Page 74 of Delivered to the Devil

If I’m lucky, Janos might remember me, and my sister will mourn me. For a while. But before long, she’ll move on too. We were never close, no matter how much we wanted to be.

No one will miss me in the long haul, and there’s nothing here that I will miss.

The last part is a big, fat lie. There is one thing—one person—I’ll miss with all my aching heart. But I can’t have him anyway, so it doesn’t make a difference.

So maybe this is the greatest freedom of all? To be allowed to die here with the only person who has ever truly meant something to me—be spared from a hollow, meaningless existence that I’ll never truly fit into.

I’ll get to find freedom in emptiness, where I’m no longer burdened by all the terrible things that have happened. There’ll be no sorrow or longing. Nor joy or happiness, but I never knew much of those anyway, so what am I losing? Nothing I wasn’t already bound to lose.

***

My eyes are rarely open anymore. They don’t gaze into nothingness. Mostly, they just see darkness and a stream of horrible images that keep going on repeat in my mind. Sometimes, I see steel-gray eyes. But I can barely tell if they’re another vision conjured by my blurry mind or if I’m seeing them for real.

I don’t know how many days go by. I barely notice when the light changes, and I barely notice if Janos is at my side or not.

The pain has faded somewhat. Or rather, I’ve become oblivious to it. I’m often so far gone I can’t feel it. I just lie there, drifting somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Even so, there are still times when it takes over, throwing my system into a blinding panic that makes me forget myself, who and where I am.

Large hands grab me to hold me still as I thrash and flail blindly, but it doesn’t help. They can’t get a good grip without making the pain worse, and I continue to writhe like a demon has possessed me.

The hands try to stroke my hair instead, hold on to my feverish hands, or rub up and down my arms.

But nothing helps. The pain overwhelms everything, and I can’t possibly contain it.

Only in the quiet moments, when my brain magically manages to ignore my body, can I find some comfort in the hands. I long for them unbearably, even though they’re almost always here—it’s like I don’t really have them, and I know they’ll soon disappear.

Tears roll down my cheeks, and fingers swipe away the drops with a gentleness that’s too much for my aching heart to take. And then I cry more, making my body curl up, causing my nervesto scream, and I throw myself around, wishing I could leave my body.

Sometimes, I feel a prick in my throat, and everything goes black. Blissfully so. And soon, I get to the point where I long for the darkness whenever I’m conscious.

In clear moments, I look around and see that I’m in a huge bed covered with white sheets, horrible pink curtains framing the windows, and across from the bed is a deep red armchair, which is sometimes empty, but mostly occupied by a powerful man who I cannot help but watch.

His steel-gray eyes are serious. Almost sad as they stare into space. But when they notice me looking, they become almost affectionate.

It’s in these clear moments that Janos tries to nourish me. With gentle movements, he helps me sit up against the headboard and feeds me meat stew and bread. It takes almost everything I have to sit up and swallow the food. When I see how worried the gray eyes become as I give up halfway through, I want to continue. But I never can.

Whatever little energy I have left slowly dwindles, and eventually I can hardly bring myself to eat. He ends up feeding me a thin liquid through a straw and soft vanilla ice cream.

But the absolute worst is when I wake up from the heavy darkness just as the bandages are being changed. The gauze sticks to the weeping wounds, and even though they are removed gently, it feels like I’m being cut open anew. It gets even worse when they have to be cleaned, and occasionally I end up fainting because my mind simply cannot bear it.

CHAPTER 37

“Coil”

by Opeth

Rebecca

I wake as familiar arms lift me, and pain flares in my entire torso as the movement stretches the wounds and my torn body is pressed against a hard chest. The pain robs me of breath, and a few weak whimpers and squirms are all the protest I manage. After a minute, I lose the strength to do even that, and I go still in the arms, trying to find some modicum of peace as I listen to Janos’s steady heartbeat against my ear.

He carries me longer than usual, and when the movements become bumpy, I vaguely realize that we’ve left the apartment and are descending the stairs. When a cold gush of air flutters across my cheek, I open my eyes to find that we’re outside—I haven’t been outside for God knows how long, and the fresh air is a welcome relief.

Darkness has settled over the city, and the streetlights lead the way as Janos walks at a brisk pace down the street. But light is not our friend, I realize as he keeps looking over his shoulder and veers down a dark alley. I want to ask where we’re going, but I can’t get the words out, and I’m not sure I really want to know. Ignorance is my friend, and I want to keep it until the very end.This just might be the point where Janos takes me to the woods to end me. I almost hope it is.

Letting my eyes drift shut, I spend what little energy I can muster on pressing myself a bit closer to him, soaking up the feeling of his warm body as I try to ignore the flaring pain.

At the sound of hushed voices, I open my eyes again and see two men and the gaping hole of the back of a van.

“Wha— Ho—” I try without getting a full word out as Janos steps into the van and places me on a mattress on the floor. But it’s not the dark van that has worry churning in my stomach. It’s the two men. Is he leaving me? Letting someone else discard me?

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