27 - Josep
You will live in the hell of my choosing.
I watch the ripplesacross the pool of water in my cave until the surface is calm again, but me? No. I am not calm. I am not calm at all.
Slowly I turn my head until I’m looking down on Ryet. There are hundreds of bite marks on his body. But it was a trick. His blood was poisoned and my army, small as it was, is dead now.
The anger builds inside me until I’m absolutely certain that I will explode if I don’t release it somehow.
My first instinct is to get this release by torturing Ryet, but he’s not in there. I know he’s not in there because he’s not making any noise and he should be screaming in pain.
So he’s in the purple somewhere.
And if he can’t feel my torture, then what good is it?
I spy a trail of blood on the cave floor and allow my gaze to follow it back to the body of Little Baby, minus one arm.
I smile, then laugh. Because she is making noises. Terrible noises. Groaning, and moaning, and sobbing. Which normally would piss me off enough to push the mute button.
But right now, it pacifies me because I need her pain. I need to hear her suffering. In fact, I need to make her suffer more.
I walk over to her, pick up the arm that’s left, rip it off, and throw it across the cave. It crashes into a wall and the tattered remains fall to the floor.
Little Baby has stopped screaming, but only because she’s in shock and not because she’s dying. She can’t die when she’s already dead. Though her continued existence is something new that I don’t fully understand, what I do know is that even if this incarnation of Echo could die another death, I would not let it happen. Why should she get to escape this hell while I must stay behind?
That wouldn’t be fair.
I kneel down, slit my wrist, and let my blood drip into her mouth, which is open in a silent scream.
A few minutes of this and she starts coughing. The new blood has cauterized her arms and they start to make a sort of scab. Given enough time, they will grow back. But that’s not going to happen.
“Little Baby,” I say, leaning down into her neck so I can whisper this in her ear. “You will live in the hell of my choosing for all eternity for your betrayal.” Her eyes are open and she can see me. And even though she doesn’t reply or move, I know she can hear me too. “I will torture you until the end of time. And then, and only then, will I let you make it up to me.”
I grab her hair, lift her head up, and then slam it down on the ground, cracking open her skull.
Given enough time, and a reprieve from my well-deserved punishments, that too will heal.
But I doubt I have that much self-control, so it will never happen.
Now I have to make a decision because Dark Baby has been corrupted. The girl called Echo was a poor choice for an incubator. She was a throwaway halfbreed. And I should’ve known better than to be lured with the promise of a family.
I kick her body, making it roll away. “You bitch. You lied to me! You made me love you and then you betrayed me. You don’t deserve my Dark Baby.”
I walk over to what’s left of her body, push her with my foot until she rolls over on her back, and then swipe a claw down her torso from throat to belly.
The Darkness seeps out of her like smoke made of sand, whirling and twirling in the air, homeless and looking for a new vessel.
I open my mouth, ready to direct it back inside me, when a hand clamps around my ankle and when I look down, I see Ryet’s blood-red eyes looking back at me.
