Page 113 of Cain
“Did she die screaming your name? And you fucking let her?” The gun shakes against his skull. His blood coats my hands. “You’re not a man. You’re the same scared little bastard boy who let everyone he loves die screaming.” He turns his head and looks at Katerina. “And she will be no exception.”
I move the gun, ready to end him, but he’s faster. He reaches inside his blood-soaked jacket.
My instincts scream, but before I can react, he slits his own throat.
Blood pours onto the sand, and his body jerks, spasming.
Fuck…
“You won’t find him,” he gurgles, blood bubbling over his lips. “He won’t have to find you. He knows where you are. He knows how scared you are of him …” His eyes roll back, his voice barely a whisper as his life fades away. “And he’s coming. He’s coming for your whore.”
Silence.
Except for the sound of my own heartbeat, pounding like a war drum inside my skull.
Except for Katerina’s soft, broken gasp behind me.
My gaze snaps to her.
She’s standing there, frozen, with wide, glistening eyes and arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold the shit together.
The terror floods me. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I move without realizing it. I stand up and run to her.
I grab her arms and force her to look at me. She gasps in pain, but I don’t let go. I can’t let go.
“Do you believe me now?” I pant.
“I’m sorry,” she wails, her ice-blue eyes watering uncontrollably. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through.”
“This is why,” I rasp into her hair, my voice cracking with a manic edge. “This is why I keep you locked away, where no one can see you … where no one can touch you.” She convulses beneath my grip as I squeeze tighter, feeling her panic pulse against my palm. “Can’t you see they want to tear you apart just to break me? No … no, no. You belong here with me. Forever. Safe, untouched … all mine.”
“I’m sorry, Cain. I’m so terribly sorry.”
It was one of those nights. The kind that drags you under. Suffocating. I hadn’t drowned like this in a long time. Not since she came.
She dissolves the dark, pulls me back, and makes me forget what it feels like to be lost. But the light never lasts for long. And after many nights of silence, here I am, sinking still.
I get out of bed, take a cigarette from the pack on my nightstand, and light it up. Through the smoke, my eyes land on my mother’s cube, lying on the nightstand as well. Unconsciously, I take it in my hand and start twisting it.
Ihad a nightmare again. About them. About him. About that filthy ape who managed to drill into my innocent mind and turn it into an obscured abyss.
How strange that memories become nightmares. They haunt me during the day, and of course, they have to torture me at night, too.
It feels like yesterday when I ran into my mother’s chamber to hide from him again.
Again.
A word that has clung to my mind for as long as I can remember.
Again …
He was furious again.
He hunted me down again.
Did he have a reason to?
No.
