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CHAPTER19
JAKUB
Irun blindly, arms outstretched in front of me as I stumble over a fallen log. A sharp pain registers as a branch, snapped off by my fall, slices through my bicep. Blood slides from the gash but I don’t stop moving. Pushing upwards, I swipe at the mud caking my face, rubbing at my eyes and blinking away the tears that fall. But it’s no use. I can’t fucking stop them.
Being with One hasn’t helped, flogging myself hasn’t helped. Watching Seven fuck Three against her wishes hasn’t helped. Forcing Leon to act on his violence, and failing, hasn’t fucking helped.
Watching him hold her, kiss her, makeloveto her has fucked me up more than I thought possible. My brother, who has stripped men of their skin and muscle with a cold detachment, had made love to Nothing with such tenderness that it had brought me to my goddamn knees.
Together they’d opened the floodgates and now I feeleverything.
Guilt. Remorse. Lust. Hate. Pain. Fear. Empathy. Regret.
And I can’t turn it off.
Like a dam that’s burst its banks, all these feelings pour into me as my tears pour out. Every single salty drop makes me feel… I can’t fucking deal with it.
You’re weak!My father’s voice snarls, taunting me from beyond the grave as I push on deeper into the forest.You’re a weak, feeble excuse for a man. I’m ashamed to call you my son.
“SHUT UP!” I shout, my jumper snagging on another branch and yanking me backwards. I whirl around, lashing out at the ghost of my father, my fists slamming into the trunk of the nearest tree. My bones crack from the force, but I keep throwing punches, my skin splitting, my bones cracking, my knuckles swelling. With every punch I let out a bellow that sounds more like an animal caught in a trap than a man.
I should’ve drowned you as a baby when I had the chance…His voice taunts, an echo from the past, another reminder of all the things he used to say to me constantly growing up. Even after death his presence hasn’t left me. He’s all around me. He’s in this forest, in the castle. He’s in every scar that litters my skin. He’s in my motherfucking head. I have no respite. He’s a constant reminder of everything I’m supposed to be, was born to be. He’s the Black Plague, a mutilator of hearts, a ruiner of souls.
Unlike her. Unlike Nothing who is everything he is not.
She’s the speck of light in all this darkness. She’s the warmth in the cold absence of feelings. She’s our fucking salvation. I know it. Leon sure as fuck knows it, and Konrad? He’s fighting against it as much as I am. But he’ll lose. We all will.
Look at you, brought to your knees by a woman. You’re pathetic!
“ENOUGH!” I cover my ears with my hands, spinning around on the spot as I search for his ghost in the darkening forest. If he were here now in the flesh I don’t know whether I would beg for his special kind of punishment or wrap my arms around his throat and squeeze the life from him. I both hate him and have a twisted kind of respect for him. He’s kept me free of feelings. He’s beaten them from me. He’s kept me cold, hard, unyielding.
Without him, there is nothing to stop those feelings from creeping back in. There’s nothing stopping my mangled heart from slowly coming back to life.
She’s got to you. She’s stuck her claws into Leon and you did nothing to stop it. You’re allowing her to ruin you, ruin what I built. You’re a fucking disappointment!
“I tried! I fucking tried!” I roar into the forest, sending a flock of crows up into the air above me as I spin on my feet, with the forest spinning alongside me in a rush of greens, browns and blacks before I stumble, crashing into a bush.
I lie there, panting, my skin torn from the lashes One gave me, from the wounds I’ve spent the last few days inflicting on myself right here in the forest. My clothes are ripped, torn, and covered in mud and dried blood, but still I can’t rid myself of these feelings I have for her. No matter how hard I try to bleed them from me, I can’t. They’ve embedded themselves into the very marrow of my bones, and attached themselves to the cells within my blood. There’s no respite. I can’t numb myself to them anymore.
All I do isfeeland it’s killing me.
She’s killing me.
No, she’s bringing you back to life,another voice says. It’s the same voice who forcefully shoves my father’s hateful words away, the same voice who has tried to get me to change my mind about Nothing.Feeling is pain, it’s freedom. Embrace it.
“It hurts,” I argue, my voice hoarse, my body sore, my heart aching, my soul fucking tormented. “It hurts so fucking much.”
Get up. Go to her. Go to her now. She will ease your suffering, just like she did for Leon. Just like she’ll do for Konrad.
“No!” I shake my head, forcing my battered and abused body to move. I pull myself upright, grabbing the nearest branch as I get to my feet. “I can’t.”
My gaze focuses on a familiar tree in the distance, the bark of its trunk rough and a deep brown. It’s circumference is huge, its roots growing up and out of the ground. At the base of the trunk is a mossy mound, scattered with leaves. Focussing on the great oak tree, I stumble towards it, falling to my knees when I reach the spot where I found Nala all those years ago.
Nala.
My sister.
I have a sister. A girl unmarked by the Brov legacy.
