Page 35 of Her Blood Revenge

I’m running. Running through endless trees and leaping over lashing roots. They won’t listen to me. They won’t obey my commands. They trip and cut. Grab and twist. The earth hates me. I feel it. Feel its wrath and anger pouring from every leaf and branch. The soil wants to pull me in and bury me alive. It wants to consume me.

Keep running. Just run.

‘Get back here!’

I look back and see Cole closing in. He reaches out, controlling the earth and trees. He swipes, sending them at me.

‘Wife! Come here, wife!’

‘I am not your wife!’ I scream. ‘I will never be your wife!’

A branch wraps around my neck and lifts me from the floor. I claw at it as it tightens and lifts me higher.

No. Not this!

The forest leaves us and becomes the damn podium where Synthia was killed. She stands beside Archie, and they both laugh and giggle. They swing me like a toy, pushing me higher and harder.

I can’t breathe! I want to breathe!

He twirls her, and she falls into his arms, kissing him deeply. So in love. So besotted with each other. I swingclose, and they watch me, smirking through the kiss they refuse to part from as they push me harder.

Swing.

The rope around my neck creaks and hands rest on my back as they push hard.

Swing.

Cole now stands on the other side of the gallows.

He laughs, and they all push me back and forth. Back and forth.

From below, roots break through the gallows and stretch towards me, and I scream as Cole forces them between my legs. I scream as I feel them go inside me.

And they keep on laughing and laughing.

And I keep on dying. Slowly and never-ending.

My hands reach for Archie. The tips of my fingers barely reach him before I swing back to Cole. The roots twist around my thigh and bury deeper inside me.

I want to scream. But I can’t

I want to die. But I can’t.

I fall from the rope and land on cobbled streets. It’s night time, and the rain is falling hard. In the sky, lightning streaks overhead, illuminating the bone archway marking the entrance to a human village beyond its border.

Skulls and spines. Legs and hands. They’re all crushed together and weathered. Countless empty eye sockets look at me. Watch me. Read me.

‘Blood witch,’ they say.

Their voice an endless amount of whispers.

‘You should be here with us. You belong here with us.’

‘I’m not evil,’ I reply, shaking my head as I stand beneath them all.

The archtrembles as if vibrating with anger. The bones shift. Their need to claim me and pull me in brings them to life.

I scream and shield my face as it explodes, and all manner of pieces soar straight towards me.

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