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As though my insides have been ripped out, carved to a hollow shell of what I was.
For the first time, I understand Freya’s words, and even if the universe took note and balanced my suffering with Remus’s, it’s still not enough to fill the vast emptiness inside of me.
“You should’ve let me die.”
“Don’t say that, Thalia. Don’t ever say that again.” Fists tight, he shoots up from his chair. “I would fucking drag death by his scrawny neck and crush him to dust, if he ever tried to take you from me again!”
“Quit trying to save me, Titus. It’s got to be exhausting at this point.” I focus on my fidgeting hands in my lap. “There’s no valor in going down with me. It’s okay to move on, you know? You’re not a quitter for wanting to save yourself. It’s like you said before, it’s the only way to survive in this world.”
“Forget what I said. That was before you.”
“I’ll never be what I was. He broke me. He broke me into so many fragments, I can’t put them back together.” A sob hitches in my throat, and my trembling hands feel cold, all of a sudden. “The things he did to me ...”
Clutching his skull, Titus sinks back to his seat and rocks back and forth, like it’s all he can do to calm himself. “Every minute of every day, I kill him in my mind. I rip his bones from flesh and listen to him scream, and it’s still not enough for what he did to you. When I see you like this, hear you say these things, I want to tear open the gates of hell to pull him out and kill him all over again.” When he lifts his gaze to me, I can practically see the flames burning behind his eye. “Tell me how to fix this.”
“You can’t fix this. You can’t fix me.”
Chapter 42
The days pass in a blur, with only the two of us alone in this suffocating cabin that once felt like home to me. With every sunrise, Titus is there, washing me, brushing my hair, urging me to eat and drink, to keep up my strength, but I refuse. My stomach won’t allow me the pleasures of food and water without the punishing torment of sickness and pain that always follows. I feel like an empty vessel. Like the abandoned buildings we once passed on the highways, ravaged and left to decay inside.
Today, he seems exceptionally tired. I study the dark circle that shadows his eye, the weight of defeat pressing down on his shoulders. I’ve never seen him look so conquered before, not even as a prisoner to Remus and Agatha. He stands in the doorway beside an equally imposing figure. Atticus, who I understand has been staying with Lilith and the other women while he’s convalesced. He carries the same look of pity in his eyes as my mother did, just before she sent him off to Purgatory.
Mother.
I wish she were here now. Not that she’d know the right words, or offer much comfort, as cold as she could be at times, but I miss her embrace. The arms of a mother.
The men step away from the door, and I hear Atticus ask, “Still not eating?”
“No,” Titus answers. “I don’t want to force her, but soon I’ll have no choice.”
The promise of his words takes me back to the day when the guards force-fed me, and a wave of anxiety churns in my stomach at the memory. I curl into myself, breaths panting with the oncoming panic, and I close my eyes, mentally counting down from ten, as my mother would often tell my father to do, the times he’d have his attacks.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six ...
Stomach muscles easing, I take deep breaths through my nose.
Titus doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to see me like this, but the road to feeling normal and well again seems too long a journey now. Walking that path means facing Remus. It means remembering every vile thing he did to me. Some I’ve locked so deep inside my head, I don’t know if I’d recall them, at all.
Other memories taunt me throughout the day. Swooping down in the scarce moments of content, when I least expect it.
“Any word about Jack?” At the sound of Titus’s inquiry, I turn toward the door, ears perked.
“No. Not yet.”
Jack. My head clings to the name.
Hot blood hammers inside my veins.
My muscles spring from a slumbering laxity and tense beneath my skin.
For the first time in a long time, I feel something stir inside of me.
A purpose.
The door clicks in the other room, and the men’s voices muffle to incoherent sounds, as if they’re standing outside, talking some more. The thoughts of Jack continue to swirl like a pile of windswept leaves inside my head. A rustling noise that begs to be heard, distracting me from the incessant visuals of Remus.
The door clicks shut again. Footsteps. Some clanging about in the kitchen. And minutes later, the scent of broth fills the air, tickling my stomach for the first time in days. The footfalls approach my room, coming to a stop at the door.
