Page 40 of A Dance With Devils
Blood and darkness.
Hands start crawling me across to the shard waiting for me. It’s calling, offering me something. Tranquillity. Comfort. Quiet. It’s all drowned in red, like a wave of undisclosed emotions I can’t process. I should be harsher than this, like I normally am. Crueller and less whimsical. And she should be in chains by now, screaming and bellowing out in pain. But she’s isn’t.
Where is she?
“Free,” mumbles out of me. Free from me, from the rest of the world while she’s protected under this roof. She should stay, relax. Calm down and know she doesn’t need to run for a while. I can’t see her, though. She’s lost in a wave of crimson mist and haze. She’s laughing, though. I can hear her, as she dances to our song and lulls me somewhere other than here. Fly, she said. I don’t fly. And I don’t fall either. I win. I break the world and I win every time. And now it’s time to lose. Just get to the shard, just find my way to that and then she’ll be unrestricted to run my halls on her own. Own it like the little queen she could be.
“What are you doing, Malachi?”
Gray.
My head turns slowly, as my fingers take hold of the shard. I’m getting lost, is what I’m doing. Am lost. It’s better there, here. I remember it. Want it. It doesn’t hurt. No pain. Just one long slice across old scars hidden beneath these bracelets.
I push them along the floor, lifting them over the ridge of marred skin until the vein is free and my other hand is bringing the shard to it. Just one slice. One little cut and then I can see red again, let it join the rest of the mist and haze around me now. Darkness will come. A deep dark that goes on and on until there’s nothing and the thoughts stop. All the time in the world.
“Malachi?”
I feel it pierce and push harder, fingers grating the roughened edge to push it deeper, and then, finally my soul starts coming out of me to fall to the carpet beneath. The shard changes hands, slices at the skin on the other wrist, and my head turns at the same time, a sigh leaving me as my body rolls onto my back.
I can search for my little Alice in the mist now, watch her fade away from me, but something’s on top of me before I can find her in the haze, a hand slapping my face. No blues and greens. Just reds still turning and swirling. That’s a shame. I wantedmycolours,myrainbows to slip away with.
“Jesus Christ, Malachi. Not again.” Gray’s eyes are over me, something in his mouth as he tries to lift my wrists up to his chest. “Hannah!”
No, no little Hannah. I want my little Alice, that’s all. Just her and her colours and rainbows. Our song. Where is that? I should’ve played it, let her listen and sit next to me. We might have found something then, found a way of living without memories and hatred.
“Little Alice,” mumbles out of me. "Bleed for her. For me."
She shouldn’t bleed for me. Or with me.
A sharp tug and I feel myself being pulled, strong arms heaving me somewhere. I don’t want that. I want here and now and all this comfort I’ve found for myself again. It makes me fight, makes me rally against whatever’s got me and try to get away, but the sudden searing pain that lands on my jaw sends me down to the floor.
Blood – everywhere.
I smile and let whatever it is tug me again. No point in fighting anyway. It’s done now.
Finished.
Chapter 17
Ally
The air’s red. All of it. It’s floating and soaring and gliding around me.
I don’t know what happened, but it was happy and fun for a while. Maybe the skies have changed colour. No snow anymore – heat. I like that, can feel it all over me as it swirls and moves and warms my skin. It’s beginning to get hotter, though – too hot. And the red is burning me somehow, like the fire did. I can’t escape it. Can’t run. Too busy laughing to run. I should, though. But my Malachi is here somewhere – protecting me. I can feel him in the fiery colours, as the flecks and flashes of white streak through the red. And it’s all black around the red, as if he’s on the perimeter – watching me. I need him.
Where?
My eyes check left and right, body coming to an abrupt stop, and I sink to the floor.
Giggling washes over me. Lots of giggling coming from the red sky. I need to fly above it so I can look down on the world to find him.
“Where are you?” murmurs out of me.
Silence. Only this fucking giggling that’s confusing my view.
My legs propel me forward in any direction, but a hand catches my wrist and swings me back where I came from. Strong hand. Bright colours. I rip my arm from it and spin, searching all the red again for black holes and tunnels that mean something to me. Nothing does, so I run again. I run fast and hard, all the time asking where he is, where he’s gone. He was here with me before the red mist. He was on me, in me again. I felt him – so close.
“Come.” I stop, spin, and search for the sound of him behind me. Doesn’t sound like him, though. “I’m here. Follow me. We don’t have time.”
