Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Something hisses. The distinct grind of steel across stone.
Swallow.
Gurgle.
“Yes, you did. You knew they would die. You hoped.”
“That’s a lie!” My snarl springs across the walls, rebounds and tangles in the clutter of metal. “I loved them. I would never—”
“She was theirs first.”The voice is thick and tacky brushing my skull.“You envied what they had.”
I’m shaking my head before it can even finish.
“I didn’t want them dead. I would never want them dead.”
The gurgle chokes a sound like laughter.
“You hated them for having her. You wanted her to look at you the way she looked at them.”
“I didn’t…”
But I know it’s a lie.
I didn’t hate my sons, but I coveted the one thing they had that I couldn’t —her.
Lenora.
Soft, sweet Lenora with her beautiful smile and intoxicating laugh. Lenora with her dirt-stained hands and eyes that could see straight through a man’s soul. She took me apart and put me together in a way I never understood but can’t imagine my life without.
But I didn’t kill my sons.
I loved them. Of course I did. They were all I had left in the world after Catherine. After James and Gloria.
“Deep in your heart, you know what you did. You let them die.”
Pale, crimson light washes across the glossy sheen of the boxes. It puddles across the floor in a red halo I swear … moves. It coils and writhes. Bodiless snakes twisting and knotting.
I didn’t.
I don’t know if I voiced the words out loud, but I think them over and over as the tendrils crawl closer.
“What would she say if she knew who the real monster is? Do you think she will still love you?”
I turn away, refusing to see anymore, and nearly scream when I find myself face to face with … myself.
But it’s not me.
I’m peering into a rectangle of ornate wood the same polished mahogany as the boys’ coffins, but slick with moisture. The stain fogs the glass, distorts the edges, but I can’t miss the figure watching me back.
My eyes are pits of living black. Wisps leak from the edges and run in streaks along my cheeks. Unlike now, I’m not clad in my dark sleeping trousers. I’m naked.
Behind me is the ruined remains of that chamber. The dirt and grime, a heavy smog that coats the air in a gritty hue.
