Chapter 44 Scarlett #3
“The cursing is new,” she said almost to herself.
“Love that. It’s just the world we’re in, Scar.
We see more darkness here than we do light.
The job never ends. It’s one of the original reasons Malachi started the program, one of the reasons Everett is working so hard on filling the school with students.
These people are everywhere, so we need to be too. ”
The school.
My eyes shot up. “The school?” I had thought about it since coming back, but it didn’t hit me until she mentioned it. It was finished. I missed that too.
She beamed. “The first wave of students start on the eighth. We’ve gotta work out some logistics, being as how we won’t be there and this year will be shorter than normal, but Everett assured us that it would be fine.
It’s our test year. The classes won’t be full, only some kids of the adult Initiates we’ve already vetted, kids of the professors, except for the Raine’s, and some Initiates we trust that have already graduated Malachi’s program will be going through.
Obviously, we’re missing a professor for the time being, but like I said, test run.
It’ll be great. Next year will be absolutely perfect, especially when we can put all of this behind us. ”
“What…the…fuck,” the man on his knees snarled. “You’ve started a fucking school? You fucking sick freaks.”
Poppy glanced his way before finding my eyes and raising a brow.
Time had gone on without me. The world had kept going, plans had kept progressing. All while I had been in that house, trapped in an endless nightmare.
And this…piece of shit was begging us to let him leave?
My entire soul vibrated with the need for vengeance. Not for me, but for the woman he beat. How dare he? How dare he touch her?
I crouched down in front of him, holding up my blade, gazing at the way the colors above reflected off of it, his eyes now level with mine.
“Please,” he whispered. “You seem like a nice little girl, please. Just…just let me leave. Mercy. You have to understand mercy.”
Oh, I did. I just didn’t believe in it.
Tick tock goes the clock, for those I condemn. Tick tock goes the clock, carved the ‘X’ has been.
I quickly flicked my wrist, a line of red appearing across his cheek. I did it again, another line appearing across his forehead.
Again and again I sliced his skin everywhere I could, inching closer, my heart racing faster, my rage boiling over.
Fuck men.
Fuck the church.
Fuck the darkness.
They belonged in Hell, not me.
Them, not me.
I escaped, but I would make sure no one else ever did. My mark would flood the gates of Hell so fully, the Devil would smile up in pride at the monster he created.
~~~
January 7th, 2024
I had been up since early this morning, wandering the halls, going through Azrael’s computer, which he had encrypted so deeply that nobody could hack into it. However, just like nearly every other security pad in this house, the security pad on his computer unlocked with my fingerprint.
I had even put one of his shirts on, tightened around my waist with one of his belts, just to feel closer to him.
But as the sun began to rise, I was still left empty-handed.
Was this how he had felt in the days after I disappeared? Frustrated and angry beyond reason?
All I felt was rage, and while the man Poppy had brought in helped, it felt like a drop in the pool.
I felt…useless, and I truly disliked that. That feeling in the pit of my stomach had only grown. I knew Azrael. I knew him. Even if he was busy every second of the day, he would have made time to get a message to me.
Did he even know I was home?
Should I figure out how to send a message to him?
Just as the thought passed through me, the door to the office opened and I immediately reached for my blade.
Despite seeing that it was Poppy, I still held it wrapped in white knuckles, the rabbit sitting in the center of my lap.
“I can tell you’ve been up for some time,” she said softly, still waking up herself.
She was barefoot, wearing black sweats that hung on her hips and a crop top that showed off her blood red belly button ring and several pale scars of varying sizes I was sure she had gotten from Azrael.
If not all than some.
I turned back to the screen, closing out of the document I had been reading.
It was information on the asylum. He had a lot of stuff on this computer.
In depth information about every single assignment his brothers and sisters had ever been on, cases that he had worked alone, a trail of where Poppy had been from the time she was born to the day she unofficially moved into this house.
He had always known how close or far she had been from catching him. Always.
They all thought he didn’t care for them, but it was achingly clear. I think he cared most of all.
“The nightmares are the worst,” she said when I didn’t reply. She took a seat in the chair directly across from me, looking over what I had done to Azrael’s desk.
In the nights since I had first woken up from that coma, I had started carving into the wood. Designs, pictures, symbols. Beautiful artwork that I hoped would bring him joy when he returned just like, I suppose, they thought the roses would bring me.
She yawned a jaw-cracking yawn. “I don’t think he ever told you, and I doubt you have any way of knowing, but did you know that you sleepwalk?
” she asked, pulling my eyes back to hers.
“Yeah,” she cleared her throat, “the first time I saw it, I was in here yelling at Azrael for God knows what, something about you, I’m sure—”
My brows furrowed, but she waved me off.
“I was worried about you, clearly I was wrong. Anyway, I was yelling at him, and I heard the door open. When I looked over, it was to see you walking in here, asleep. You looked so…small then. So helpless, which I know is not true,” she clarified after seeing some look in my eye, I was sure.
“He opened his arm as if he had done it a hundred times before, and you crawled right in as if you had done the same. You curled into him as if he wasn’t some deadly, psychopath with a blood fetish who we all wanted dead for a long time there.
He wrapped his arms around you as if he wasn’t that very same monster.
He picked you up and carried you right to bed. I didn’t see him again that night.”
I searched her eyes. I never knew that. He had hated the idea of touching anyone for quite some time, I never thought he would do that for me. I never thought I had nightmares like that before now.
