Page 129 of Heartless Heathens
There was too much unresolved, too many unknowns. If he was dead, everything was left open and there was no guarantee for any of us how the future would play out. And most of all it meant we were no longer safe here.
“Yes,” she said into the line.
I hung the phone up and exhaled. A heavy weight lifting off of my shoulders but all at once dragging me down deeper like an anchor. I wasn’t the only person who’d care about his death anymore. I wasn’t the only one it affected. Even if I was the one who felt the sharp claws of his parenthood.
Growing up under Arlan’s cold embrace was the kind of upbringing that would either make you or break you. Up until recently, I had fully convinced myself that Korina Black had run away, unable to deal with her father’s cruelty. But now knowing Frollo was once Arlan’s apprentice, nothing made sense.
I was ten years old when the old man decided I had too much chaos in me to go to waste. He told me nothing of the ritual until I had been chained to a concrete slab, his following watching closely as he plunged the athame straight into my heart. Instead of death, I was greeted by the Disordered, who I pledged to serve unquestioningly. He drained the blood from my lungs and filled them back with air before sealing the wound shut and forming the scar in the center of my chest.
It was the only time I’d ever seen fear on Arlan’s face. But it wasn’t just fear there, it was envy. As hard as he tried, and through all his effort, he’d never come this close to the source of the magic he so desperately craved to control.
I carried it with me.
It was the real reason he’d accepted me as his successor, because he knew the shadows coursed through my veins in a way they’d never touch his own. His followers had seen it too, and of their own volition, they became mine.
I crossed the threshold into my room, feeling a sharp sting and swatting my arm at what I thought was a bug. My vision blurred and I tried blinking it away, the shadow in my room moved out of my periphery just as I dropped to the ground.
I felt a sharp pain in my gut, reminiscent of a boot, but I wasn’t even sure I could groan. I couldn’t make a sound. I tried blinking my eyes open, but they were too heavy. I felt the presence leave the room but all I could think about was her.
Defenseless again.
Isteppedthroughtheempty chapel after dismissing Reesa. I was surprised that they were letting me out of their sight but the balance of things had shifted with the truth about me coming out. It wasn’t their choice to make, and they knew it, despite how angry they were with her for being so reckless. I needed my only friend, and they wouldn’t deny me that. I still wanted her carefree presence to take me away from the flashes of violence that kept painting my memory.
We walked away from campus, wandering the woods that surrounded the property. I told her what happened despite the boys thinking she shouldn’t be trusted. She had that look in her eyes when she saw my bruised-up face and I couldn’t for a moment let her have any suspicion that one of them had done that to me.
They weren’t capable of that, and I trusted her to keep my secrets. The guilt of it was almost too much for her to bear once I told her. It wasn’t her burden to bear that there were monsters in this world, but she thought it was her fault that they got to me.
I shut the door and smelled the scent of something sweet and soothing in the air. Following it to the bathroom, there was a scented candle burning over the porcelain sink. A note with Sonny’s handwriting scribbled on it.Put them on. I looked to the side and found a pair of black satin eye covers. Flower petals covered the floor leading up to the bathtub.
It was full and the water was warm enough that I could see the steam rising from it. I took a deep breath. Sonny and I were still on rocky ground and just the thought of his name made my stomach turn into knots.
This was an olive branch.
A kinky, Sonny Santorini-style olive branch.
I dropped my clothes to the floor, putting my knife on the counter and picking up the blinders before dipping my toes into the hot water. I lowered down into the rose petal covered tub stretching my legs, moaning at the feeling of the warm bath loosening my muscles. Finally, after relaxing a bit, I sank all the way down into the water, letting my hair float at the surface before sliding the blinders over my eyes.
The room was quiet. Aside from the flickering flame and the sound of the wick burning down there was nothing but the splashing of the water with my movements. With my vision impaired, I could practically feel my pulse making ripples with each pump of my heart.
I felt a presence in the room and my heart quickened with anticipation.
“Sonny?”
No response.
I raised my hands to lift up the blinders, but a large hand stopped my arm, gripping it tightly until I resigned to dropping them back in the water. Then suddenly a hand gripped me under the surface, cupping my sex and forcing a gasp out of me. Another hand pushed my chest against the tub wall just as his fingers found their way inside of me.
“Ohh,” I moaned, dropping my head back to relax.
“I knew you were a dirty whore.” My eyes jarred open from the shock of the voice I faintly recognized. “Frollo promised you’d give yourself to me easily.”
I scratched at his arms, doing my best to push him away. Before I could lift the blinders up, two heavy hands pushed me under. I screamed but my lungs filled with water and burned viciously inside my chest. I scratched and ripped at what I could, feeling bits of skin gathering under my nails but knowing I was dangerously close to losing consciousness.
Just as my head felt lighter than ever, the weight of the stranger above me disappeared and I rose out of the bath with a gasp, swallowing air while choking on water all at once. The burning in my throat didn’t ease up but I rushed to pull the eye covers off just in time to see Sonny running a blade over Lincoln Rugsley’s throat. His blood gushed out of the slit on his neck and poured out even faster when Sonny tipped his head back, pulling on his hair and forcing the light to go out of his eyes.
The crimson liquid spilled out over me, filling the tub and drenching the white tiles as his body collapsed halfway into the tub. Sonny sank to the floor, looking paler than I ever thought possible. Even his blue eyes had no trace of life in them.
His hand opened and the knife tumbled from his grip onto the floor. I reached for it, lifting my arms over my head and stabbing down into the intruder's back. His muscles jerked but once I pulled the knife out and sent it down a second time there was no response. Or the third time, or even the fifth. I was panting heavily when Sonny’s hand reached out to grip my wrist to stop me from pulling the knife out again.
