Zaghan suddenly rose slowly, the shadow of him stretching across the floor like a beast uncoiling.
“By the way, she didn’t want your trembling hands and pretty words,” he said, his voice laced with mockery. “She didn’t want your caution and your fear.” He stepped closer, the air tightening. “No,” he whispered, his grin malicious. “She wanted danger, desired to be unravelled by callous, sinful hands. And I was able to graciously give her that. I am the one she wants now. Too bad, she is only meant to die by my hands.”
Callan’s nails dug into his palms until they drew blood. “Please.” The word tore out of him as humiliation burned behind his bones. “Give me back control. Let me out. I need to see her. I can’t allow you to take her. I need to–”
“No, Callan!” Zaghan’s voice deepened into a velvet growl. “You see that thing you so desperately crave, I won’t be giving it to you. You know why? Because I’m not done. Not yet.”
Callan’s body went still. His worst fear was coming to pass. He had dreamt about this. Had nightmares about a moment when his brother would slip into his body and refuse to let go.
Zaghan stepped beside him, leaning in, his lips brushing against Callan’s ear as he whispered, voice like a noose tightening. “You lost your seat at the wheel, brother. I’m the one driving now.”
“Zaghan–”
“I’m not done with her, Callan.” A slow smirk touched his lips as he shook his head. “Not even close.”
The chains rattled violently as Callan’s panic bled into pure rage. “I’ll–”
“-You’ll do nothing.” Zaghan cut him off, stepping back until he was right in front of his brother, eyes holding serene cruelty. “You’ll sit in the dark and watch. Just like I used to; desperate, alone, cold, waiting…just waiting.”
Callan’s breath fractured. He had truly become a prisoner in his own body, an extra in a story that was meant to be about him, and he could do nothing but only watch from afar.
“And when I’m done with her eventually,” Zaghan’s voice crept around Callan, eyes glowing in the dark. “She won’t remember what it felt like to want you. She wouldn’t even be alive to want you.”
Callan let out a hoarse cry, metal clanging against the floor. He felt like he was burning from the inside out, like the rug was yanked from under his feet, and he was left falling without a safety net.
He felt like dying. He couldn’t bear the mere thought of losing Elizabeth, the one thing that made his heart stir, the one girl that made him remember what living felt like.
He didn’t want to lose to his brother. But it seemed he already lost.
Zaghan turned away, fading into the shadow. “Better get comfortable with the chains,” he said. “And while you’re at it, think about what you could have possibly done, had considered doing, to make me want to destroy you like this.”
Then his cackle rang in the darkness, an echo that seemed to travel for miles.
“You’re not getting out anytime soon, brother.”
28
BETH
Do you hear that? She’s laughing. The devil inside her is laughing.
My favourite class was Introductory Psychology.
Maybe it was because I liked the teacher, Mr. Nicolai Walsh. He was funny. And the way he always slipped his family problem into every case felt realistic enough. Or maybe it was because the subject dealt with human behaviour and mental health.
There had been a point in my life where I started to wonder what had driven dad to do the things he did–if he did it. And what could’ve broken inside him. I thought studying psychology would help me understand better. Then I also wanted to know if the same flaw had a chance of running inside me.
Mother had dragged me to some doctor I barely remembered two months after we arrived in Scotland. A man with a cold hand and an even colder gaze. They had strapped me to some weirdmachine, made me sit still as some strange scan mapped out the inside of my head.
I never saw the result. Never learned about what they had found inside me. But Mother did. And something changed after that. Though it wasn’t immediate, I noticed the way her grip on my arm began to tighten a little too hard. The way her eyes would linger on me, watchful and weary.
One day, she brought in exorcists, I supposed. They were all men in stark white robes, their faces shadowed by candlelight, their hands clutching whips like some holy relics. They bundled me and tossed me into the basement, naked, cold, and afraid.
For three days, maybe more. Time blurred between the flickering flames and the suffocating dark. I remembered the cold bite of the concrete floor, the dampness seeping into my skin, and the sickly sweet smell of melted wax thick in the air.
I remembered the candles, ten of them, one for each finger. Their flames wavered, casting twisted shadows on the walls, on their faces–faces that called me tainted, cursed, unclean.
I remembered trying to hold the candles still, trying to be good, but the wax kept dripping, sizzling against my flesh, burning deeper and deeper. And when my hands shook, when the burn became too much, I let the candles drop.