Was I sleepwalking now?
Panic slammed through me, causing my hand to tighten around my knife. I couldn’t be out of control. I didn’t want to hurt my family I—
“Why are you still smiling?” she asked softly. “It looks so painful.”
It was. It hurt so much that it alone caused tears to prickle my eyes every time I woke up. But…I couldn’t stop. It was the only way to hide what was happening inside my head. The only way to keep myself focused. As focused as I could be now.
Poppy adjusted herself, spreading her knees as she slouched down in the chair.
“You know, we’ve all got our demons. I know you read our files, but there is always something there that gets left out.
Olivia and the consequences of her kidnapping.
The fear and panic she would never write down even if she could put it in words.
Rae, who literally forgot everything that happened with her, but still suffers the consequences every single day, although there are no words for her to use to be able to describe what that feeling is burning inside of her.
“And Emily? She was only taken and beaten for a day, but she stayed in her house for almost two weeks with a concussion and severe damage to her body. Grey didn’t even know about it until her friend Ash realized that something was seriously wrong.
She was already suffering from her own personal shit, but that?
It really fucked her mind up. Let’s not even get into all the fucked up shit that happened to the rest of us to make us monsters.
Evie hasn’t even woken up yet from the last fucked up thing, which is seriously getting to Olivia and Ev.
“The point is, we all have our shit, and we all have to figure out a way to work through it. Whether it be decorating for the holidays against everyone’s will,” she gestured to the tree still lit up brightly, “or craving bloodshed like an addict craves heroin. If smiling gets you through it, fine, but what I see is a woman in a lot of pain, trying her best to ignore the damage they did to her. You can’t ignore it, sis.
You have to confront it head on and then tear it apart with your teeth.
We can take care of everything else, carry you in the spaces you need carried, but you have to know that we would much rather carry you broken, than watch you tear yourself apart trying to pretend you’re not. ”
I swallowed, my tongue suddenly dry as every single image that I had dreamed about for the last several months filled my head. Horrible, depraved, disgusting things. Torture unlike anything I had seen anyone do. Sick and twisted, psychotic things.
I closed my eyes for a second and shook my head once, my hand flexing around my blade several times before I finally forced it away and held up trembling hands. “I’m terrified that…I will be worse than Azrael, and you all hated him,” I confessed, slowly opening my eyes to meet hers.
Poppy’s shoulders fell, compassion and warmth filling her expression.
“Scarlett,” she breathed out. She shook her head and sat up, leaning over her own knees.
“Listen to me. It wasn’t the man we hated, it was the secrets.
It was the not knowing. The unanswered questions.
Azrael is…” she struggled for the right words before releasing a breathy laugh.
“He’s a character, but he’s still family.
” Her brows pulled together, worry pulling the corners of her lips down.
“He tried so very hard to get you out of their cage, to free you from them, but look what you’re doing.
You’ve locked yourself in your own cage,” she whispered and shook her head again.
“You can’t do that, Scar. It’s the worst thing you can do. ”
I inhaled sharply, feeling the tears burn the back of my eyes again.
“I feel like I never left that house,” I confessed quickly, my body shaking.
“I feel like I’m still chained to that wall, still wearing that muzzle,” I went on, rubbing my hands over my mouth, my jaw, the back of my head, if only to make sure it wasn’t there.
I could feel it every second of every day.
I could still feel Malachi’s heat radiating from his body.
I could still hear the last thing he said to me right before he left me lying in that room.
“He hates me and now I’ve infected you. Womb or not, I’m sure that’ll plant a little seed of doubt in that otherwise impenetrable mind of his.”
It was why I hadn’t pushed harder to leave this place, to search for him.
I had tried so hard for months to not let the doubts get to me, but it felt like it was stitched into my being now, that one shred of thought.
Malachi’s betrayal. The pain he inflicted.
It felt permanent, and I was terrified of what I would become if I allowed the anger and hatred to consume me.
This family was a family of monsters, but even monsters had their limits.
Poppy didn’t blink, she didn’t even look away.
“I know, but you did. You got out, and now, we’ve got a war to fight.
So, if you’re worried that we’re not going to like who you are now, you’re wrong.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of our whole deal collecting the unwanted, seriously fucked up, stray cats of the world and giving them a home. We thrive from it.”
I searched her eyes, my entire body vibrating with unused energy. I felt the fear so clearly, but I also saw the truth in her eyes. All I could do now was trust her.
Trust the woman who, in the beginning, I had truly disliked for calling Azrael a sick freak.
Maybe he had changed us all.
I had to let go. I had to let the missing pieces burn through me. It had felt so good killing tonight. Letting out just a bit of that rage that had been building in me for months. I had to trust that they would still want me even if they didn’t completely like what they saw.
“You should know,” I signed, before pulling up all the notes he had on Poppy, “that he cared for you most of all. He saw you as an equal. Not in the way he sees Olivia, but in his way.”
Her brows pulled together. “What are you talking about.”
I gestured to the screen as I pushed away from the desk. I picked up my rabbit and knife and headed towards the wall of windows where the endless trees were completely engulfed in an endless fog.
I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and with a tightened grip and clenched teeth, allowed every memory of that church, of those people, to flood through me.
From the moment I watched my mother shake hands with Pastor Masters, to the smile on Malachi’s face when he left me in that room thinking he had won.
Poppy was right. I needed to unlock the cage I had put myself in and figure out who I was now that I had survived Absolution.