Chapter 38
Scarlett
Present Day
They never used toys like Azrael did.
The things they used were hard and dry and usually pointed or far too big, especially without lube.
In one of my visions—that’s what I called them now—Azrael taunted me with lube. He smiled and made me laugh, always holding it just out of reach.
“You get plenty wet for me, little sinner, you don’t need this.”
“But they aren’t you, Azrael. I don’t even remember what being wet feels like, but I remember that you caused it. You were the cause behind every good feeling.”
By the way my bathroom trips had been going lately, I didn’t think my ass was ever going to be an option again, and I hated that. I hated that these people had taken something away from Azrael. From me. They had stolen it. As if they had been owed something.
I hummed as I stared out the window, which was now free of glass, watching the trees sway in the breeze, one hand wrapped around the freezing bars as the chilling air bit ruthlessly at my skin.
I had broken it days ago, managed to get a chunk of glass in Kat’s neck before four men, all as big as Alaric, got me to the ground.
Kat didn’t die, in fact, he had returned yesterday, pretty angry over what I had done. He should thank me. Not only did he get to live, but he also had a cool scar now.
Lady Elise had finally replaced the man I had killed, and she added one. Eight wasn’t a holy number, but I suppose with such a dangerous little girl lurking in their house, Lady Elise had no other choice but to break their sanctity.
Kat, Mack, Eckers, Dima, Abram, Boris, and the new members were Sergei, and Ivan.
Maxim was the one I had killed under the house. Boris and Dima were the ones who were usually outside my door.
They hated my humming.
But everyone here had wanted me to make noise. That’s all they preached about for the first few weeks. Noise, noise, noise.
Humming was better than giggling, I was sure.
Emily liked Christmas. It was something I had been thinking about a lot over the last two weeks.
She had talked about the snow, the lights, the singing.
She loved the joy it always brought. She told me that she was going to convince Azrael to let her decorate at least part of our home so I could truly experience it, but sometimes I wondered what she saw in the holiday.
It was still raining. I had never seen even a glimpse of snow in all my years living in Seattle, and once again, I was spending another Christmas giving what I didn’t want to give, only this year was far worse. This year, it wasn’t just the leering. This year they could take anything they wanted.
I shivered, the air cold. At the end of this month, I will have been here for as long as Rae had been. Four months. I wondered if I would forget everything like she did.
I didn’t think so. I mean, I couldn’t remember much of what they had done to me, but that’s only because I always went to see Azrael. He kept the worst of it away, I was sure. Protecting me, even outside the walls of our Hysteric Wonderland.
I had spent the last two weeks thinking extensively about it.
About our world. About how, once again, the spades had stolen the queen away.
I was locked outside the walls of my lands.
Far away from my hatter and my Cheshire Cat.
I wondered if my sharp-willed rose missed me.
I wondered if she realized I had always admired her lovely blood red petals or if my daffodil ever knew that she had warmed my skin in her fire.
I never knew.
I took it for granted, the presence of my sisters. I shouldn’t have taken them for granted.
Could I kill all eight men on my own? I had gone through countless scenarios as I drifted off to sleep. Countless, and each and every single one ended badly.
Taking them one by one had been a good idea until Lady Elise had replaced him.
Otherwise, I could have done it. Killed one every other week.
Killed them every time I came out of the room below the house.
The problem was that room. I was sent down there for a week every time, and the most recent visit, I had been chained down.
Chained down because I caused so many problems with my hands and someone had told Lady Elise that giving me so many shots a day could cause heart problems, so instead, they locked me to a wall.
They had even covered my mouth with something that had prevented me from biting.
It didn’t give me enough time outside of the room to kill them all. It would take 16 weeks to go at it one by one.
I thought of a scenario when I took them all at once, but that also failed.
I had barely killed eight of the Initiates in the woods, and I was stronger then, faster.
They had guns, the woods were wide open.
I was good in close quarters, yes, but not with eight men who were all the size of Alaric and all had guns.
Not to mention that even if I did manage to kill them all, I would still need Mack’s hand to get out the door, and I had no idea what awaited me out there. More men? What if there were? I would never make it, especially with how little energy I had these days.
