Page 88 of Buried in Blood
They always light the outer ring first.
Containment fire, Damien calls it. A purifying perimeter. A warning.
Don’t run.
Don’t scream.
Die still.
The girl on the altar doesn’t stop screaming.
She’s maybe nineteen. Maybe younger. Her wrists are bound with barbed wire—tight enough to draw blood, not enough to kill her before the heat does. Her legs twitch. Her throat is raw. The gag they used earlier is gone now. That’s part of the show. That’s the part Damien likes best—when they beg.
“She is unclean,” someone recites from the left. Probably Reese. His voiceis low and controlled, but I hear the smile behind it.
“She is disobedient,” another says.
“She is yours, Midas.”
And then the chant begins.
“Obedience is golden. Sin is cleansed.”
Over and over.
The flames flicker in our eyes.
She’s still screaming.
I want to move. I want to lunge. I want to rip the cords from her wrists and shove her into the woods and tell her run—even if it means the dogs tear her apart before morning.
But I don’t.
I stay still.
Because I’m not done yet.
I’m not finished counting.
I stand in silence while her skin begins to blister, while her screams dissolve into something wet and broken, while the scent of burning hair makes my stomach twist.
I stay still because Damien is watching.
Always watching.
He stands at the head of the altar, arms folded, expression unreadable beneath his mask. But I know what’s beneath it.
He’s hard.
He always is.
He calls it “devotion”.
I call it “sickness”.
The fire climbs higher. She’s stopped moving now. Her mouth is open, but there’s no sound.
Just fire.
