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“Dessin, I had nothing to do with this! Nothing!” she whimpers. And there it is again. The crippling terror. She’s petrified. Her wilted eyes are glassy with pupils the size of cannonballs. For the first time since I met her, she looks like a sweet, gentle old woman. “Please, I’ve been very good too. Taken good care of the girl.”
Oh, please. She says this as blood drips to my hands from my cheek.
“You’ve been good to her?” Oh, god. That voice. I’ve waited thousands of inhumane moments to hear the deep waters of that voice once more. “You’re forgetting I was once a victim to your impatient outbursts, you vile bitch!”
I like that name for Absinthe. Vile bitch. He’s so great with nicknames.
“But I’ve changed since you were a boy!” That old violin whines into this hollow room.
He takes another step. “Did you use a cane or your fists on her?”
She backs into a wall. Her drooping bottom lip quivering as he gets closer. But he stops, turning his head to face me in my cage. His gaze is a cold plague, sinking to the bottom of my stomach. He goes completely still as he examines my bruises, my swollen cheekbones, and my blood. She used her fists, I want to say. But I’m sure he already knows that.
I catch a movement below his hips and notice his hands shaking, clenching into a half fist. I’ve never seen him display his anger so uncontrollably.
“Now, listen here, boy…” Absinthe tries to reason with him, but it’s too late. It’s far too late. He closes the distance with a jerked step, takes her chin in his hand and forces it to face me. Absinthe’s noises vary between crying and panting.
“Look at her!” he shouts into her ear like a combustion of thunder from God himself.
“Don’t kill me!” she wails, globs of saliva forming in the corners of her mouth as she sobs hysterically.
Dessin laughs darkly, leaning closer to her ear. I can almost hear the hairs on her neck stand. “I have no intention of killing you. No, I have a punishment that will give me so much pleasure, my children will feel it when they’re born.” He smiles, wide, with eyes finding joy in pain and destruction. He’s losing pieces of sanity.
“But I—”
Before her next plea, he pushes into her back, hard, the sound of lightning striking a tree, snapping a thick branch of wood. Absinthe’s eyes lose focus, lose that glint of light. She falls to the ground sucking in shallow breaths. Is she in shock? Did he break her back? Paralyze her?
Dessin stares at the ground in front of me. Like he knows he has to face me again but isn’t ready yet.
A weak, pathetic whimper squeaks from under the collapsed door. I glance over to see Albatross squirming like a rat caught in a trap. The door must be at least seventy-five pounds. I can’t even believe Dessin kicked it hard enough for it to tear off its hinges. How strong does a person have to be for that to happen? How angry?
Dessin closes his eyes and listens to a voice inside of his head. I wonder how Kane feels about all of this. He smiles as he opens his eyes again, soaking in a single thought… probably what he’s planning on doing to Albatross.
“Hello, old friend,” he greets the frightened man under the door.
“DO YOUR WORST, BASTARD! You already condemned me to a life in the shadows! What could be much worse?!” He’s howling under the obnoxious weight of the door. The scars on his face turning purple.
Dessin takes in a deep breath. “I branded you a slave to my reputation for causing me utter annoyance. What do you think I’ll do to you for…” His next words are caught in his throat. He looks down. Swallows. Looks back up only with his eyes, from under the thick wisps of his lashes. “For hurting… her.”
A burst of doubt erupts in my gut. What if this is another trick? What if I’ve lost my mind? I’m playing out a fantasy in my head. Dessin wouldn’t have left me in here this long. It’s not real, is it?
Albatross says nothing. He stays perfectly still, held captive under his steel door.
Dessin shifts his head to face me without taking his eyes off Albatross.
“What did he do to you?” Dessin asks quietly.
He’s talking to me. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t even know if this is actually happening.
“I needed to trigger her childhood and some of Scarlett’s! Just so she could remove the horrible burden of being mentally blocked! I was trying to help her!” Albatross is stuttering, scrambling over his excuses. Trying to push the door off. But Dessin doesn’t need the door to keep him exactly where he wants him.
With an overwhelming sense of disgust with myself, I drop my face into my hands and start to shudder. My bones vibrate under my skin.
Dessin sticks his jaw out, fists squeeze together until they turn ghostly white. He cocks his head to fully face Albatross. Chest moving faster than my body can tremble. Not another second is wasted. He lifts the steel door like it is made of cardboard, lunging to the ground to take Albatross’s neck into his wide, grizzly hands.
“Skylenna—close your eyes!” Dessin instructs with a voice that could split the earth in half. I do as he says, shut my eyes and drop my face back into my hands. But it doesn’t block out the screams that sound like his throat is being shredded into fine wisps of tissue.
“I’ll do more than condemn your life to the shadows. Let’s see how brave you are without the pieces that make you a man!”
