“Good.” I smirked and then winced, knowing that paybacks were a fucking bitch best served one painful dish at a time. I hoped Morpheus took his fucking time with the son of a bitch. I watched Shame’s face, the hope warring with the agony inside me.
Lyssa Asylum.
The name itself was a cage, a place designed to break minds and shatter spirits.
Diana. My Diana; declared insane and hidden away. The injustice of it, the sheer venom in that act, sent a fresh wave of fury through my broken body. I imagined her there, trapped, just as I had been, and the need to reach her, to shatter thosewalls as they had shattered me, was a physical ache beyond the pain.
“Diana’s my priority, Shame,” I rasped, my words rough and uneven. “Whatever it takes. I have to get to her. War is coming. We can’t stop it. I need to get her to safety before someone else uses her as a pawn.”
The thought of my Diana in this sick, twisted game, the years of lies and betrayals that had led to this, was a bitter pill to swallow. But Diana was the real prize, the reason for all my suffering, and I would not rest until she was free.
Shame squeezed my hand again, his eyes holding mine with an unspoken understanding. “We’ll get her, August. Just hold on. Get strong enough to walk, to ride, to fight. She needs you. We are all going to need you.” The promise hung in the air, a fragile thread of hope in the darkness. I clung to it, letting it fuel the burning desire to heal, to reclaim my life, and most importantly, to reclaim Diana from the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole.
“My son? Our son?” I asked hopefully and watched Shame’s smile falter.
“I don’t know, August.”
“I saw a picture of him,” I admitted. “It was in the ghost file George compiled. He survived. He’s out there somewhere, and I need to find him.”
“He’s got to be what, twenty-one by now. He’s an adult, August. He could be anywhere, going by any name.”
“There has to be some way to find him. He’s my son.”
Taking a deep breath, Shame nodded. “There is someone, but you are not going to like who it is.”
“I don’t fucking care if I have to make a deal with the Devil himself.”
Shame smirked. “Remember you said that.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Diana
Lyssa Asylum for the Criminally Insane...
My rocking chair creaked a mournful rhythm, a counterpoint to the silent ticking of the clock that measured out my days. The moonlight, a pale imitation of coldness, highlighted the frigid, unforgiving marble floor of my prison, illuminating dust motes dancing their solitary waltz. My beloved phantom, my companion, was nothing but a mere whisper along the edge of my perception, a beautiful hallucination my lonely mind had crafted from the echoes of a life I could no longer grasp.
Was it love that had birthed him, or my desperation?
Lines blurred as elusive as his form when I reached for him in the twilight.
I traced the patterns on my armrest, the familiar grooves a testament to the years I’d spent here, caught between memory and a reality that felt increasingly thin. Sometimes, my memory of him was so potent, so vivid, I could almost feel the weight of his hand on mine, the low rumble of his voice murmuring my name. Then, the air would chill, and my phantom’s warmth would dissipate, and leave me with a gnawing emptiness, as the silence only amplified the ghost of his presence.
Time was of no consequence here.
The silence in this place was a tangible thing, a heavy blanket that smothered all other sounds. Even my own breath seemed too loud, a betrayal of the stillness that was expected. Yet, in the deepest chambers of my quietude, I nurtured the fragile emberof their existence. I pictured them in sun-drenched meadows, as their laughter carried on the wind, untainted by the cold reality of my confinement. I imagined them strong, resilient, a vibrant tapestry woven from the love I had poured into them before the darkness descended.
My mental sanctuary was the only freedom I possessed, a space where their potential bloomed, unhindered by the sterile walls that held me captive and the only place they couldn’t get to.
Sometimes, in the deepest stillness, when the air grew heavy with unspoken truths, I would see them more clearly. Not as they were before the darkness, but as they would be now, grown and strong. My daughter, with my own determined chin, and my son with his father’s bright smile I so desperately missed. They were the whispered prayers on my lips, the unwritten stories held captive in my heart. My fragile embers, my unyielding vision, the only life I had left to nurture against the all-consuming darkness.
Yet, imagined or real, I knew something or someone waited for me beyond the walls of my prison. Somewhere out there was the real truth. Dark or light, I held onto the hope that one day I would be free to see them once more for myself. The vision of my children—they were my anchors in the swirling sea of my confinement. They were the proof of the life I remembered, the love I’d known and hadn’t entirely erased. And as the silence pressed in, I clung to that truth, to the unwavering image of their faces, as I silently vowed.
Somehow, someday I would find my way back to them, to him,my love,and when I did, God help the bitch who took them away from me because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
The moon was at its apex when I heard them coming.
I didn’t bother getting up. I didn’t care to see who it was.