21 Asher
"Angel, miracle, weapon, legend—I didn't care what she was. She was still my Red."
Once we are back at the house, I carry Scarlett upstairs.
She fell asleep about five minutes into the ride.
Honestly, I'm surprised she made it that long.
In the span of a few hours she was kidnapped, learned Thomas wasn't her father, discovered her real father was apparently descended from the Archangel Michael, watched me die, and then somehow brought me back to life.
Yeah, I'd say she's earned a nap. I glance down at her sleeping face as I climb the stairs.
Even asleep she looks exhausted, tear tracks still stain her cheeks.
Her fingers are curled tightly into my shirt, like she's afraid if she lets go, I'll disappear.
The thought punches me right in the chest.
The memory flashes through my head. The gunshot ripping through my chest, her scream, her face above mine and then nothing except light.
I knew I was gone, I could feel it, and then all I could feel was her.
Every part of her, her grief, her love, her desperation to bring me back.
I push open the bedroom door and carry her inside.
The room is exactly how we left it. The bed unmade, my duffle bag sitting in the corner, the candles she likes still on the dresser.
A little piece of normal after the most insane day of my life.
I carefully pull back the blankets and lay her down.
The second I try to pull away, her grip tightens.
"Don't go." The words are barely audible.
"I'm not going anywhere, Red. You need to rest, you can either lay down in here and get some sleep or I can run you a nice hot bath and you can get cleaned up.”
“Will you join me?”
“As much as I would love to say yes to that, I have some things that need taken care of downstairs. Why don’t you get the bath and relax and I will be back up shortly.”
“Okay, but not too long, I need you beside me tonight. I need to know that this is real and not some dream. That I’m not going to wake up and be back in that basement like none of this ever happened.”
I sit beside her for several moments. Just watching her, because apparently dying does weird shit to your head. A knock sounds against the bedroom door. I go over and open it and it’s Grant.
I already know what he wants.
“Let me get her settled into a bath and I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Roman down there?”
“He’s next door with the other one, I was headed there next.”
“I’d give them a few more minutes. He almost lost her today, I know what that feels like, he may not want to fully admit it but I see the way they look at each other.”
I turn and walk towards the bathroom and fill the tub just that way she likes it.
I go in and lift her up off the bed, undress her place her in the tub and give a quick kiss on the head.
“Relax, Red. I’ll be back in a few.”
When I go back out Grant is leaning against the wall. Roman stands beside him. Neither one looks particularly happy.
"How is she?" Grant asks.
"Exhausted."
"Understandable."
I rub a hand over my face.
"Physically she's fine."
"And mentally?"
Grant and Roman exchange a glance.
"That's harder to answer."
"Try." Grant says and Roman sighs.
"Brother, she found out she's part angel and brought you back from the dead."
"When you say it out loud it sounds ridiculous."
"It sounded ridiculous while it was happening."
Fair.
Grant hands me a folder.
"What's this?"
"The journals."
I stare at him.
"The journals?"
"We collected everything from the farmhouse."
"I’m going to send Cipher the journals and see if he can track anything down or get to the bottom of some of this, if anyone can find answers it is him.
In the meantime, lets go try to get some more answers from the asshole downstairs.”
Grant pushes off the wall and starts down the stairs and Roman cracks his neck as he follows.
We make our way through the house until we reach the basement door.
The same basement that has become the unofficial holding cell for people stupid enough to cross Knightfall.
Roman opens the door and the sound immediately hits us.
"Get me out of here!" Celeste is screaming. "Do you know who I am? You're all going to prison!"
Roman sighs. The second we step into the basement, Celeste's eyes lock onto me and hatred immediately floods her expression.
Good. The feeling is mutual. Thomas and her are both tied securely to the hooks screwed into the ceiling.
Cleste is a lot more lively than Thomas, looks like that hit to the abdomen and blood loss weakened him a lot.
"Well," Roman says as he drags a chair across the floor and sits backward on it. "Who wants to start?"
"Go to hell," Celeste spits.
Roman nods. "Cool." He stands and walks over and pulls a roll of duct tape from out of one of the drawers. Celeste's eyes widen.
"No."
"Yes, I’m thinking you are not the one that has the answers we need, and frankly I can’t take anymore of your annoying voice."
"You can't—" Roman places a strip directly over her mouth and the basement immediately becomes peaceful. Grant closes his eyes.
"That's better."
