Page 76 of Razors & Ruin

38

Nellie

I’m ascending, moving through the air.

Shitting Christ, am I dead after all?

No.It’s Sweeney, of course, lifting me from the freezing floor where I was asleep.

He cradles me in his arms, my head lolling on his chest, and carries me up the stairs and into the light, settling me on my bed.

Iknewhe’d come back.

I’m soaked in sweat and dirt, every inch of my body tender with pain. Through my swollen eyelids, I see he’s clean, not a spot of blood staining his shirt, and I frown.

“Did you change?” I ask, my voice feeble. “If you’ve finally learned to get your shirts in to soak straight away, I will eat my arm.”

“That’s my girl,” he says with a smile. “As a matter of fact, Ididchange, but not my shirt. Things went contrary to plan, treacle, and I learned something about myself.”

I sit up and stare at him. “What the Hell do you mean?” I ask, a bitter edge to my voice. “You must know what happened to Johanna, but she’s not here. How can this be? Heads should be rolling!”

He tucks my hair behind my ear, revealing my bruised neck, and he rests his fingertips on the spots where he dug them in.

“The head that truly deserved to roll was mine, my pet.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sommers never hurt any of those children,” he says. “He saved them, Johanna included. She was the child we saw at the church. He disguised her as a boy to protect her and cherished her all her life.”

My mouth drops open. After everything, Johanna was fine. Secure and loved.

It doesn’t make sense. After all the blood, the madness... she just walked away from it all, untouched by the darkness that followed him.

“And you left her behind?”

“Yes.”

My breath leaves me in a shudder of ecstatic bliss.

Gone. No more Johanna, no more Sweeney brooding over his wrongs. He can live knowing she is happy and never darken her life with his presence again.

Not when I want so much for him to darkenmine.

I melt into his arms, and we collapse together, limbs entangled. The pain in my body eases beneath his caresses, and his kiss is hotter than ever, his tongue capturing mine.

“You didn’t kill me,” I whisper, wrapping my legs around him and drawing him closer. “Why?”

I know what he’ll say. I just want to hear the words.

“Because I love you,” Sweeney murmurs. “I never loved anyone else. Here’s how I know.”

I tug his shirt out of his waistband, my hands finding his rippled abdomen. “Tell me, love.”

“Because I remember what I did to Veronica.”

I pull away, searching his face. Her name again, refusing to disappear into the ether where the useless bitch belongs.

“Sweeney, I swear?—”

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