Page 42 of Cast Stones
I run as though I’m running toward Luca, even though I know it’s impossible.
He’s dead.
My only love is dead.
The lonely wind whistling through the dark trees confirms it. My harsh gasps are drowning out the vicious grunts of the Twelve, but the pain they caused me is nothing compared to the agony of losing him.
I should be running toward Luca, but now I’m running alone.
Older generations scorn young love, but our certainty is an army, and endurance its weapons. I will never love another man. I know this with every fiber of my being. If I manage to escape—if our plan is successful—what Luca and I shared will live inside me forever. We thought our love was a light in the dark. In truth, it was a key to unleashing something even better.
It’s pitch black. There’s no moon. It feels like the stars are mocking me with their infinite space and freedom.
I trip and stumble my way through the wilderness, guided only by a bleeding heart. Low branches slice their disapproval across my cheeks, my bare feet are ripped apart by stabbing needles in the undergrowth, and there’s a rawness deep inside me that burns with every step. Still, I honor my promise to Luca, and I don’t stop running until a vicious smack to the back of my head sends me sprawling into the night.
I hit the ground with a cry, and then another as I’m kicked over onto my back. The same mocking stars are spinning around me in ever-decreasing circles now.
A blinding white light shines in my face and the man’s expression is jubilant.
“The whore is here! The whore is here!”
I blink up at him as dark thoughts swirl and form. The time for mercy is over. There are no sins when there’s only survival.
Wrath gives me courage.
Pain gives me strength.
Leaping to my feet, I knock the flashlight from his hand and then push him away from me with everything I have. I scream like a banshee. I scream like my mom did when she gave birth to my sister on the living room floor, only what I’m giving birth to tonight is far from pure.
Now it’s his turn to stumble and fall—straight onto a nearby broken tree branch. It bursts through his stomach in a crimson trail of guts and gore, as if evil is finally done with him and is seeking an outlet…
Straight to me.
Picking up his flashlight, I don’t stop striking his face with it until his jubilance is beaten and bloody and still.
Luca used to say that, “to fear the Lord is to hate evil.”
Here in the darkness, my hate has created something truly magnificent.
* * *
Present Day
“You did this for me.”
It’s more a statement than a question, delivered with breathless wonder and gratitude.
With shining eyes, I turn from the crudely violated body of Jackson King, still impaled on that wooden device, and smile up at Luca. My lost and found again love.My everything.“Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He closes the door to the log shed and wraps his arms around my waist with a loving tenderness that brings easy tears to my eyes.
A pulse quickens at the apex of my thighs, ridding my body of the last reminiscences of other men’s abuse. “No gift couldeverbe as perfect as this.”
The fact that Jackson died such a horrible death gives power to my pleasure. My vengeance is sated even more by the filthy odor of his decomposition.
Luca nuzzles into the side of my neck. “There are still so many of our tormentors to seek out and ruin,cara mia. There were fifty-strong in the crowd that night. Everyone must pay.”
I let out a lustful moan at the thought of such slaughter.
