Page 36 of The Sins That Bleed
“You didn’t call or text. Nothing! I was worried sick about you and now I know why. You should have come to me, I would havehelped you, but no, you continue to fucking baby me and act like I can’t handle it.”
Her emotions flick between livid and upset, but the real emotion is fear. She was scaredforme, a concept I still struggle to understand or get used to. I know better than to interrupt her mid-rant, I’ll end up tipping her into a blood rage.
I might enjoy a fight, but we’d both end up feeling guilty.
She’ll regret her actions if that happens, not because I’d punish her for it, but because she will if she tries to attack me. A blood rage removes all reasoning and makes you want to rip into something.
“You expect me to trust you, but then you pull shit like this? Make that make sense, because right now there isnothingthat explains the sheer madness of your decision making. Do you like leaving me here to think that you’ll never walk back through these fucking doors? Do you want me to end up alone again? You might as well have left me for fucking dead; I’d have been better off than dealing with your shit.”
Fuck, she’s tipping into the blood rage anyway. I’ve truly fucked up, and even though her words sting, I deserve them.
“For someone so smart you’re a stupid fucking bitch sometimes, Valeska! Now get the fuck out of my room before I try and rip your head off.”
Oh, there it is.
She spits the venomous words right at me, having stopped her pacing as her red eyes focus purely on me, assessing me for a sign of weakness as her vampire instincts kick in.
I slip out the door behind me and close it in a blur, the thud of something hitting the door where I had been standing making me flinch. I sigh. She’s right about everything and I abhor myself because of it.
I slink back to my room so I can wallow in hatred for myself in private and intoxicate myself on my infuser. I throw my bagdown, not caring where it lands, as I grab the pipe from the nightstand where I left it. I open the drawer and pour a vile of the cherry-flavoured blood into it. I keep going until the pipe is full.
I take a long draw and let the elixir do its work; my internal wounds stitching and weaving back together and soon no traces of my injury will be left. I keep inhaling until the pipe is empty, and then fill it again.
The stitches come loose with each drag as they are ejected as my skin repairs, though I quite liked being marked by Rai.
I’m pathetic.
I repeat the process of filling my pipe five times until I feel like my eyes will burst and my skin is liquid. I could climb the walls and tear myself limb from limb with how high I am. Yet the pain of disappointing Sunny rips through me, no matter how high I get, it does nothing to dull the pain.
First, I put her through hell, and then I thought it was a good idea to go to Rai of all people. I need to do something with the energy buzzing through my system, to stow the blood rage threatening to take over. It’s not something I’ve been close to for a long time, not since I went on my rampage after I found Sunny and, before that, when I took over the throne from my husband, Kian.
I pride myself on my control, something that comes with being as old as I am, but I’m spiralling. I go to my bag and snatch the dagger from inside it, along with my phone and my now full pipe, then go into the bathroom attached to my room.
I place it all on the edge of the sunken tub that takes up the back wall and overlooks the city. I strip out of my clothes and move them away from the edge so they don’t end up ruined. I pick up the dagger after taking a seat on the edge and avoid looking my reflection in the clean blade.
I haven’t done this for a while. I’ve been able to ignore how much I loathe myself and all the choices I’ve made, and for the choices I’ve been denied.
It’s the only thing that helps, letting the sins slip out as I expel them from under my skin. I barely feel the tip as it scores a line through the flesh on my thigh, a small slice that produces a thin line of dark-red blood. I repeat the motion, slashing at my thighs until the tops and insides of both are covered in lines.
It’s not enough. I can still feel my sins burrowing under my skin and I want them out.
My arms are next and I brutalise them, not caring where the slices land but I can still feel them, swirling around and refusing to leave. I can feel the hands of my husband and his men that abused my body however they wanted. I don’t want to feel anything anymore.
I slash at my face, ruining the perfect mask that I wear every single day and the reason I ended up in this fucking position. For mybeauty.
Fuck being seen as nothing more than a prize to be won.
It’s only once the handle of the dagger becomes too slick from my blood and it starts to slip in my grip that I stop and let it clatter beside me. I sit there, not staring at anything as my blood seeps out of me, and some of the sins slip away with it.
I move off the edge when the blood starts pooling under me, grateful that the floor and tub are all made with black tile so it won’t stain, and turn the taps on. When there is enough water I wash the edge and hide the evidence of my pain.
I reach for the tray on side of the bath, opening the container for the bath salts and sprinkling it in the rising water. I give up and tip the salt onto my hands and begin scrubbing at my skin, at the shallow open wounds covering my body and face as I try to scrub the dirt from me.
It doesn’t work, because the dirt is inside of me.
I shut the taps off and sink beneath the surface, my tears becoming one with the water as I cry and cry until there’s nothing left.
I cry for the life I once had. I cry for the girl I used to be. I cry for all the people who’ve had to go through what I have. I cry for the ones who have to carry it all.
