Sapphire’s scream is cut off, and I run for the door. Gripping the rusty handle and swinging it open, I stop in the doorway. Toe-to-toe with my father, Niles.
23. A Message Through Time
Niklaus
“Easy.” Young Niles holds hishands up to calm me down. “Look, I don’t like the sound of what he’s doing to her up there either.”
I stare at him in disbelief.
“…But we’re not finished here yet.”
My head begins to shake as I scoff, and blink to process what I’m seeing. This is so far from the man I grew up with. This is a delusional lunatic. From his pupils the size of cosmic black holes, eating up those blue-green irises, to the malnutrition thinning his skin and hollowing his cheeks. He’s fucking insane and demented. How long have they been experimenting on him with Mind Phantoms? How was he allowed to raise me?!
“Just head back down to your chair, and I promise your friend will be brought back to the basement soon.” My father tries to guide me by the elbow to the stairs.
The fury is too much to contain my rapid movements. I twist his arm around, nearly hard enough to snap a bone. Sapphire’s sudden silence blisters under my skin, and I fucking lose it. With my hands gripping the collar of his shirt, I charge my father into the kitchen, throwing his body into the cabinets.
“Wait!”
I snatch a dagger from a half-sliced apple on a cutting board and align it perfectly with his throat. The fast beating of his pulse makes the blade tremble as he gasps.
“I know what’s been done to you to turn you into…this,” I say, fighting to swallow down the lump in my throat. “But I don’t care. I don’t.”
Niles opens and closes his mouth, unsure how to respond.
I ignore the sudden flashbacks of the man who compassionately raised me. Ignore the deep, throbbing wound in my chest that sings at the sight of his withering appearance and tortured, glazed-over look behind his eyes.
“Now you get to live the rest of your life knowing you weren’t as strong as Charles. Don’t ever forget my words. Because I’ll never forget what you’ve done here.”
I shove my father to the side and race to find the woman who is my ticket home.
If he somehow remembers what I’ve said to him in his recovery, my words will haunt him forever.
24. Anachronism
Sapphire
Albatross releases a scream, astring of garbled scripture, fused by the spittle forming on this inside of his lips, and uncontrollable anger.
A rush of bruising, veiny maroon saturates his neck and face from the sudden outburst. He shrieks at me like a frightened priest exorcising a poltergeist. As if he is about to search for holy water to throw in my face. For a cluster of rosary beads to wrap around my neck.
“You are a disgusting, stupid, blasphemous woman!” Albatross curls his fingers around the air in a fit. “I almost took pity on you! I nearly impregnated you with my seed and blessed you with my offspring!”
The word impregnated makes me want to dry heave until blood splatters from my raw throat.
“No,Ipitiedyou. Look at that hideous face. You will forever be Dessin’sbitch. It’s just a shame you didn’t leave your mouth stitched close.” I glare into his scarred face. “Do all women a favor and hide in the shadows for the rest of your life, you pathetic, ugly piece of shit.”
That signed my death certificate.
Albatross snaps, throwing his upper body in my direction in a fit of rage. His skinny arms flail, pummeling my face, chest, and stomach. And I tighten my muscles as much as I can to protect vital organs, squeezing my eyes shut, and baring my teeth as the blows drill rounds of pain through my clenched frame.
There’s a distant pounding that fades in the background behind Albatross’s furious grunts. Then he grows tired, and his hands lock around my neck.
What the fuck is it going to take for me to travel again?
His hands squeeze so tightly, a real set of panic takes hold of me. He’s going to crush my trachea. He’s going to kill me. I didn’t get to say goodbye to Krimson. To my mom. I didn’t get to hold my father’s hand one last time. To sit with DaiSzek in the summer rain, watching the sunset across the ruby-red trees in the horizon.
He’s going to kill me.
