I took a wet towel and cleaned the blood from Dagon’s body gently. More tears blurred my vision, and more of them fell as I took in his body, which was covered in bruises, wounds, and blood.
Wasn’t he supposed to heal quickly? Why were the bruises still there?
I stared at his ribs. The dried blood at his temple. The split in his lip that should have closed by now. Should have. Should have. Should have.
My hands started to shake.
The thing in my chest that had been holding me together since the field started to fold. Not crack. Fold. The way paper folds when you pull the wrong corner. The way a body folds when its bones give out.
If his demon body wasn't healing him, if the blade had left something inside him, if the white-haired one had hurt him permanently in a way I still can't see…
Never in my life had I been as horrified as I was tonight. My mind was a jumbled mess of worry, terror, what-ifs, guilt, and worst-case scenarios.
If I ever again saw the demon who did this to Dagon, I’m going to fucking use his body as a target practice, and my arrows will always hit their mark.
After cleaning Dagon as much as I could, I quickly washed the blood on me in the bathroom. I changed my clothes and curled up beside Dagon, wrapping him protectively in my arms.
I'd hold him util he woke.
He was going to wake up.
***
Five hours later, I was losing my mind. No, I was certain I had already lost it.
There was so much anger brewing inside me. Anger at the demon who did this to Dagon. Anger at myself for allowing it to happen. Guilt that somehow I was responsible for Dagon’s pain. Resolve to never again let something like this happen.
The guilt was choking me. It was relentless. It was brutal and heartless. A few days ago, intrusive thoughts plagued me. Visions of Dagon hurt, bleeding, dying. Now it felt like my fears had manifested into reality. What if my thoughts were the reason he got hurt? What if it was all my fault? All because I love him. All because he's the most important person in my life.
My love has always been cursed. Always.
And it's shredding me to parts in ways no physical pain could ever even measure.
The intrusive thoughts latched onto my love.
If only I could physically remove this darkness from myself. I'd rip it out, piece by rotten piece. I would exorcise it. Slanter it. I would give anything to live without this.
My breathing turned ragged, uneven. Carefully, so as not to wake Dagon, I slipped away from the bed, stumbling into the bathroom. I sank onto the cold tiles, my body too heavy, too filled with pain, dragged down by the weight of guilt.
I was no longer me.
All that was left of me felt like a monster.
I wanted to fucking take a shrapnel and use it to cut open my brain. I wanted to use a scalpel, to prod every fucking part of my brain, to dissect it all, and get rid of the rotten parts. I would cut deep, I would continue to cut till there was not even one particleleft of these intrusive thoughts that haunt me. Refusing to leave. Always refusing to leave.
Tears blurred my vision and I pressed my hand over my lips.
I just wanted it to stop.
God… make it fucking STOP.
And then I looked down.
The arrow on my hand.
The black ink running across my skin where the bow and arrow had vanished into me after the battle, the mark Lucifer had left behind to remind me what I was now. The Archer. Permanent. On me. Part of my body in a way nothing else had ever been.
My brain, my fucking brain, handed me the next thought before I could brace for it.
