Page 18 of Goldsin

I’ll make sure they all pay for their sins. For each time I cried alone in bed; for each time they touched me.

I’ll fight for my old self, and for my daughter.

This one is her final entry, written the day I was born, just four days before she was found hanging in her room. Something happened in those days. Something that shredded to pieces what little resolve she had left.

Whatever it was doesn’t matter. I know who did it.

Now, all I have to do is retaliate. For her, for myself, and for every other victim of these monsters.

Hours pass me by as I read through the pages. My eyes start to flutter closed as sleep threatens to pull me in. The diary slips from my hands and I’m plunged into a restless sleep.

I find myself in a dream, a consuming blackness, with my mother’s words sketched in big, bold letters everywhere.

“If there is one thing I have learned through all this, it is that love is not just a fleeting emotion or a simple connection between two people ...”

“I won’t let your pain be for nothing,” I whisper into the darkness.

The dream changes shape, and I find myself standing at the edge of a cliff with Seattle no more than dots of light below me. Wind picks up, and it whips around me, tugging at my hair and my clothes as it pushes me closer to the precipice.

In an instant the wind takes shape as a figure, standing behind me, hissing, “Look at them, Aurelia.”

My gaze focuses on the world below.

“They think they’re untouchable, that their sins will never catch up to them.”

I dart around, expecting to come face-to-face with the source of the voice. But no one is there.

Only darkness surrounds me. And yet the voice sounds familiar. I’ve heard it before, but the more I forcemyself to pinpoint it, the harsher the headache pounds at my head.

“Who are you?” I yell into the pitch-blackness.

“Does it matter?” the voice replies from somewhere above me. “What matters is that you know what must be done.”

I twist around, but there’s still nothing there.

“Say it,” the voice purrs.

And without being told what I need to say, the words flow from my mouth.

“They’ll pay for what they did to my mother,” I vow. “Every single one of them.”

“Good,” the voice says, sounding satisfied. “You know what needs to be done, Aurelia. Don’t hesitate. Don’t falter.”

“I won’t,” I say into the abyss surrounding me. “They will feel the same pain and humiliation they inflicted upon her—I swear it.”

The voice shifts, sounding different as it warns, “Remember, the path you walk is a dangerous one. Trust no one.”

“I won’t.”

Whoever this entity is, they don’t need to tell me twice.

“Especially not him.”

The moment the last words reach me, the image of Julian appears in front of my eyes.

He’s standing tall and proud, his eyes filled with the same darkness that taints the atmosphere.

“I’ll never trust him,” I breathe.

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