AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Of losing my mother, the assault, losing Puck, finding out about the horrifying fate my father had in store for me, Casper’s cold fingers trailing over my skin.
My arms heat up and my ankles burn as the thoughts come creeping back. I’ve never had any phantom pains from the burns on my arms, but since my ankles were badly cut and scarred from the rope, I feel it.
My arms feel like they’re on fire and my ankles feel like they’re being pricked by a million needles. The pain leaves when I open my eyes, but sometimes it’s too hard, and I drown with my demons in the black abyss behind my eyelids.
Until the same voice brings me back to earth, to the light of day and my protector. Every time.
“Theo,” King whispers, caging me in and placing his palms against mine on the window.
My eyes flutter open and I take in the forest and the raindrops on the window. The condensation fogging the view as I breathe heavily against it. It feels so much like before when I first discovered King had been a prisoner here that I can’t believe any time has passed at all.
“Is he dead?” I ask, turning my head to the side. King nods, a small smile playing on both of our lips.
Eight months ago, Dax and Rori found us in a basement buried somewhere in the Third District. They heard the commotion outside of me getting hit by Casper’s car and Dax checked the security footage. They tracked the car’s number plate only to discover it had been stolen and abandoned amongst a retail park of empty warehouses, so after hours of following the only other set of tyre tracks in the vicinity, they’d finally discovered us hidden underground in one of them.
However, Edison Ramon had survived his very brutal hit to the head. But instead of finishing the job, I suggested locking him away to rot. Only word got around the prison that Edison Ramon had in fact been working with Casper, who was responsible for the hit on me in the prison, and in that case, responsible for Puck’s death too.
So Edison suffered eight long months of torture and trouble at the District Prison by the many loyal friends of Puck, only for our dear friends, Sandy, Mac, and Ty to finish him off for good.
I’m glad they got their form of revenge for their friend just like I did.
King had returned to clear the mess and see for himself the remains of Edison Ramon’s body and I tagged along, wanting to feel close to Puck.
He would have loved the way the Districts live now. The Rhivers cousins took over all three Districts for good. Just one leader for all, to solve the issue of betrayal and power-hungry assholes.
King and Dax run them as one with Rori’s and my support.
Rori Rhivers, now married to Dax, which was, in her words, ‘about fucking time’, has become my closest friend and ally and without fail brings me back to the here and now when my mind takes me elsewhere.
She’s battled many demons of her own and finally has someone to share it all with. It’s taken time, but me and Rori are thick as thieves, and I trust her with my whole life.
Oh, and we also replaced the family portrait on the wall.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask King softly, trying to turn in his arms, but he keeps me trapped against the window.
“Almost,” he replies, bringing his arm back in front of my face to reveal a small velvet box.
I look at it, then at King, then back at the box. King slowly opens it to reveal a sparkling ring, silver diamonds wrapped around the band with a light blue diamond in the centre.
“Theodora, you are the brightest light of my life. The blue in my sky, the blue in my waterfall. The blue eyes that open up to me every day you wake, every time you come back from your dark place. I want to be the blue in your life. The blue of your sky, the blue of your waterfall, the blue in your diamonds,” he says, lifting the ring out of the box and slowly pushing it down my finger. The blue diamond catches the last of the light outside, the raindrops reflecting off of it on the window.
I hold my hand out in front of my face, resting it against the window from where King keeps me pressed against it, admiring the gorgeous ring and the words of the man who gave it to me.
“Are you with me, Theodora? Can I be your blue? Do you want me to be?” he whispers, waiting for my answer.
And as my eyes blur from my tears and the window in front fogs from my deep breaths, I use my finger to write two simple words in the condensation on the window from my breath, like King did with me all those months ago.
I do.
* * *
