“I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a monster.”
The Siren hissed as she recoiled, anger bubbling over into Xia’s emotions. It was suffocating.
Brooks was going to kill the Lord of Nightmares and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to stop it.
“Will you excuse me?” she said to the two daemon fighting a silent battle of wills beside her.
“Xia?’ Brooks glanced up. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She stood and shoved her chair away. “This dick measuring contest between the two of you seems like it’s going to last a while, so I’m going to freshen up by the stream.”
She ignored the small dip of concern on his brow. “You know I’d win right? My dick is way bigger than hers.”
“You wish your dick was even half as big as mine, you ignorant ass hat,” Nyx retorted.
Xia stepped through the door that’d seen better days.
An anxious flutter filled her chest like fleeing birds as she put as much distance as possible between herself and Brooks. His words startled her more than she would ever let him know. Not because she was afraid she would upset him.
But because… Xia wasn’t sure she wanted the Lord of Nightmares dead.
She knew that’s what she should want. Tor had done unspeakable things to her and, on that last night on her home island of Anthemoessa, he’d nearly killed her. The darkness she kept so firmly in check raged that night, and she’d been intent on killing him.
Until… Brooks saved her. A maelstrom to rival the power of Calypso whirled inside, sucking the woman she knew into an unforgiving darkness that prowled like a caged beast in her soul.The Siren wanted Tor’s death.
I want to see him cut from neck to navel with his insides strung about the floor as he begs her my mercy.
“Stop,” Xia cried out loud as she held her ears.
Death would be too kind of an end for him.
“That isn’t me. I am not cruel.”
Xia slipped down the riverbank and sat on its edge to dip her toes into the stream. The cool rush of water soothed her frazzled nerves, and she closed her eyes to connect wholeheartedly with the element of her heart. With her eyes closed and heart open, Xia dug into the tattered remnants of her soul to search for the answers to her questions.
Who is the girl beneath the glass?
For so long she’d been a victim living in a constant survival state. Her head stayed down, and she put valiant effort into staying invisible. If he couldn’t see her, he couldn’t get angry. If he wasn’t angry, then he wouldn’t hurt her. She had moments of defiance, but Xia learned quickly that it got her nowhere but half dead. In the aftermath of his violent destruction… it was different.
In those moments, she didn’t want to survive. Her heart cleaved in two as Xia recalled the desperation to die but being too scared to do it herself. She was too weak to end her own suffering.
You are not weak. It is not weak to survive.
How many times had he shattered glass with her bloody face and left her with a broken shard in hand?
How many times had she stared at the mirrored fragment and sobbed as she held it to her wrist and pressed until blood welled in her palm?
And how many times did you listen and throw the instrument of death across the room because you were not ready to die.
“I was too scared to die.”
No! I feed you my rage because we will not surrender to death. If death comes it will be forced upon us and nothing less. We will fight back, Xia, always, because we deserve more than this. We deserve to live and to do it because we choose to.
Xia rubbed her watery eyes with the heel of her palm to push the memory away, but her mind was too deep in the gaping crevasse to resurface.
She was weak.
Too weak to live, and too weak to die.
