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He helped me when he caught me in the hallway ten years ago. Inadvertently maybe, but he saved me from his father. From the hell playing out in the study. He got me a glass of water and took me back to my room. Tucked me into my bed.
He could have ordered me upstairs. I would have run if he’d told me to. I would have fled back to my room if he’d barked the order. But he’d taken care with me.
Maybe because he knew his time was still coming.
“Stay the fuck away from me, or I swear I’ll do it!”
He mutters a curse.
I see the toys as I walk through the living room. Toys for a child. Children are innocent. How can one grow up in this house among this evil?
He’s behind me but keeping his distance. I hurry my steps to the front door.
“There’s nowhere to go, Cristina. Give me the knife and we’ll forget about this.”
I don’t answer him or turn around even though a part of me knows I’m not getting away. I don’t think he lied about the woods surrounding the house. A house like this would be guarded, impenetrable.
A fire rages in the fireplace, loud in the otherwise silence apart from the clicking of my heels. But when I get to the doors, I stop.
They’re bigger than I’d thought earlier, much more foreboding. Eight feet of what I know is solid wood with hardware that looks like that from my bedroom door but heavier. Doors to a fortress.
But that’s not what has my mouth falling open. That’s not what makes me pull the knife away from my own throat as I process what I’m seeing.
I turn to Damian, who stops the instant I do. With only a few feet between us, I think if he lunges for me, he can grab me. But he just watches me.
I step closer to the doors, reach a hand to touch one of the protruding figures.
The gates of hell.
The gates of my hell.
They’ve taken a scene from Dante’s Inferno and put them at the entrance of their home. Who did this? His father? Him?
It all hits me then. Seeing the damned souls. Their pain. Their inescapable destiny.
Turning on my heel, I wobble as the room spins. The food I ate too quickly and the wine I drank too much of threaten to make a return appearance as my fate crystalizes in my mind.
What did the old man say at the end? Welcome me like he did his sister? How exactly did Damian welcome his sister?
I bring the knife up between us now, brandishing it. I’ll hurt him before he takes it from me. I can at least do that and earn the punishment I’m sure he’ll dole out after this.
“Give it to me,” he commands.
“You want it? Come and get it, you fucking bastard!”
He lunges for me then, and he’s even quicker than I expect, but determination makes me move faster, too.
We both shift position, and instead of catching my wrist, he grabs the sharp end and when he does, I push.
Shock registers on his face. In my gut.
I stab the knife into his palm, feeling the resistance of skin and bone. I feel it give, feel his body tense, hear his sharp intake of breath. No scream, though. Nothing vocal at all. He didn’t seem to feel it when I scratched him earlier either. It’s like he’s made of stone.
We both look at his hand at the same time.
I let go and back up. The knife doesn’t fall to the floor, though.
Blood seeps from the wound. He puts his other hand around the handle, and I’m the one who screams when he pulls it out.
He closes his damaged hand. Blood runs down his wrist, and when he turns to me, I back away.
Because now, he is rage.
Raw. Unfiltered. Rage.15DamianThe knife clangs to the stone floor.
“Come. Here.” Hearing the rage in my voice, I see the panic on her face as her eyes shift from the bloody mess of my hand to my face.
She’s in shock at what she’s done.
And I don’t waste the opportunity.
Lurching forward, I close my uninjured hand around the back of her neck and draw her to me. When I raise my other hand, her gaze locks on it.
It hurts like fucking hell, but I don’t make a sound. Pain isn’t new to me. I know how to take it, and the one thing I learned early on is not to show it. It steals at least some of the pleasure from the one inflicting the injury.
“I told you to give me the fucking knife.” I sound calm, but I’m not. I shift my grip to her arm.
Her mouth opens and closes, eyes huge on the bloody mess she’s made, hands flat against my chest to ward me off.
