Vermilion Chains (Vermilion #3)

Adrien

I killed someone today.

The blood is everywhere, sticking to my shirt and drying on my skin as I ride through the night.

I weave between lanes, slicing through traffic, faster than I should be and far beyond anything that could be considered safe.

Loud, hysterical sirens wail somewhere behind me, the police trying to catch up.

They’re too far behind and I’m too fast anyway.

There’s no license plate for them to trace.

I ripped it off. There’s no face they can identify.

Only a pitch-black bike and a darkened helmet with a ghost hiding beneath it, stripped of any identity.

Whether they’re chasing me because of speeding, because I’m covered in blood, or because they picked up my trail somewhere earlier, I have no idea.

I feel like I knew why this chase started, but the knowledge slipped from my mind along with any guilt or morality, swept away by the chemical grip tightening around my brain.

I took far more pills than I should have. Not a fatal amount, but just enough to make driving this bike any longer a terrible fucking idea.

The lights and road signs along the way are beginning to blur into ornaments. The police sirens are growing distant, their sharp wailing stretching into slower, deeper horns.

The drugs are taking over.

I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be out here among people who are simply trying to live their lives.

People who have somewhere to be, someone waiting for them at home, completely unaware that some fucked-up idiot is flying down the highway half out of his mind, one bad move away from turning their life into a tragedy.

Shaking my head, I glance over my shoulder, trying to figure out whether I actually lost them or if I’m simply getting so high that my brain stopped registering reality correctly.

Then I catch the flicker of red and blue lights far behind me, swallowed by the darkness and unable to keep pace with me.

A small wave of relief pushes through me and I turn back ahead, my gaze dropping to the speedometer. The needle is already climbing past one hundred and fifty.

Then a sharp burst of red lights explodes in front of me.

Instinct takes over before thought can catch up and I yank the handlebars to the side with such force that the tires scream beneath me and skid across the asphalt.

I miss the collision by what feels like less than an inch.

The cargo truck roars past me like a moving wall of steel, so close I can see every rivet along its side.

The realization tears through the chemical fog hard enough to sober me up for a few precious seconds. I rip the visor open and suck in a lungful of cold air, trying to convince my body that I’m still alive.

I shoot into the next lane, forcing myself to slow down as another truck thunders alongside me. I take one more look at it, and let my mind unravel the fantasy.

It could’ve been over.

It finally could’ve been over.

One wrong move, one delayed reaction, one moment of hesitation and I would’ve disappeared beneath those wheels before I even had time to understand what was happening. I would’ve hit the asphalt, shattered across it, and the truck probably wouldn’t have even felt the impact.

No innocent people would’ve gotten hurt. No collateral damage.

Just me.

The remains would’ve been so unrecognizable that nobody would’ve known who they belonged to. I’d end up zipped inside a black bag somewhere in a morgue, unidentified, looking like a pancake. Just forgotten, smashed mush.

It could’ve been so fast and easy.

The thought settles over me, warm and so dangerously inviting I can practically feel the relief it would’ve brought.

“Fuck. Stop,” I hiss to myself.

I’m almost there.

I need to get off this highway before I do something unbelievably selfish. Because that’s what it would be. Really fucking selfish. No matter how badly my mind tries to romanticize it.

Even though my head doesn’t always let me keep the promises I made to myself, there is one promise I’ve never broken.

I won’t leave them.

I won’t become cruel enough to leave Kasien alone in this world. And even though she’s thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world, with someone else, believing we’re both dead and have been for three years now… she’s still here. Still breathing and existing beneath the same sky.

I won’t release you. I won’t look away. I will haunt this world for as long as you’re in it too.

The road beneath my bike turns rocky and slick with mud as I leave the pavement behind and take the narrow dirt path leading into the woods.

My limbs are slowly slipping out of my control and my mind is beginning to paint pictures in every shadow surrounding me. The drugs are taking whatever is left of reality and molding it into something else.

But I force myself to keep going and the church reveals itself beyond the vast wall of trees, emerging from the darkness like a forgotten monument buried deep in the woods.

