Page 58 of The Devil In Blue
“Sick blood.”
“Immortal blood. Sweeter than plums and richer than wine. It can add years to a mortal life or it can cure incurable disease.” Finally, his smile fell and his shoulder drooped. “But I am spent. Do as you wish.”
Slice him. Hurt him.
I shook my head. “I am not a killer. I am not cruel.” I looked back at Elanor, tears stinging my eyes. “Not like everyone else here.”
I spun to leave when Father Eli’s voice followed my retreat.
“You finally agreed, you know,” he said. I stopped, my nails cutting into my palms. “You agreed to forget. Your way of taking the pain away, I suppose. You sacrificed all that you knew just so the pain would stop. You let Dr. Matthers pierce your brain. And your last words? ‘I found my way before and I will again.’” He laughed lightly at that as if it was a joke. “Looks like you’ll never find your way now, stupid girl.”
Rage. Fire. Blood. My vision turned red. The air smelled of copper and filth now. I wanted to stop breathing but instead, I was panting. Still, I couldn’t get enough air. My fingers itched to feel flesh ripping beneath them. Father Eli’s flesh. I’d felt that rage before and it nearly destroyed me.
Use it.
Kill him.
Lost, confused, and shattered, I needed something to sink my hatred into. Someone to take the fury and disdain that was about to eat me alive. I turned, slowly that time, and I looked at Father Eli. The man who’d fooled me into thinking he was helping me. The man who filled my head with so many lies. The one who’d taken everything from me. Everything. And now I didn’t even know what everything was. I had nothing.
I thought I knew madness. I thought I had finally begun to understand it, but in that moment, I was madness itself. I was crazed. Bloodthirsty. My heart beat in a rhythm I hardly recognized as if lunging for Father Eli before my feet even moved. I marched toward the cell, my eyes seeing him and only him.
I flung the gate open, preparing to wrestle him to the ground where I’d likely lose in a battle of strength. But he didn’t move at all. He stood there, closed his eyes, and let my fingers clamp around his throat. I dug my nails in, feeling hot, sticky blood against my hands as I drove him back into the wall. I screamed, the sound broken and shrill. It instantly ripped my throat to shreds, but there was no helping it. I’d never felt the way I was feeling then.
I shoved Father Eli’s head against the rough stone. Once. Twice. I heard his skull crack and screamed again through clenched teeth, pulling him to the ground. He moaned in pain, curling in on himself as if he was having second thoughts about letting me touch him. Perhaps he didn’t truly want to die. Or perhaps he’d never known true pain until then. But he had denied me the chance so many times to end things for myself, so I was going to deny his chance to live.
I walked into the hall, taking one of the lanterns from its wall hook, and swung it down on his head. Again on his arm. His leg. Blood spilled from his split skin when the hot glass shattered across us both. I felt some of it hit me but I used the pain. I used it like a weapon and I hit him again. The lantern oil spilled over his robes and caught fire, eliciting a high-pitched shriek that went on forever as he rolled in the flames.
“You took everything from me!” I cried, my voice ragged.
I tossed the broken lantern aside and just watched him burn, screaming. Crying. I wished I could keep hitting him, but I couldn’t The way the flames had claimed his body made it impossible. Burning flesh filled the cell with an acrid odor as Father Eli staggered to his feet, skin peeling in paper-thin layers as the fire devoured his face. And when he scraped at it in a feeble attempt to wipe the flames away, only flesh and melting fat came away on his fingers until he was practically dripping pieces of his own body.
I watched with sadistic satisfaction as he burned. He yelled louder than my ears could take, but I forced myself to listen. I forced myself to memorize those sounds. He’d robbed me of my memories and so I’d fill that empty space with my vengeance.
I dodged him as he stumbled across the cell and hit the wall. I could have finished it, but I didn’t. I watched until the flames engulfed his mouth and nose. His cries were choked when the fire flooded his lungs and he convulsed, collapsing to the floor. His voice turned to wet gurgles and finally, he stopped moving. His body was a twitching, burning heap on the floor at my feet and I felt… nothing.
I stared, searching for remorse. For disgust. For anything that could remind me I was human and had a soul, but all I found was gratification. Pieces of undeveloped emotions were scattered inside me, just as broken as they were before Father Eli was a corpse. I’d accomplished nothing except surrendering to my wrath and hate and confusion.
Madness had become me and it was unforgiving.
Covered in blood and dirt, I turned and walked slowly out of the smoke-filled cell, shaking and dazed. I barely knew where I was but a part of me knew, without a doubt, that I’d been wanting to do that for years. I finally had and I felt emptier than ever.
And thenhewas there.
He was standing in the shadowed hallway, clothed in a blue tunic cinched tightly at his narrow waist. Rune. Pristine and handsome and absolutely aware of what I’d just done. I shouldn’t have cared at all what he thought of me, but I still felt shame. Embarrassment. Resentment over the fact that he was right about me to some capacity and part of me knew all along.
Tears touched my eyes, but they had yet to fall. Perhaps they were from the smoke because I couldn’t feel a damn thing at that moment.
It’s finally happening. You’re drowning.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe I needed to let go because no matter what, I was still lost without memories to guide me. The past I thought was real was a lie and my real past was shrouded and unobtainable. I was nothing.
I ran.
My dress was covered in soot and my hands were sticky with blood.
“Briar, stop,” his voice called to me.
But I didn’t. No more following orders. No more doing what others told me. No. More.
