Things would be said. Issues confronted and squashed.
Then I would slay the demon, and once I did, we would be free.
22
Scarlett
The day was hot and humid. The kind of day that made everyone and everything wish for evening.
Not that I had been wishing for much, but all the same, it would have been nice to feel a breeze instead of constant heat and a hundred percent humidity.
July in Louisiana was like firecrackers underwater.
Still, when the house became too quiet, I found myself on our front porch, gazing out at the woodlot that separated our property from the rest.
All the children had gone to spend the weekend with my parents. They had left me excited about spending the holidays in Europe—enjoying massive amounts of snow in some winter wonderland. The dogs followed behind, not wanting to miss a moment of the excitement.
Luca, planning early, had insisted about Europe. It was still impossible to tell the man no. Especially when he fixed me with a stern eye, one fit to take down a warrior.
A woman warrior, that was what he’d called me.
A miracle, the doctors had claimed, that I had survived. Even went as far as callingmeone.
I felt like neither, warrior nor miracle.
Settling a little more comfortably in the chair, I tapped against my knee while staring out at the motionless trees.
The fact that so many people had wanted me dead at some point was beginning to feel personal. Maybe I was just that much of an irritant. The kind of person who gets killed, and a slew of potential killers are found after, the cops not sure which one did it because each one had a good reason to.
I shook my head, attempting to bury the thoughts down deep. I wouldn’t go into that gray area right then. Not when more oppressive things were pulling me in another direction.
A darker one.
Sighing, I wiped beads of sweat from my forehead, feeling droplets run between my breasts and down the lower part of my back. I shuffled my feet a bit, wishing that I had some place to prop them up. Shoes were not an option today, not with the heat. The wooden boards of the porch tickled my soles as I rocked back and forth.
A cool breeze seemed to pick up for a moment, running over my overheated flesh, touching my neck, fluttering the thin dress against my skin, but then died down to a whisper before silence met me once again.
Nothing moved or stirred. It was almost too hot to even take a breath.
Eva had once told me Louisiana residents developed something most of the world hadn’t. Gills, to be able to survive the soggy air.
Though my complaints were founded, one positive from the weather was that at least I was being purged, releasing all the things my body didn’t need.
If it were only that simple with thoughts and emotions. To simply sweat them out and then replenish with fresh outlooks.
Life is never that simple, though. It takes blood, sweat, and tears to reverse what has been done—ifit can be undone. Sometimes permanent scars were made in the healing.
Never dance again.
That was what we had been told doing my recovery.
Damage too extensive.
“You are alive,” my mother had said. “You can walk. That is enough.”
True, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Nemours might not have killed me, but he sure as hell stole from me what had been given—the gift of dance in my blood.
