Page 29 of The Doll and The Domination

Dessin throws the next two forks like a dart. They soar over tables until they meet their targets. Two elderly men in the serving line. They get hit in the shoulder and collarbone. Not fatal, but they howl like dying animals.

Before he grabs the next fork, a bladed chain whips through the air, latching onto his bare chest. It sticks to him like a magnet for three seconds before the sentinel yanks his arm back, ripping the chain from Dessin’s chest, removing chunks of flesh in the process.

“Veetewz!” the sentinel bellows.

I rise from my seat. To help. To fight. To—

Copper. The scent is horrible and unforgettable. It’s entwined with the smell of the sea, salt, and fish. The briny air. The crashing waves.

I’m on the beach, yet I’m still here. Sand fills my boots. Smoke stains my skin.

And there’s blood. He’s bleeding. It drizzles down his wounded chest. I reach out to help him, but it covers my hands, my arms, my clothes. Hot and dripping off my elbows.

“No,” I breathe.

“Skylenna?” I hear Niles, but my vision is tunneled. I taste the sea. I taste tears.

I look down at my bloody hands again. It’s everywhere. The blood is everywhere. I am covered in Dessin’s blood. In Kane’s blood. Greystone. Aquarus.

“Dessin,” I utter with a cracking voice and quivering lip. “Blood. There’s so much blood!”

Dessin looks down at his slashed chest, then back at me with his face loosening in surprise. A strange emotion flickering in his alert gaze.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch,” he says hesitantly.

I shake my head. It’s the sickle. The sharp, curved blade. It’s cracked through his ribs and severed a lung. It’s killing him. He’s dying.

Blood. Oh, god, there’s so much blood.

My hands.

My arms.

My entire world goes up in flames as I watch it happen, feel it happen all over again.

“Someone—help him,” I whisper, unable to breathe, to speak, to understand what’s happening. My heart explodes in my chest, my entire body trembles like an earthquake.

Blood. It’s everywhere. It covers the tables and chairs. It gushes down my legs. And I hear the waves roll onto the shore.

He’s dying.

“Skylenna…”

“No.” That girl is dead. She drowned in the asylum. “No!”

The cold, striking rage gives no warning. It possesses me like a demon seeping into every pore of my soul. It mutes my logic and blinds my reason.

I begin attacking with my bare hands. My body is flung through the air in a screaming, thrashing fit. With one painful tug, the bladed chain is out of the sentinel’s hands. I wrap it around his throat and break his neck. Snap!

“Skylenna!” Muffled voices. Distorted screams.

I can’t stop myself. The thirst is unquenchable as I lay into the prisoners charging me. My throat burns from the cries of a banshee leaving my lungs. My knuckles crack into cheekbones. My teeth pierce salty flesh.

And that monster soars within me. Lighting up every sensible part of my mind in white-hot flames. I attack as if I have no beginning or end. No possibility for death. No limitations in sight. It’s all a furious blur of faces and blood.

“Down you go.” A familiar voice. Dessin’s voice.

My vision blurs and I’m swaying, stumbling; my face smacks against hard stone. My stomach dips like I’m drunk, and even though I know I’m lying on the ground, the entire prison spins.

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