I kill the engine and get off the bike, letting it fall into the mud as I stumble toward the church entrance. The gothic structure stands in front of me, towering, as if threatening to collapse on top of me, as if showing me what an insignificant piece of human debris I’ve become.

I tilt my head upward, taking it in. It feels less like a building and more like a living entity waiting patiently for my return.

The church steeple keeps rising the longer I look at it.

Higher. Higher.

Like someone is pulling it toward the stars. I can’t tell if it’s actually moving or if it’s just my fucked-up brain.

I stand there for a moment, counting the stars until I can’t seem to remember what number comes next. The night seems darker than it should be.

It’s not that late yet, is it?

I rip the helmet from my head and throw it into the mud beside the bike. My hair spills into my eyes as I blink several times, trying to adjust to the evening light now that it’s no longer filtered through scratched plastic.

My body pushes through the massive entrance doors and the empty church welcomes me with its haunting atmosphere as the nave sits sad and abandoned.

I fumble my way toward the altar, fighting the urge to surrender to the drugs and let them drag me onto the floor as I manage to reach the towering candles. From my pocket, I take out the lighter, flicking it to life and lighting three of them.

The moment the last wick catches fire, I let go and the battle with my own body ends. I collapse to my knees directly in front of the altar, dirt staining my pants as my legs give out beneath me.

I simply kneel there.

My gaze drifts across the church before settling on a piece of sacred clothing that belonged to Father Matteo.

After the fire, he left. He moved away. Guilt and grief expelled him from this place.

Knowing Father Matteo, he probably believes the blasphemy he committed back then brought God’s punishment upon this place.

Marrying an underage girl to a boy who officially didn’t even exist. Blessing a love that was never supposed to survive.

He probably thinks the fire that erased the Varner family started the moment he said amen.

What a fucking irony that would be.

The space around me shifts and whirls, my brain trying to move through time, to reach the time capsule I buried in this church and take me back three years ago.

This place understands me. It’s trapped in the same moment I am, preserving everything we lost, keeping the memories alive for me to come and reach them anytime I need.

My attention shifts toward the stained-glass window behind the altar.

Moonlight filters through fractured pieces of colors arranged into some sacred image.

Mother Mary, probably. Or another saint.

She’s looking down at me with an expression that almost feels apologetic or mourning and there is something strangely maternal in her face.

Until my brain alters it.

Her eyes turn green and her hair turns black, cascading down her shoulders, slightly waving at the ends. Tiny freckles appear beneath her eyes and across the bridge of her nose.

The transformation is so seamless that I can’t even tell where the saint ends and where Natalya begins.

I tilt my head, embracing the hallucination, the corner of my mouth twitching into a smile. Suddenly, tears well in her eyes, then one of them slips out and slides down her cheek.

“Please, don’t cry for me.” My whisper carries through the church.

“Please don’t cry, Selvaggia mia. Mi si spezza il cuore quando piangi,” I murmur.

My heart breaks whenever you cry.

The drugs have reached my muscles, loosening them so much that I suddenly find myself flying. No ground under me. Just me slowly drifting through the air. It feels nice and peaceful.

Until I fucking slam into the stone floor.

Pain explodes through my shoulder and the impact shatters the fantasy instantly as reality unfortunately comes rushing back.

I lie there sprawled across the cold floor while my chest struggles to remember how breathing works. My arms remain spread out beside me as I stare up at the broad ceiling covered in paintings of angels. I let them judge me while I recalculate my entire existence for the thousandth time.

It feels like my life happened too fast. Far faster than seems fair.

I had to grow up too soon and too violently.

And despite how young I was when I stepped into that darkness, it never felt permanent.

It felt temporary, like a sacrifice or like a bridge I only needed to cross to reach the life I actually wanted.

I wasn’t chasing crime. I was chasing a future, a freedom that only comes with enough money and power.

The funniest part is that for a while, it actually felt possible. Like every bad decision was leading somewhere worth going.

But then—

I got just one year with her.

Just one fucking year of finally having her.

One year of waking up next to her, touching her, watching her exist without having to imagine what it would be like.

Just one year. That’s all I got. Just a blip of happiness before my life collapsed.