Page 472 of Coal Hearts

I managed to keep my temper the entire time she stripped off her disgusting nude-coloured underwear—now grime-covered and paint-soaked. I chewed on self-hatred as I followed her into the shower and reached for the soap to bathe her.

But then all my fury twisted into despair as she held up her hand and shook her head. “Don’t...please don’t touch me.” She kept her eyes downcast. “The bruises just keep getting worse. The pain is almost too much. I think...I think I’ll pass out again if you touch me.”

I wanted to ask her so many things.

I wanted a comprehensive list of her pain and how to erase it.

I wanted to drop to my knees and press my forehead to her badly bruised belly and just hold her.

But that black abyss smothered me down.

A dam of misery blocked my throat.

I merely nodded.

Leaving her to wash, watching how gently she touched her swollen, black-and-blue skin, I stood under the hot spray and fought the urge to scream.

I’d been too late this time.

I hadn’t stopped him.

That blackness kept billowing, pouring, suffocating...

Rivulets of crimson poured off my skin, but the water didn’t stand a chance at cleansing my insides. My soul was putrid, fetid, corrupted. Red water swirled around our feet, vanishing down the drain. Every drop rivered over my mind, a waterfall pushing me into the deep, dark depths of whatever entity that’d taken hold of me.

My stab wound blazed beneath the hot spray, giving me something to latch onto.

I liked the agony.

I deserved it.

The urge to find another blade and open the scar on my leg flickered in my coal-black mind.

For ten minutes, Ily and I shared a silent shower, taking turns to rinse beneath the heavy pummel of water. Our bodies became clean, but my soul? That became darker than death.

Wringing out her hair, squeezing clear water not scarlet, Ily swayed into the wall.

“Oops.” She giggled.

My heart wrenched to a stop.

I’d never heard her make such a light-hearted sound before.

It was the quickest flare of brightness in my otherwise wretched existence.

Every atom in my body urged me to reach out and support her wobbly steps as she tripped drunkenly out of the shower and clung to the towel rail.

She giggled again as she patted the fluffy towel. “Sorry.”

She’s apologising to the furniture now?

I thought whatever that damn doctor gave her was supposed to be mild?

Wrenching off the shower, I stepped dripping wet onto the bathmat and caught my reflection. The glass above the white vanity fogged with steam, my image hazy and clouded. But even in the mist, my eyes seemed to burn a dull grey full of bone-deep exhaustion. A tiredness that didn’t just come from physical activity or the mental weariness of murder, but something so much deeper.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the wasted man staring back at me was on a slippery slope to burn out, and I didn’t really want to stop it.

If I burned out...this all ended.