Waiting was killing me though.
So now what?
What could the Queen of Hearts do now?
I heard the door open and immediately turned, already undressed and waiting.
Kat walked in, that look of pure rage in his eyes, the gauze still wrapped around his throat.
My smile only sharpened when I saw it. I felt pride that I had managed to get him. It may have only been a quick and shallow stab, and I may have earned belt lashes and a visit with Mr. Bastrom, but I still got him.
“I see the arrogance in your eye Izbrannik Bozhiy, well deserved too, I suppose, but Lady Elise realized something yesterday while you were on your back after evening service.”
I cocked my head, moving forward a few steps fluidly. “And what did she realize?” I thought to myself.
His eyes drifted over me, his own smile touching his lips. “She realized that perhaps we have been a little too kind to you.” He stepped to the side of the door and looked back, my eyes following his to the doorway.
What ever will he bring me today? Perhaps another visit from Mr. Alascer. Or Mr. Edgars. Oh, L.J. had been very covetous with his visits, maybe he will have returned.
Oh, I know. Thomas. He had yet to come visit me. Perhaps he was too busy running the church, mourning his father, running the nonprofit. Maybe he had finally decided to come back and take what was owed to him since I was 9 years old.
But it wasn’t any of them who walked through that door.
My smile faltered for the first time in months, my body tensing when I found Malachi’s cold blue eyes.
He smiled. “Hello again, Scarlett, you look well.”
I looked well? There was a two-inch gap when I circled my thumb and finger around my wrist. I could see my hipbones now. My collarbones. What a goddamn liar he was.
I hated liars.
I took him in slowly, my lip curling. He was shorter than Azrael. Still a couple inches taller than me, but short. He was also round and his head was bald. His eyes were the only terrifying thing about him, but even now, I could see the age in them.
The terror I had felt on the operating table three and a half months ago never came. All I felt now was disgust, anger, and smugness.
This was who they were all so afraid of? He wasn’t bulletproof. He was just rich. One good bullet to the skull and he would die just like the rest of them.
I giggled and glanced at Kat and back. So silly, my family was. This man wouldn’t have survived a slice to the throat.
“Do you find something joyous?” Malachi asked, a dead light shining in his own eyes as he continued to smile back.
I nodded and turned back to Kat, gesturing to his neck and then to Malachi’s.
Kat pressed his lips into a thin line as I straightened, turning back to Malachi. “I think she’s saying that she doesn’t think you’d survive the slice to the neck, sir.”
My brows lifted at the word and I giggled, covering my lips to feign muffling it.
Malachi chuckled. “Oh, do you find respect humorous? You find a lot of things humorous, don’t you, Scarlett?”
Only when I was met with people who believed they were an all-powerful god when, in fact, I could kill them without trying.
Azrael was right, all this man had was power.
He bought his connections, he got drunk off the power money had given him, and he thought he was untouchable.
I regret to say that maybe Azrael wouldn’t find his death quite as satisfying as he wanted it to be.
This man couldn’t even fight. He would get winded after only a few swings, and a gun?
Azrael would slice through his big, fat neck before he even pulled it out.
Money could buy someone a lot, but it couldn’t buy physical preparedness.
“You are such a joy, aren’t you?” he chuckled, walking into the room. His eyes drifted to my bed admiring it fondly, causing my stomach to twist.
I stepped back from him, my back now to the door, keeping my distance as he walked over to it. Why was he looking at it like that?
He touched my bed post and stared at the pink comforter for a long time before he found my eyes again. “Charlotte was a mess when she woke up here.”
I straightened, my blood running cold, my smile sharpening. He knew?
“She fought and screamed and bit. Elise lost a few men in that first week she was here, but it wasn’t long before she gave up. I think it was the second time her father took her to the basement that it finally clicked in her.”
It was an effort not to grab my wrists. Had Rae been in the same shackles I had been in? Had her father fucked her down there just as I was? Was that her blood on the walls, her claw marks?
“Yes, I knew she was here,” Malachi hummed, turning back to the bed. “I didn’t know Charles had set her free, but I knew she had been here. I visited her a few times, in fact. Made sure she was being treated right.”
I swallowed, steeling my spine.