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“Enlighten me as to what I’m so stupid about.” The grinding of his teeth betrays the calm in his voice, as he slides his robe over his body, shielding me from his sickly, naked form.

“I wasn’t a virgin when you took me in. I fucked my best friend to avoid being raped. I was supposed to be a Daughter. A symbol of virtue and fertility. But I can’t even get pregnant.” Another wheeze of laughter explodes out of me, jostling my body against the bed. “My body isn’t designed for pregnancy! So you will never bear a perfect child with me, Remus. Never. The joke is on you! Stupid!”

An eerie silence follows.

Remus draws his hand behind his back and paces beside the bed. The sound of his harsh breathing is white noise to the graceless clomp of his feet. “You’re lying.”

“What do I gain from lying? You won’t set me free. You’ve taken everything from me. What do I care what you do to me now?”

An angry sound vibrates in his throat, and he runs his hand through his hair, before coming to a stop alongside the table across the room. “You want death. That’s why you’d lie.”

“It’s true. I’m ready to die.” A shield of tears blurs my vision. “But I’m not lying. Not about this. I swear on Titus’s soul, you will never have a child with me. And that brings me more satisfaction than anything in this world.”

With his back to me, he rolls his shoulders and rakes both hands through his hair. When he turns around, the gleam of metal in his hands is unmistakable. He chuffs, nodding as he crosses back toward me. “Well, then.” Once standing over me, he holds the tip of the knife against his palm, twisting the hilt with his other hand. “You got me good. Didn’t you, Thalia?”

Only a flash of metal shimmers in my eyes, before a cold stab of pain strikes my lower belly. Needles of shock pulse like waves over my skin, my whole body stiff and trembling, as I stare down myself to the knife he’s lodged inside of me. Just above my pubic bone.

He angles the blade downward, and gives another thrust.

A scream rips from my throat.

White dots float before my eyes.

Hot pain turns icy, cool, the tingles dancing over my hipbone and down my thighs.

“To be sure no one will ever get you pregnant, Thalia. Which leaves you nothing but an empty hole to fuck.”

Shallow stutters of air fail to fill my lungs.

The cold tickle of nausea spreads across my chest.

The room shrinks as blackness closes in on the fringes.

As my eyes shutter against the horror, the sound of Remus’s voice in my ear tugs me back into consciousness.

“I will not let you die and go to him. Not yet, Thalia. There is so much suffering left for you.”

Pain blossoms from the stab wound, spreading across my belly like vines crawling beneath my skin. The vines curl inside of me, pulling at me. The walls turn to dark, vacuous holes. Thousands of starless pores creating a thick suction that tugs my body toward the unknown. The emptiness beyond. Remus stares down at me, his eyes black and beady. I watch as two antennae emerge from his face. His skin deepens to a claret red, and he reaches down with his clawed hand, tracing the edge of my face.

Through this terrifying darkness, I watch behind a thin veil of tears, where a massive figure stalks toward him from behind. Shoulders bunched. A black patch over his eye. Body taut and spoiling for a fight, with the fire of seven hells burning in his eyes.

Beyond anger.

Beyond mercy.

He’s a magnificent savage beast, here to avenge me.

To steal me away to the afterlife. Away from all this violence and death.

Titus.

Go to him, my body beseeches me. End this pain. Go to him.

One sharp twist of the knife, and I jerk forward. The edges close in on me. Screams echo in my head.

Everything flicks to blackness.

I open my eyes, to find Titus dragging Remus away by the curls on his head, while the smaller man kicks and screams.