“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I tell him quietly.
“Shhh!” He struggles to hold up his own weight with skinny arms shaking as he tries to focus on assaulting me.
I take another steadying breath, masking my face into an expression of cold cruelty.
“Do you like wearing Dessin’s name on your forehead…” I pause as mentioning my father causes him to completely freeze. “…Albatross?”
His head snaps up, revealing the sweat forming over his pink scars.
“What?”
I watch him with a neutral expression. “He did enjoy each mark he made on your body, didn’t he? Finding your screams a song he would play in his head on repeat.”
“How do you know my name?” Albatross asks in horror.
I’m not sure why his identity is a secret. Perhaps, it has something to do with the protection he has within the safety of Demechnef headquarters. Maybe he’s too frightened of my father finding him out in the open without his protection.
“Albatross Ivast. Grandson of Crow Ivast. Known for your sadistic experiments on innocent children and young adults. You had a brother named Rook. And you accidentally killed him when you locked him in an isolation tank and left him in there for two nights. You said your first words at the age of four, spent most of your life as a vegetarian because watching your grandmother force-feed victims raw meat and eggs gave you such a strong aversion you are unable to stomach it.”
I stop to take a breath. To take in his rattled expression.
My mother used to tell us that part of our dad’s greatest gift was he knew his enemies as well as he knew himself. Down to the finest details and traits. I used to tell Krimson that it was such a waste of time. Why would he need to know what age they broke their wrist from falling out of a tree? Or which side of the bed their cat sleeps on?
Now I know I was wrong.
Albatross blinks twice, shuffling through several phases of confusion. Those small eyes narrow at me, thoughts flickering through explanations to how I would knew any of this. Who am I really? Why have I targeted him? Is it a supernatural occurrence?
“Is something wrong, Albatross? Is it difficult to assault a woman who was sent from hell to hunt you down?”
There.
That confusion shifts behind his gaze to a quiet terror. It’s a creeping frostbite that spreads slowly, keeping him unmoving over me.
“How—”
“How could I possibly know such intimate details about you?” I finish for him.
Albatross holds his breath.
“I know so much more than your indiscretions. About your extensive records of experimentations of women too sickly from the Lady-Doll Regimen to fight back. Conditioning them to obey you with Mind Phantoms. Yes, I’ve seen those files too.” I smile patiently.
We all have seen those records. Savants have studied them. Coming to the conclusion that Albatross had malignant narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and heavy sadistic traits. Through possible years of religious abuse from his grandmother or at least witnessing that abuse inflicted upon his younger sister who was drowned during a baptism by the grandmother’s hand when she was six years old.
“You thrive on a woman being so helpless that she’s forced through abuse to depend on you, right? Well, what if I told you I know how you’re going to die?”
Albatross blinks rapidly.
This man was raised to associate control with righteousness, making him far more punitive when his authority is challenged.
“No one can know when a man is to die,” he says, though doubt and doom are paling his features.
“You will be killed publicly…by awoman.” I’ve never felt prouder of this known fact in history. In myfamilyhistory. “That woman will force you to crawl to a platform where you will be tied to a post and burned alive for all to see.”
Albatross is sitting upright, forcing himself to create distance from me. With his religious background, I know that he is deeply afraid of burning in hell. And on top of that, he is very superstitious. And god, I want to say her name so badly. I want to tell him that one day he will torture a victim who will one day burn him alive.
Her name is Skylenna.
“A divine justice for all you have done to women and children, don’t you think? But that isn’t all…”