I walk over and stand directly in front of Thomas, for several seconds I just stare at him. Then I reach over and grab a chunk of his hair and yank his head back so his eyes meet mine.
"You almost got her killed."
Thomas doesn't look away.
"She never would have died, she needed the traumatic event to push her. The plan was always to keep her alive, for me at least. I had invested a lot in her" The admission catches me off guard.
"People died today."
"You put a bounty on her."
"I didn't." His answer comes immediately and my eyes narrow.
"Then who did?" Thomas looks up but doesn’t answer. Roman and Grant exchange a look. Thomas looks toward Celeste and every head in the room follows. She immediately starts shaking her head violently.
"Roman." Roman grins as he goes over and rips the tape off.
Celeste shrieks
"YOU ASSHOLE!"
"Language." Roman scolds
"Fuck you!"
I go over to her and grab her by the chin tight and force her gaze into mine, not surprisingly she doesn’t back down.
"Celeste, You put the bounty on Scarlett?"
"So what if I did? What are you going to do about it?" The room goes silent.
Roman slowly looks at me and I look at Grant. I release Celeste's chin and take a step back.
She mistakes it for weakness and laughs.
"You think this is funny?" I ask quietly and she rolls her eyes.
"Oh please. Scarlett is alive. You're alive. Everyone acts like I committed some horrible crime."
Roman lets out a dark laugh, the kind that makes even me uncomfortable sometimes.
"You hired people to hunt her."
"She was supposed to disappear." The second the words leave her mouth, Thomas closes his eyes. Grant folds his arms.
"Disappear?"
Celeste shrugs. "It would've solved everyone's problems."
My hands curl into fists.
"You've spent your entire life believing nobody would ever hold you accountable, well tonight you're learning otherwise." For the first time, real fear flashes across her face. Thomas suddenly speaks.
"Enough." Nobody even looks at him.
"I said enough!"
Grant finally turns. "You don't get to make demands anymore."
I walk over to the tool cabinet and grab a cigar cutter from the wall.
"We can do this the easy way."
Celeste scoffs.
"Or?"
“What the hell am I talking about, you bullied my girl her whole life, made her miserable, tried to have her raped, then put a bounty on her head and why? Because you are a spoiled selfish bitch who couldn’t stand that someone was more beautiful than you, smarter than you,
excelled at everything she did.” I say with murder in my eyes.
“She is a fucking freak! We all saw what happened down there!”
“Aw shit! Not the right thing to say to him right now.”
I walk over and go behind her to where her hand are still tied behind her back.
I first take the lighter I have and use it to get the metal cauterizing tool nice and hot.
I want to make this painful and draw this out for her, just like she did to Scarlett all those years.
I take the cigar cutter and begin to cut off each of her fingers.
She screams as I clip each one as it is nothing.
Thomas is screaming at me to stop, to have mercy on her.
Why should I give her mercy when she never gave any to Scarlett.
Her fingers fall to the basement floor at my feet as I cut them and after each one a jam the cauterizing tool onto the stub that is left to stop the bleeding, this makes her scream out even more.
I walk back around to the front of Celeste, and she is glaring at me.
She has tears streaking her cheeks, but she looks like she wants to murder me.
Good, because the more she acts tough, the harder I can play.
After what she has done to Scarlett I feel like using a lot of tools and showing everyone how I got my name.
I’m going to take every piece of her that she finds beautiful and remove it.
I nodded to Roman to lower her down a little.
I grab a pair of scissors and begin to randomly cut off chunks of her hair.
“Get the fuck away from me. I swear if you touch one more hair on my head I will sue every one of you.”
Roman laughs. “Oh you actually think you are going to leave this basement alive, no sweetie. He is just making sure that you are as ugly as can be for when we ship your body parts to the doorstep of your mother.”
The look on her face finally changes, like she finally realizes that she isn’t coming out of this alive.
I nod to Roman and he knows exactly what I want.
He goes over and grabs the duct tape and places it back over her mouth.
I continue to cut her hair until it is short enough that I can shave it all off.
When I am done she is mostly bald, I’m not hairdresser and I wasn’t actually trying to make it even or look good.
“Jesus Ash, remind me to never let you cut my hair.” Roman laughs
I then take the scissors and slice down her dress, it falls to the floor.
I grab a mask and put one on and then hand one to Grant and Roman.
Then I grab the spray bottle of sulfuric acid off the table and go over to her and begin to spray her entire body with it.
She immediately starts to fight and scream through the tape.