“Oh, prickling rose,” the Devil sang softly to me. “Daring rose, imaginative rose.”
I just stared at my mouse, watching his nose twitch. I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice.
“I know what you’re going to do, so before this whole world erupts, you need to listen to me very carefully, and don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours, it’s just us here now.
“You see, minds are a tricky place, what with the labyrinths, the trap doors, the staircases leading to nowhere, but you, dear thorny little rose, have learned something valuable. You have learned to manipulate those labyrinths and staircases to your very own liking. You believe the things you think with everything you are. You create worlds, scenarios, dialogues in your own head just by your imagination alone.
“Now, normally in situations like this, the person being tortured would disassociate, disappear into their own mind, but you? You are far more powerful than that. You see, you can use that mind of yours as a weapon, even when it cracks.
“It’s actually interesting how this all played out, when you think about it, and I wondered what he’ll think when he puts it all together just like I have. About how the soft-hearted one chose the girl who can weaponize her words. The one with the rage chose the girl who can weaponize her beauty and body. While the one who felt like he was never in control chose a girlwho can weaponize her very thoughts. Each of you gave them strength, helped them weaponize their greatest weaknesses and became these unstoppable forces.
“Maybe that’s why he went after the women, because he saw what was happening. He saw the control start to shift. Or perhaps he only saw you three as a weakness. Their weaknesses.
“I know that you’re about to tear out this earpiece, which is regrettable, but understandable. Those kinds of things tend to happen when your mind is forced into a terrible shift like the one you’re going through now. You think you are doing a valiant thing by keeping your love from hearing your thralls of death, I can respect that, but before you go, you need to listen and followmyorders now.
“Prove the man who did this wrong, rose. After all, you have the power to sharpen those thorns. You must keep creating. You must provemewrong. If not for the sake of our future, then for the sake of your precious Master.”
I stared at the mouse, listening carefully to each and every single one of his words. I didn’t know if what I was doing was the right thing, all I knew was that he was right. I couldn’t let Everett hear this. Hear me giving up. I gave them all that I could. They would either find me or they wouldn’t, that was it.
So, I reached up for that earpiece and swallowed the tears still trapped in my throat. “Goodbye, Azrael.”
“See you in Hell, little rose.”
I pulled it out and watched as my trembling, thin hands, crushed the small earpiece between my fingers.
The silence filled my mind as I fell deeper into that bed. The ringing, the stillness. And a cold, angry calm enveloped my thudding heart.
All I had left in this world was Merlin.
Me and Merlin against the world.
18
Evelyn
July 24th, 2022
He hit his knees on the warehouse floor that we had just been searching and screamed. We thought we had found her, but it was just another dead end, and now we lost her. She stole her voice from him again, and while I understood why she did it, I couldn’t help but feel a deep kind of rage as I listened to my brother scream.
I felt my heart stop. Never in my entire life had I ever heard a scream like that.
I was honestly, properly scared now. Scared of what he would do. Of what was going to happen next. Scared for anyone who got in his way.
The sound sent chills across my skin, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. For the first time since becoming his partner, I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to control him. What little control he had left he had just lost. He lost everything. What happened next, I feared nobody would be able to stop. Not even Azrael.
19
Olivia
Date Unknown
Inever considered how lonely it would be. It feels like it’s been a lifetime since I broke that little earpiece. I didn’t even know where the pieces of it were anymore. They weren’t on my mattress, and I don’t remember Merlin carrying them off.
Maybe they had been blown away by the hose.
Maybe they fallen into the puddle directly under my bed when Lillian had come in to punish me for…
I couldn’t remember why she had punished me. She never said.
