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“Torrie—”
Torrie lifted Sloane’s arm, shaking it in front of her eyes. “He did this to you, Sloane. That evil bastard did this. Did this to you.”
Sloane closed her eyes against her own ragged flesh.
“You can’t even look at your own damned mangled flesh, Sloane—much less mine.”
“I—”
“No—no excuses. You haven’t looked at my leg once since you stepped into this room. You’re hiding from the truth. From the pain. It’s easier for you not to look at it. Not to acknowledge it.” She tossed Sloane’s arm from her grip. “Look at your arm, Sloane. Look at it before you forget what it was like.”
Sloane stared down at her wrecked arm. The twisted white threads of skin.
She hadn’t stared at her own arm—hadn’t truly looked at it save for quick glances as she washed her hands and then when her memories first came back—not since that night when she first discovered what had become of her arm and Reiner had come into her room to calm her.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. To face what she was now.
“Now look at my damn leg.”
Her breath quivering in her chest, it took every nerve in Sloane’s body to lift her look to Torrie’s leg.
Bile snaked up her throat.
Torrie’s leg looked much like her own arm did months ago. Still healing. Still seeping pus. Red, angry flesh twisting together as it tried to close itself up from the air. Tried to heal itself in the most gruesome way possible.
“He did this. That demon did this to me. Did this to you.” Torrie grabbed her left arm again, shaking it. “These are his sins and he needs to pay.”
“It’s not that simple, Torrie. It—”
“It is.” A bitter sneer curled Torrie’s lips. “You ken exactly what he took from us, Sloane. What he did to us. You need to make him suffer—suffer for all he’s done.”
The hatred palpitating off her cousin sent an icy shiver down Sloane’s spine.
“Torrie, when—how—there is so much malice in your voice. It is not you. This was my idea to go after the man responsible—my want for vengeance. You—you tried to talk me out of it—you—”
“This pain has left only hatred in my heart, Sloane.” The hard glint in Torrie’s eyes didn’t wane. “It is awful yet true. But hatred is all I have left.”
“Tor, no.” Sloane grabbed her hand, clutching it. Torrie was the kindest person she knew. She’d always held the softest heart out of all of them.
“I have not found a way to be otherwise. I cannot even cry on it anymore, Sloane. My tears are gone. The pain took too many and now I am left with none. Maybe someday, but I fear I have little hope for it. Every thought I have now is red—only anger.”
“Torrie, you cannot mean that.”
Torrie’s eyes pierced her. “Even at you I am angry, Sloane.”
Sloane’s head snapped back. “Me? Why?”
“You pulled me out of there. You put the flames out. I should have died. I should have died with all of them.” Torrie’s hand swept down to her leg. “Instead I am here, a grotesque mess of a being.”
“No, don’t say that—you’re not grotesque, Tor—never. You just need to give it time. You’re still healing.”
“Am I?” A caustic chuckle left Torrie’s lips. “From where I lay, I’m not healing. I’m turning into something that I don’t recognize anymore.” Her mouth closed, pulling back into a severe line as her look skewered Sloane. “So finish it or don’t finish it with the duke, Sloane. I don’t care. It’s not going to help my anger. My anger isn’t going away. Ever.”
“Tor—”
Torrie’s look swung to the fire, her arms clasping over her ribcage. “Just get out, Sloane. Get out, and don’t come back.”
“Torrie…” The name fell to silence on Sloane’s tongue.
