Page 94 of King of Ruin

The sight is so unbelievably beautiful and jarring, I don’t know how to respond at first. I want to do what I’ve always done when I see a woman cry and run to hug her. Comfort her. But Onyx is not any woman, and if I touch her I’m likely to lose a body part. So instead, I stay where I’m at, pressing my weight on my heels to keep from moving, and wait.

She doesn’t say anything for a long while. We just stand, and she stares at me with her stunning dark eyes and lets the tears fall one after the other. Another minute passes before her lips part and she takes a sharp breath.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and immediately, something deep in my core knows she isn’t talking to me.

“I–” she turns, dropping to the soft grass beneath her and staring at the pair of headstones. “I’m so sorry. I tried. I tried to get out. I tried to save you. I wasn’t strong enough.Iwasn’t enough.”

A burn echoes up my throat, but I force it down. I want to tell her she was a fucking child. That it wasn’t her job nor ability to protect them, but for them to protect her. That they did what any good parents would do, and shewasenough. She’s always been more than enough. But I don’t. And instead, I wait.

Her breathing is labored, and her sobs are coming stronger now.

She squeezes one of the soiled roses in her hand and in the next breath, she screams.

It’s deep, guttural, and heart-wrenching. It’s full of all the things she’s held in for over ten years and it spills into the night with such force, it makes the air around me thin.

She smashes the rose against her father's tombstone. “You fucking left me! You left me to do all this without you! How did you think I would go on without you? And you?”

Onyx turns her face to look at her mother’s, the muscles tensing in her entire back as she screams again. “You were everything! Everything to me, and I hate you for leaving! For ruining me. I killed them for you! Every last one. They're all dead. The driver, the guards, the man who stood on the corner and watched but didn’t call the police. All of them!” She sucks in a harsh breath and when she speaks again, her voice is softer.

“I did what you asked, yet peace still eludes me. When will I know peace, Mama? When will I know quiet?”

She drops on her hands, pressing both of them into the ground, digging her sharp nails into the grass, and my heart fucking breaks. Her natural instinct is to fight the pain tearing her to shreds. To try and find a way to push it off. But she’s done that for too long, and now, it’s enveloping her.

Unable to fully controlmyinstincts, I step closer, my shadow creeping over her frame. It’s long and encapsulating, almost as if the reaper has come to take her away.

Onyx glances over at the ominous darkness, and after a moment, the damn breaks free.

Her entire frame shakes as she cries, the sobs so great she has to take long breaths just to satiate her lungs.

Never have I felt this empathy. This deep-seated sadness that I can do nothing for her but let herfeel. Feel and overcome. And she has to overcome it.

Because even though she won’t let me save her, I’ll be damned if she loses this fight.

Iwas crying a moment ago. A trail of hot tears streaming down my face, and burning my skin with its weakness. I was sad, afraid. Hurt.

Some juvenile part of me thought that once I had found justice, all the emotions would vanish. The wounds would heal, and the tight ball of desolation would unfurl and slowly drain from my body with every ounce of blood I spilled.

Instead, a flood gate was opened.

Every downcast feeling on the spectrum overwhelmed me, crashing into me one at a time. My muscles shook, my face burned, my insides twisted, and for a moment, I knewrealpain. A pain I had long forgotten.

But that moment has passed. The sadness and guilt are gone, and in its place is anger.

No, not anger, but a burning rage.

I don’t regret who I am. Who I’ve become. What I’ve done.

But I am livid that I allowed my fears that I disguised as caution to rule over me. Over my feelings. It’s stolen from me everything soft thing my parents tried to implant in my heart and hardened me past redemption

It has made me selfish where I should be empathetic. Arrogant where I should be humble. Hate, when I should love.

I felt stripped of control after they died, and I decided to do everything in my power to gain that sense of control back. And when I found it, I held on until my muscles were weak, until blood dripped from my tight grasp. Until Kane.

At first, he reminded me what it feels like to live, even for a moment, without misery. Then without control. I fought to keep it, but he took it regardless, showing me that I was capable of letting go.

Despite all the times I’ve tried to push him away, to uproot the seed of hope he’s planted in my chest, he’s still here. Growing like an invasive weed. He’s forced me to want things I’d never thought I’d want again, and I’m angry because I don’t know how to do this.

How to let another person in my life and hope that they don’t decide to leave. To allow myself to develop another weakness. To love without fear.

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