Page 84 of House of Crimson Kisses
He opens his maw, his jaw disconnecting and hanging low as he chokes out gravelly words. “I thought you were better than this. You really are the freak everyone says you are.”
My mouth falls slack, a silent scream ripping from my lungs.
Last, Sadie appears, only she is intact, the same Sadie I recognise. She floats up to me. He fingers caress my cheek. She tilts my forehead down to kiss it, like the sweet caress of a child to a doll.
“I just wanted you to realise,” she says aloud. She speaks with words and not her hands. I don’t understand.
And that’s when I remember this isn’t real. My Sadie can’t speak. I desperately cling to the knowledge that this isn’t real. But it looks real, it sounds real, it feels like home.
I wipe a hand over my face.
“Realise what?” I ask, gripping her by the shoulders.
But her eyes widen. Her mouth falls slack, and she tilts to look at her chest where the hilt of a blade protrudes, the shaft buried deep in her heart.
Her skin ripples, her hair trembles, a wash of black shivers through it and vanishes. Her veins darken beneath her skin, purple squiggles appearing all over her body.
“Why did you kill me?” she says and then she explodes in a burst of skin and bone and flaking life. The blade clatters to the floor at my feet.
“No,” I scream. But no sound comes out.
I slide to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking back and forth. All of my siblings are dead, their bodies rotting around me. My mother desiccating behind me.
How did I do this? Why did I kill them all? I love them, I didn’t mean to make this happen. Whispers ricochet around the throne room, “Your fault. You’re not enough. You ruin everything.”
Over and over.
Louder and louder.
I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to believe it. But maybe they’re all right. Maybe I should desiccate myself. I reach forward, and my fingers skirt along the blade.
A single voice cuts through the noise of all the other accusations.
“Stop,” it says.
The voice is familiar. I know it. It’s like it’s coming from deep inside me. It’s like the voice is part of me. Or a part of who I was.
It’s so faint I can hardly hear it.
I reach a little further forward, my fingers curling around the hilt as I bring the tip to my chest, right over the scar Red gave me. This time there will be no missing.
“Octavia. Stop. This isn’t you. I’m here for you.”
That’s when I recognise who the voice belongs to. Red. Only not the Red from the bedroom a moment ago. The Red bonded to me. It’s like the piece of her soul attached to mine is protecting me the way I always protect her.
Her words curl around me, wrapping me in comfort.
“They’re the colour of love and life. I see you, Octavia. I love you for you. And you will always be enough. Now get out of here. I need you to come back to me,” she says.
My fingers tighten around the blade, but instead of pushing it deeper, I pull it away and grip it like a weapon.
I will fight my way out of this because I AM ENOUGH.
I have always been enough, and now I’m ready to face anything this fucking challenge can throw at me.
I draw my body into a fighting stance, but the room is already dissolving.
The mist is sweeping back around my feet. My siblings’ bodies dissolve, the throne behind me gone, and I am stood back at the beginning. The ghostly figure in the hood stands before me.
