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And then I sink my teeth into her flesh.
In the end,it isn’t enough.
As long as her blood pools in my mouth, I’m in a state of impenetrable bliss.
Warmth and peace and something akin to happiness drape themselves over my mind, my body, and I lose myself in them.
Clarissa’s blood may be bitter and vile to the taste, but as soon as it hits my throat, my cheeks, it turns to opium in my mouth.
It is the best sort of bliss, because there is nothing, no one else there.
There are no visions to see, no warped memories to assault me. It is a drug that sails me higher than the moon, and there is nothing in the sky but cold black emptiness stretching out for eternity.
As long as I am drinking, there is nothing.
I hardly hear it when Clarissa breathes her last breath.
I barely detect the way her body goes limp, not in my arms, because I won’t give her that sort of death. I won’t let her be held as she dies.
I don’t really hear it when she thumps against the floor.
All I know is that there is nothing, and I hope there always is, and also that there never is again.
But then I take a sip and am met with the taste of flesh.
I drink, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Because there is nothing left.
There is nothing left, but there are all the somethings, and they return with a vengeance, swarming my head with images and screams and Nox’s mournful eyes that aren’t actually here, and my baby is dead my baby is dead.
I open my eyes, expecting, hoping for there to be nothing, but it’s Clarissa’s empty gaze that stares back. I startle, pushing her body away from me, like somehow this will distance me from what I’ve done.
I killed her.
I killed Clarissa just to spite her.
Something cold clamps over my mouth, and it takes me a moment to recognize my own hand.
There’s a strangled noise, but it’s caught in my throat.
I killed her. I killed her and I’m a murderer, and…
And my baby is still dead.
It’s that last thought that knocks a hole in me, that obliterates my ribcage and splinters my lungs until it aches to breathe.
So I don’t.
CHAPTER49
NOX
Iwake to moonlit runes fanning across the floor, my body as their focal point.
A bone-white sickle paired with a bundle of flax. A fraying thread tied in a knot. The curve of a full moon.
And then there’s Abra, her pale skin sparkling in the warped moonlight coming through the window.
