Page 131 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Ice creeps inside my veins. I go very still, staring at the storm. It’s dark now, no more lightning to spark the night. But I do not take my eyes from the windowpane. My mind spins as I think of the bandages beneath my shirt. The things she can’t see. The damage further under my skin, infecting my heart, turning it rancid.Do you sometimes think they are planning to kill you too?
I think of Monday in the bowels of the church. Her eyes on me as she stood beside Father Malikov, his hand parked on her waist. They spoke in Latin, a language I do not understand. But something shifted in her expression. Something darkened, and when Mikhail led her out, she tried to fight him, to get to me.
He did not hit her, as I expected. He was only staring at her, his fingers curled into fists.
It would have happened back in our home. Monday was hit all the time, because she is vicious and angry and defiant, and I would tell her to be quiet, to lay low, but it’s as if she could not. Once she thought of something to say, it left her lips and there was no stopping it. Like a burst dam.
That was the night before I was stabbed. But maybe she heard something else too. Perhaps Boaz told her I was going to die.
I haven’t seen her since then, when Mikhail decided not to hit her in front of me, and instead, called in two men to pry open her tongue and drug her. Her body became limp after many minutes of thrashing, and he simply carried her out.
I could not follow. My hands were quite literally tied behind my back as Adam Medici stood guard over me, to my side.
I have not seen her, but I felt her mouth on mine in the ceremony with all of the men. I heard her whispers in my ear.“It is okay, Sev. You will be okay. I promise.”But she was crying through it, and so I don’t believe her promises.
“I do not know what you mean.” I try to keep the fear from my voice. I have wished to die many times in my life. But I can’t yet.They promised me something.
My blonde ghost of a girl.
“Have you heard from…him?”
I frown, turning once more to lock eyes with Ella. It still feels bizarre, holding eye contact with a stranger, but I don’t look away because she seems concerned. Her face is paler than before, and she looks as if she is trembling. I shake my head once, pain radiating down my arm with the movement. I thought that was an initiation. I thought it was all over now. What does she mean, have I heard fromhim?“I do not know what you’re talking about.”
She studies me for many minutes, then she reaches behind her, and I hear the lock click in the door.
Pretty bold. I don’t think she’s supposed to be alone here with me. And if Lucifer finds out… But she doesn’t seem to care. Instead, she’s coming closer on light steps, her dress swishing. She crosses the room and stands beside me.
I clear my throat and slide over, placing my hand on the edge of the bed. “You can sit,” I tell her quietly.
I think she might refuse, the way she’s staring at my hand as if it is a problem she cannot solve. I glance down to see what she sees. The candles and Russian scrawled across my knuckles.
I retract my hand, bringing it to my heart, pain lighting up along my arm as I do, but I ignore it. She sits then, and I can smell her. She smells like food, but something else too. Fresh, almost like honey. Vanilla, maybe. It isn’t the overdone scent of someone trying to hide body odor. I know that smell well; sometimes, it wasme.
Servicing my various “parents,” sometimes the sex would last for what felt like days. There was no time for showers.
We did what we had to do.
I push those memories back. It’s easier to think on the other kinds of pain. From Mora, even from Lucifer himself. He has no idea those thirteen wounds he gave me were nothing compared to what I’ve gone through. The only thing I couldn’t stand was the blood. The mess.The feel of something liquid on my skin.
My stomach rolls. I never want to feel that again.
“You can tell me,” she whispers. Before I can say anything, she lifts her knee, placing her foot on the bottom rung of the bed. I watch from the corner of my eye as she slides up her dress with her fingers, bunching the black fabric between her pale skin. Her eyes come to mine for a moment, and I feel my face heat. She can’t want what everyone else wanted from me, can she? I left that behind, didn’t I?
My heart beats fast in my chest. She’s far smaller than me. Curvy, but I am taller, and I have muscle now that I’ve been able to work out. At least, I could, until…hedestroyed me momentarily. But if she touches me, if she tries to get me to work for her, I will snap her pale white neck. I will press my thumbs into her eyes, and I will murder her. I am not doing it again. Adam Medici said I no longer had to. Said this was different. This is supposed to be different—
I see them then.
My heart leaps to my throat, and I lean away, like it’s a curse I could catch if I am too close. She fists her hands at her sides, and I can see stretch marks along her white skin like ribbons, but beyond that…beyond that…I see something else.
Fading yellow bruises, but lines that look like scars too. Unnatural marks.She has to lift her leg, twist her knee toward her other, because most of the marks are along the back of her thigh, not the front. All the way up to the curve of her ass, slipping beneath the black underwear she’s wearing.
She straightens her leg just slightly, and the wounds disappear, impossible to see from this angle.
My mind goes to the orphanage. It’s like nails clawing at the inside of my brain. I feel sick, warm and cold at once.Feverish.
“Did he do this to you too?” She whispers the words like a peace offering.
Bile burns up my throat. I think of the smell when I went to a particularly sadistic home. The scent of body odor, both mine and theirs. I think of the shame, in those brief moments of reprieve. Those seconds or minutes, so fleeting, when I laid on my back, staring up at the ceiling, wishing I could float too.
