I get off on hurting you, breaking you down to nothing. I am fucked up.”
He releases a whaling cackle. ”Goddamn, how I wish we never fucked!”
Anger resonates through his words. It hurts, but the drugs can mend it quickly for both of us.
My eyes flicker to the mess of the room, wondering if I can salvage any of the pills. I want to give up.
My face tightens. I'm paralyzed. A lump forms in my throat.
Hearing him admit it further digs the knife into my chest.
Somewhere deep down I hate that I feel something for him.
I hate that I’m just as fucked up. I've always lacked sensibility.
Part of me wonders if he chooses to be the way he is.
Sometimes our past shapes our future but .
. . not by choice. Hearing his father’s confession seemed to be just as much of a shock to him as it was to everyone else.
Before I can question him, he rips the shirt from his body.
“Wanna know why, Nightshade?” He steals my attention again as he tosses the shirt aside. He does a 360, showcasing every single inscribed carving of trauma in his flesh. The ridges of his muscles twitch. A look of pure rage and vulnerability. I choke on my words. “I . . .”
The words die in my throat. His breathing turns manic.
“Lessons on how to be a leader. To mold me into someone stronger, worthy of leading the Void. But in reality I'm a fuck up. An asshole. A rapist. Is that what you wanna hear? Huh?”
A cynical laugh falls from his throat, like he's lost his marbles.
His lips curl into a sneer. My eyes go wide.
Is he hurting me to gain his father’s approval?
Is he a casualty in this too, or is this another trick?
Both thoughts make me equally sick. He steps forward.
His knees ram into the bed frame making me flinch.
He pauses before snatching my wrist. He pulls me along the edge of the bed.
He squeezes, forces my hand open before running my fingertips along his deep scar tissue.
“We're both intertwined in this fucked up life, Clara.
I couldn't resist breaking you down for my own selfish desires. I still can't. We both hide our sins; the only difference is I know what the fuck I am. Do you?”
I keep telling myself I can't go there. Not with him.
I've hidden my weakness, burying it to the outside world just to punish myself in private.
He doesn't get to dissect my past. I try to wash away the fucked up things I've done.
My eyes snap closed, realizing we both have a heavy burden we've kept locked away in the darkness.
“Stop hiding your sins. We're the fucking same!” he shouts in my face. His hold turns bruising. Unable to hold back my overflowing mix of emotions, I cry harder. He shows me no mercy, instead pushing me further, breaking me down little by little. That's all he knows. All he craves.
“Admit it. You're a broken tragedy, Nightshade.” He grips my other wrist, too. His hold is painful. Intimidating. Cruel. Kieran.
The way I've been living, I know I can't continue to go on this way. Maybe if I come clean . . . “I'll . . . tell you…if you tell me why you call me Nightshade,” I whisper meekly. His push over the edge is becoming too deep. Too personal.
His cruel smirk sheds his vulnerability.
Those deep emerald eyes pull me under his spell.
“You're deadly. You're gonna be the one to kill me, sweetheart. I have an unhealthy addiction to all things that are bad for me. You're my vice I can't resist. I'm willing to die as long as you're the last face I see.”
His voice is matter of fact, as if he's accepted I'm his demise.
Sweaty curls cling to his forehead. I've never seen him look so tortured.
His self-sabotage is hard to watch, but I at least understand.
His grip relaxes as he releases my wrists, but the look in his eye is no less demanding.
If Kieran wants something, he's going to get it one way or another. Usually by force, I've found; he has no limits to his insanity. His thumb brushes over the newly formed bruises. His eyes plead with me.
“Talk to me, Nightshade.” And despite my anger, I find myself willing.