Chapter 28 Saint
Saint
Desire - MEG MYERS
Present day
Indie Kent is my unwavering, unhealthy, and undying obsession.
I could experience a multitude of time loops and lifetimes.
I’d find her in every single one.
It’s never changed, and it never will.
Everything I’ve done since we separated is all for her.
I had to walk away from her in her room. I can’t think straight around her, and one thing I can’t do is lose control around her.
She’s not even been here a week, and already the band to my restraint is stretched to its limit. I can feel the snags increasing every time I look at her.
When she told me I could touch her?
I almost lost my fucking mind.
Six years ago, I would have sold my soul to the fucking devil to hear those words from her.
Now?
I’ve traded places with him instead, but my avarice in having her has never faded away.
And greed is a deadly sin.
Gentleness is something I’ve always struggled with, never knew the meaning of.
I was crafted into a machine for war from a young age. Naturally bred for hunting one purpose. Six years is a long time to know nothing else but utter savagery and blood lust.
But when I looked into those haunting blue eyes after all this time, I felt something I haven’t known since her.
Calm.
I’ll never know peace, not until I raise the fires of hell and scorch the earth with them.
Not until those who harmed her are screaming for mercy, gurgling in their own blood and tears and begging me to stop.
It won’t be a quick death; it’ll be unhurried, lengthy, and agonisingly painful.
It’s a shame I’m physically not immortal, because it’ll be nothing close to what they deserve.
Instead, I’ll dedicate my life to prolonging their torture, just to do it all over again in the next.
Indie doesn’t know the weight her words hold when she says these people never face justice. It’s rotten into the very history of that society. And the fucked-up thing is, all this?
It didn’t just start with her, or Regina and Jenna.
Indie was the last straw, my biggest motivation, and I knew I couldn’t fail her, or my father. He’s the whole reason I have the knowledge I bear. Handing me keys to my own vicious empire that I wield to bring these fuckers to their knees.
It’s my own tool of mass destruction, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it.
When I had to witness with my own eyes what they did to her, I saw fucking red, felt that darkness I’d hidden from her roar to life.
I still see it every time I close my eyes.
I feel it when I think about her, and anyone in my path learns a hard fucking lesson.
It fills my need to keep this going, the heat scorching like a never-ending inferno. They’d broken her mind into something irreparable, when she wasn’t theirs to touch.
No one touches what’s fucking mine.
But I can see she conjured a darkness of her own in my absence and became one with it.
She’s a walking, beautiful disaster.
I’d come to terms years ago that I was never going to get her back. The realisation made me kill more men than I’ll likely ever admit.
To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you the number, but it soars into the hundreds. I should have been dealt karma for it; what I got in return was something I’d never expected.
And fuck did I love her even more for it.
That darkness of hers hummed an unholy tune to my soul, and mine sung right back to it.
I had a moment standing on the verge, ready to take out the whippet skittering through the woods, evading my bullets with a speed I’d never seen before in my life.
I’d initially put it down to their height, but the way they moved mesmerised me, and I needed to know exactly who thought they could fuck with me.
Something made me hesitate as they barrelled into the car. I couldn’t see a face in the darkness, but I knew.
I just knew there was something about them.
Because my heart finally beat for the first time in years.
Then I tracked her and Regina to her home, hacked into their system and made my way up the stairs, ready to turn whoever thought they could take me out’s world upside down.
I could bet my life I never in the world would have expected to see it was my darling girl.
I watched her in utter fascination, flipping a gun in her hand and checking the casing. Over and over again. She was so familiar with it, like handling it was second nature.
For a moment, I thought I’d finally succumb to the karma that’s been chasing me ever since I took my first life, lying on the cold hardwood floor of the cabin, imagining shit in my head.
Instead of playing my life’s best seven minutes after my death, I was conjuring what I’d always wanted to see.
Her.
Alive.
Living life like she deserved.
Imagine my surprise when I found the little demon was the one responsible for stalking me. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but then she turned and looked at me with a murderous glint in those crystal-like eyes. I knew then I’d fallen for her all over again.
And I wasn’t walking away without her.
If I had to, I’d have dropped to my knees and fucking begged her.
I’d kept an eye on her when I could the day I left, waiting for the phone call to say she was ready.
She could have called me twenty-five years later, and I’d have still run to her door.
I could have been in the middle of tearing a place to the ground, and if that call had come, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about abandoning what I was doing.
But it never came, and I now know why.
The only reason I knew they didn’t have her, is because I’ve always got my eye on them; they can’t even take a piss without me knowing. Just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Hell knows I’m a patient man.
I’ve still been trying to figure out how she managed to hide her misdeeds, how she managed to slip them beneath my all-seeing radar, hiding behind two companies.
One where her darkened soul truly lies.
Doesn’t matter now; the fact she even managed it is altering the chemicals in my brain.
