Chapter 42 Scarlett #3
“Kill the Pastor, he’s a coward. Everyone without clothes there deserves to live, they are prisoners.
The last names of the Elders are Adams, Mors, Cansen, and Miller.
Malachi and Lady Elise hired them together, they’re her people.
Everything about the Church of Daylight came from them both. Everything.”
His brows pulled together. “That church has been around since the 90’s.”
I nodded, refusing to change my statement.
He searched my eyes for a second longer before straightening. “Okay, I need to make a call.”
The second he turned away, a thud sounded to my left, causing me to flinch and whip my head around, my heart picking up exponentially.
Alaric was standing halfway between his desk and Azrael’s, straightening, my blade and holster on the ground. He found my eyes and gave me a single nod before heading for the door, keys in hand.
“Lus, fetch,” Olivia said. “Gentle, it’s sharp.”
I watched Alaric until he disappeared through the door before turning back to Lucy who was still sniffing the knife. She nudged the handle with her nose before carefully picking it up, wary of the blade.
She walked over and gently placed it on Azrael’s desk before retrieving the holster and doing the same. She finally sat down and watched me, her pink tongue hanging out.
“Good girl,” Olivia said.
I watched her for a long time before reaching for my blade. The metal was cool under my touch, causing a shiver to shake through me. I wrapped my fingers around it and brought it to me, the weight familiar. Holding a weapon, a real weapon, felt good. I didn’t think I would ever put it down again.
“Scarlett, why are you still smiling?”
I turned back to Poppy, my face twisting. Smiling? Was I still smiling?
Lifting my fingers, gently touching my lips, feeling the way in which my lips curled. I was smiling. Why was I still smiling?
My eyes found Olivia’s in question.
“It’s okay,” she told me. “Some habits, after that long, are difficult to break. It took me quite a while to leave Merlin behind. Even longer for Lucy to trust that I wasn’t going to leave her again.
Take your time, however long it takes.” Her own smile grew, warm and inviting.
“You did good, Scarlett. Really good. All that information will help us, but you need to rest now. You need to allow your body to heal so we can finish this.”
I searched her eyes for a few seconds before turning back to the screen, watching my own heartbeat, still faster than it should have been.
I wondered if it would ever return to normal.
I adjusted the rabbit and slid the blade carefully between my teeth.
“Does he have anything I can use?” I asked, my hands shaking.
She shook her head. “The only one who got a tracker was Everett, and it was against his will. Trust me, if there was a way to track him, we would have found it, but Azrael makes it impossible. It’s what he’s always done in that regard.”
Azrael didn’t like being tracked, but he never had a wife before either.
He never had someone as obsessed with him as I was.
I would find him, whatever the cost, but Olivia was right.
I wouldn’t be of much use like this. I needed to heal, if not completely then at least enough to survive another fight.
“I want everything I need to heal as quickly as possible. Everything,” I told Olivia.
“Whatever the cost, whatever the risk, I want it all.”
She and Poppy exchanged a glance before Poppy stood. “What she wants, she gets. I’ll make a few calls.” She held out her hand to Olivia.
Olivia gave her a small smile and dug out her phone before finding my eyes. “A loophole in Azrael’s rule.”
An untraceable phone. If anyone would have found a way around it, she would have.
Poppy took it and walked towards the table. I tracked the movement, my eyes finally catching sight of the decorations they had put all around the room.
“Emily’s idea,” Olivia explained as I slowly took it all in. It was absolutely beautiful. “To bring some light here. I think even Azrael liked it, but he’ll never say.”
I think he liked it too.
I leaned back in the chair, finding his desk again.
It was well-organized, nothing out of place, not even a pen.
He had been gone for over a week now. Hunting down the man he knew was behind hurting me.
Was the twisting in my stomach from the pain I had endured or was it something else?
It could have been wrong. I was flinching away from my friends.
Every loud sound made me jump. What if my ‘gut’ were off, too?
“When I first got back,” Olivia started, pulling my eyes back to her, “I didn’t talk for a long time.
You probably already know the logistics of what happened, but no report, no letter, can ever explain what I felt.
” Her eyes glistened, and as if Lucy could feel it, the dog immediately walked over and forced her nose under Olivia’s arm.
“I was so lost and…and angry,” she went on, gently petting her pup. “I felt absolutely alone in the world. Everett was there and I couldn’t even see him.”
My brows furrowed and I slid the blade between my teeth again. “Couldn’t see? The report said he never left you.”
“He didn’t,” she confirmed as I took the knife in my hand again.
“He was right by my side, day and night, since the second he found me, but I couldn’t see him.
My mind wouldn’t allow it. I think I just didn’t want to risk losing him again.
I was deathly afraid of losing him, and when I finally did see him, I ignored him.
When I started talking again, I talked to everyone else.
Em and Rae, to Grey. I even talked to Azrael, and that?
” she laughed. “That sent Ev over the edge. He got really angry at me. I don’t think he was actually angry, but that’s the emotion that came out.
We fought and, after some time, I finally realized that it was the loss of control that drove me to that point. ”
She clasped her hands together and shrugged, inhaling and exhaling.
“When I was in that compound, I lost everything. I lost my purpose, my sense of self. They did whatever they wanted to do to me, careful of leaving scars because ‘the boss’ couldn’t have me damaged.
It was horrible, and it felt like I had been there for an eternity.
I still have nightmares about it,” she confessed.
“But Everett never left my side, and eventually, I became something so much more afterwards.
Stronger, powerful. I crave blood, I crave chaos, but most importantly, I crave the control.
“I don’t know how this is going to look for you.
A part of me still thinks you’re in shock, that it hasn’t hit you fully yet, but what I will tell you is the same thing Emily told me; healing isn’t linear.
It just isn’t, and however your healing looks, that’s what it is, you know?
Maybe you’ll find it in your art or maybe in sex.
Maybe you’ll find it in your revenge, but what you can’t do, Scarlett, is you can’t ever give up.
Not even in the middle of the night when it’s the worst. The day is coming, I promise.
Freedom is just around the corner, but your fighting hasn’t stopped yet.
You have to be strong for just a little bit longer, and I swear—I swear you’ll find your path again. ”
I watched her for a long time before I slid the blade between my teeth and lifted my hands again. “Was it difficult having sex with him after they stole that piece from your soul?”
Her eyes filled then, and her throat bobbed. “Yes,” she breathed out.
Fear and worry filled me. Sex was how Azrael and I thrived. It wasn’t all there was to our relationship, but it was a big part of it, and all I could think about was what Malachi had said, what they all had said.
I was infected now. Could we ever get that part back if he knew? “Did you ever find it again? That piece.”
Light filled her eyes at my question, but the tears didn’t ease. “I did.”
I studied her carefully but didn’t reply.
I had nothing else to say. Maybe I was in shock, Bishop told me it was something that could happen after a traumatic event, but I couldn’t tell.
Whatever happened next wasn’t going to be able to be predicted, which was fine, I could adapt to whatever the situation was.
What I couldn’t adapt to was not being able to connect to my hatter. If I lost him, I lost everything.
“Okay,” Poppy said, rejoining us. “Doctor Manson will be back in two hours with some more supplies from someone I know. Someone outside this world,” she told Olivia. “For now, you need to get back to bed, get that IV in you again. Doctor’s orders.”
I was suddenly feeling a little tired, I guess. Maybe it was time for a rest.
Without a reply, I gripped the blade in one hand and the rabbit in the other and pushed myself to a stand.
I started the slow walk back to the elevator, trying to ignore the horrible feeling growing gin the pit of my stomach.
I would heal and I would find Azrael, and we would end this as a family. Once and for all.