Page 108
A thousand spiders skitter over my skin, and fighting against my own bones, I turn.
And there, standing in the shadow of a rusted support pillar, clear as day, is Matthew.
He looks exactly like he did the last time I saw him. He’s wearing the same grey cashmere sweater, only now, the chest is a sunken, concave ruin where his sternum was crushed by the steering column.
“Babe?” he asks again, taking a step forward with a lurching, uneven gait.
My spine collides with Malachi’s chest as I take a stumbling step back, hot, stinging tears welling in my eyes.
“Am I in a coma, Eden?” He chokes on a sob. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not... I’m not one of them. Take me home. Please, babe. Just wake me up. Get me out of here.”
He reaches for me, but his wrist flops uselessly, the shattered bones grinding audibly. He winces, tears cutting through the grime on his face. I’m paralyzed by the sight of the silver watch sliding down his arm. It’s the exact one sitting in my nightstand drawer back home—glass smashed, hands frozen at the exact minute of impact.
A warm hand slides up my spine, settling firmly between my shoulder blades. Malachi. He doesn't speak, but the heat of his palm burns through the thin prison tunic in a silent, grounding reminder: You are not his anymore. You are standing on solid ground.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, staring into the wet, blue eyes that used to dictate my every waking move. “I didn't come to get you out, Matthew.”
One second, he’s a weeping mess; the next, the mask drops. His face goes slack, the tears instantly drying up as his eyes narrow into a dark, familiar cruelty.
“No. No. You're not doing this,” he snaps, his voice rising, filling the space with that suffocating, demanding weight I used to drown in. “You're not leaving me here. You're waking me up, and you're taking me home!”
“Matthew, you're dead—”
“Because of you!” he screams, lunging at me weakly. “You think I don't remember?! You were the one driving, Eden! You lost control! You smashed us into that divider! You owe me this!”
A year ago, that tone would have made me drop to my knees. It would have made me scour my soul for a way to fix him, to take his pain onto myself, to twist reality until I was the villain and he was the victim.
But the hand on my back is warm. The air in my lungs is mine. And something inside me snaps. Not a bone, but a chain.
My chin lifts as I force my spine straight, stepping away from Malachi’s hold to stand on my own two feet, looking him dead in the eye.
“I didn't kill you. You grabbed the wheel,” I tell him, the memory no longer a nightmare, but just a cold, hard fact. “I was trying to pull over because you hit me. And you reached over and yanked us into the divider. It was your fault the car flipped.” I take a step toward him, and he actually flinches. “You died because you needed control more than you wanted to live.”
The silence that follows is deafening. The other men in the pen have stopped pacing. Matthew stares at me, his eyes wide, his pathetic gaslighting shattering against the absolute wall of truth.
“I built a shrine to my own abuser,” I say, my voice steady, ringing out in the damp air. “I spent a whole year haunting myself for you. I let you rot in my head, and I let you convince me I was the monster. But you're just a memory I don't want anymore. And you belong here.”
Matthew's face contorts, his mouth working silently as his bruised ego flares into a violent, humiliated rage. “You ungrateful bitch—” he snarls, raising his broken, flopping hand as he surges forward.
He doesn't even make it a full step. Malachi moves faster than human eyes can track. One second he’s behind me, the next, his hand is clamped around Matthew’s throat, lifting him completely off the ground.
Matthew gurgles, his ruined chest heaving as Malachi’s fingers dig effortlessly into his flesh, hauling him up until they are eye-to-eye.
“You think you’re suffering now, Corpse-Boy?” Malachi sneers, his golden eyes glowing with a sick, predatory joy. “You’re in the waiting room. But I have acquaintances down in the Pit who owe me favors. I’m going to make sure your paperwork gets fast-tracked. They will peel you apart layer by layer, forever, and they will take great pleasure in doing it.”
Malachi leans in closer, dropping his voice to a lethal, mocking whisper that carries perfectly in the quiet pen.
“But before you go to the meat-grinder, I want you to know something. She isn't crying over your ashes anymore. She’s mine now. She’s been in my bed.” Malachi’s lips pull back in a wicked, feral, fanged grin. “In fact, I made her come while I was wearing your favorite coat.”
Matthew lets out a muffled, strangled noise of pure, impotent rage, his face turning a mottled purple.
With a look of utter disgust, Malachi tosses him aside like a bag of garbage. Matthew hits the concrete hard, sliding through the grime and coughing violently, clutching his crushed chest.
Malachi doesn't even spare him a glance. He turns to me, the demonic rage instantly melting from his features, leaving only that heavy, grounding warmth. “Are you ready?” he asks softly.
I look at the pathetic heap on the floor and nod. But as my gaze lands back on Malachi, I gasp. My knees buckle as my hand flies to my sternum, and I double over, clutching my tunic as the pain shoots through my veins like liquid fire. It feels like my ribs are being violently ripped out without anesthesia.
A wet, broken cackle bubbles up from the concrete behind me. “Yeah,” Matthew wheezes, his voice dripping with spite. “That’s right. It hurts, doesn't it? Leaving me behind? You deserve to hurt for what you did to me. You deserve to burn.”