I’ve never been so proud in my entire fucking life.
Growing up, I never thought I deserved her. Something so pure, so angelic beneath my hands was a sin within itself.
But the devil wasn’t formed without his own corruption.
She didn’t deserve to be brought into my world; willpower disintegrated every time I glanced at her. Until I could no longer fight the urge.
Selfishly, I gave in to the weakness, and I’ve never been able to pull myself away from it. It killed me to hold back the truth, but she’d never have been able to handle the reality about what I was really doing.
Seeing her after all this time, maybe I shouldn’t have doubted her.
A darkness like that lurks within us all; only the ones capable of mastering it can bear its truths.
My biggest regret is allowing her to push me away. I was young, and I couldn’t stand the thought that my presence was causing her more pain.
I may be a man, though I’m not ashamed to admit it destroyed something in me, letting her go.
The last part of my humanity ended on those swings in her backyard, and she’s the only one who can bring it back.
It’s the only part of me reserved solely for her.
She’ll never be rid of me now. The only way she can get away from me is if she puts the fucking bullet in me herself.
Even then, I’d haunt her from my eternal damnation.
My eyes draw to her like magnets as she runs around the perimeter of The Pit, still amazed she’d even taken that up.
I personally wanted to call this place limbo, seeing as it’s where most of our captives spend their last remaining days.
My dad and I compromised.
There’s a jolt of nerves that bolts through me when she dips out of sight, and I internally grapple it into submission.
My people are crawling everywhere; there’s not a square foot that doesn’t have at least two sets of eyes on it.
We even have a five-mile stretch into the forest littered with security.
You’d need to be suicidal to wander into this neck of the woods.
And if you happen to do so by accident?
Regret is a word you’ll soon find out the true meaning of.
Indie has also proven she’s more than capable of handling herself on her own. Nonetheless, she needs more training.
Every single person here has either come from a military background, or they’ve experienced a similar training. Hell, some have acquired it through the underworld.
We need it.
We have an enemy that has an unlimited amount of resources. There’s no telling us what we’ll face when the time comes. But to get the ruler, you need to disperse the servants.
The latter will be the biggest challenge; the rest will topple like ancient pillars.
They’ve taken too much over the years, a greed that puts mine to shame.
But where I’d love nothing more than to crawl inside Indie’s mind, hearing her thoughts, manipulating so I’m the centre of her universe, they want the ultimate control over whoever gets caught in their web.
I’ve done some sick, questionable shit in my time. I’ve known nothing but violence since travelling to the states. Conditioned to understand it and craft it into my very being as a child. Spending summers at training camps across the world under my father’s watchful eye.
Even Rex has had to take a moment from the sights he’s seen, now he’s become my right-hand man, filled with his own vengeance.
That society is filled with a sickness that can’t be cured, and it’s gotten worse over the years. Omnia once sent a shiver down my spine when I learned of the acts they committed, made Dawson throw up, and had Rex ready to drop a nuclear bomb on their centre hub.
Their only cure is us. Unfortunately, none of them will survive to see out the rest of their days.
My darkened thoughts are disturbed once more when Indie completes her run round the entire boundary, yelling out something to Dawson as he disciplines her to fight her mind to strengthen the lungs and skin in the cold.
It’s a fucking psychotic method, but well worth it.
She’s dressed in black shorts and a crop top, the setting sun glistening off her sweat-slicked skin. You can see the years she’s put into her defence training; she was always dipping in the martial arts in our teens, something I glance up at the sky to thank her father for.
Every inch of her body is toned to perfection, allowing her to face whatever threat comes her way.
My hands burn to roam over every single inch of that skin.
She pants as she stands at the gate, shoving on her hoodie whilst watching Regina catch up towards her. She too curses Dawson, causing Indie to throw her head back and laugh.
The notes wrap around my heart like a vice as they echo across the concrete bay, stealing a breath from me. I never thought I’d see a smile grace her lips again.
For weeks, she had sunken eyes, an abyss so deep within her irises, I thought it would keep her captive forever.
But here she is, walking with her head held high amongst mindless killers, not a tremble in her entire form.
Looking at her causes an ache to thump in my chest.
It’s like an addict being snatched away from its favourite habit, the substance being left in front of them in a vacant room.
I want to overdose on her, get her so deep within my veins, I’ll never know what it’s like to feel sober again.
The craving itches beneath my skin to hear her voice whisper in my ear, her screams with my name as they fill a room, her annoyance making me smile.
Smoke lazily curls around me from my cigarette as I take in a drag and it fills my lungs. I watch as she walks beneath me as I lean over the balcony. Her gaze shifts from Regina up to me, our eyes colliding as the muscles in her neck force down a swallow.
What I’d give to feel that skittering pulse drum beneath my fingertips.
All I can hear is the band going taut, the final tear giving in as my restraint snaps so loud, it could be heard within the depths of the infernal regions.