Page 90 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

These few weeks have been a paradise. But having tasted freedom that is so rich and beautiful, I don’t want to lose it. The future I’ve been dreaming of is within reach. Was. He’s going to snatch it away.

“Is this?” Sage asks.

“Yes,” Roseland says. “It’s got all the markers. This is Father.”

“Okay, so we run,” Sage says simply.

“Where?” Rose says sharply. “Where the hell can we go that he won’t find us?”

Sage snarls. “Don’t swear at me, Aaron.”

I turn away from both of them and walk back to the road. I trip a couple of times, and I think by the time I get back, my feet will be so cold they are ready to snap off. Sage snarls and swings me up into his arms and carries me back towards the house.

“What is Roseland doing?”

“Burying the body.”

“He shouldn’t be alone.”

Sage hesitates, he’s torn. I can tell.

“You are more important.”

“No one in a pack is more important than the other,” I say. “You know this. You might not be feeling it right now, but every person is as important as the next.”

Sage closes his eyes and turns back, carrying me through the dark until we get back to the tree.

He hesitates and then sets me on a low branch and wraps me in his jumper. “Do not move, or I will leave him, brother or no brother, here.”

I accept the jumper and watch as they get rid of the evidence of the crime. Silently, I make a promise to myself that we will come back here one day and find a way to get this man home to his loved ones.

His life is already gone, but his deathly silence could keep us alive a while longer. It’s selfish and awful, but Father has always liked to make me do the most vile of things. Forcing me to choose who dies was one of his favourite games. Which sibling gets a whipping and which gets to eat. Who is he taking to train, who is he killing for laughs.

Games that end in my punishment.

I lift my eyes, staring at the old man as they take him down from the tree.

“Raven, what is a Nightingale?”

I can feel her shift inside me. “We are.”

“Yes, but what are we? Why can’t I remember?”

“You will soon.”

They bury the body, and we go home. Rose stands with me in the shower until we’re warm again.

I don’t complain about the cramps, and I don’t let myself whine anymore. I bury that inside, and I put up walls.

There’s an end to this happy dream I’ve been living in.

The war’s already started, we just didn’t realise.

Raven

Idrop through the open window and crouch in the pink bedroom with lace and a ridiculous amount of cat and ballerina statues. The air is still, and silence is pervasively whispering that the house is empty. But how can that be? I cock my head to the side and listen hard.

There is a feeling in the air where you can sense violence. Or maybe it’s just that I’m expecting it. It took far too long for those alphas to fall asleep. It’s almost dawn.