AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Touch it.
The words were not magic; they were the poison of my own mind. They were me. All of this was. Every choice. Every death. Every drop of blood. Me. Me. I wanted this. I craved this. I needed death. The satisfaction. The blade. The blood. The blood.
The blood.
“Stop it.” I dug my fingers into my thick hair, pulling until the pain turned to numbness and the pieces came out in clumps. “This isn’t you.”
“This isn’t you.”
“This isn’t you.”
I couldn’t fight the drag of my eyes back to the brass knob.
It’s cool. Touch it.
“It’ll be cold in my hands. Comforting.”
Yes.
“No.” I backed all the way to the opposite side of the room.
The walls are thin.
“The walls are thin. I could claw my way through. The blood. The death. The kill.”
Yes.
“No. No. No.”
Heart racing, I ran to the door and gripped the cool knob, letting that single sensation comfort every vibrating nerve.
“There.”
Turn it.
“Fight it.”
Arabella Grenwich.
I could picture her in my mind. The single, beautiful slice across her throat. I could hear the curdled gasp. See the moment the life left her eyes and her soul vanished.
I turned the knob slowly, my heart fighting every single inch as the knob gave a little more and a little more, until it passed where a door lock would have kept it.
He hadn’t locked me in. I was free.
The magic became quiet.
Satiated.
Only the haunting remnants of my past echoed around me as I crept into the hallway, pushed my back against the wall, and slid to the floor. The madness had nearly consumed me, and I wasn’t even trapped. I was a victim of my mind. My fear. And had that door been locked, eventually, I would have broken through it. Or clawed my way through the walls. Because no matter how much I tried to fight this power, the second I lost control, it was over.
“Maiden?” that kind, feminine voice from before said. She poked her head around the corner, a smudge of ash on her face, the sun beaming down the hallway, enveloping her hair in a halo of glorious red as she tucked a hammer into a loop on her belt. “Are you okay?”
“The door was unlocked. I didn’t break it.”
She moved tentatively until she was across the narrow space from me, sinking down the wall just as I had, our feet nearly touching. “I know.”
“Was it a mistake? The door being unlocked, I mean.”
