Page 3 of Ashes

“I don’t w-wanna die.”

“Hmm.” I nodded. “Interesting since you signed your own death warrant with our Rinny.”

“I-I didn’t know. I lost c-control. I s-swear. I’m so s-s-sorry, Asylum. I-I’ll d-do what-whatever you want me to do. J-just please. Let me g-go.”

“Well, that’s the problem. You can’t touch my forever girl and then think you won’t be punished for it.”

“A-Andrews touches her. The w-watchers touch her—“

“She wants them to, though,” I snapped, hating the truth, but knowing it nonetheless. I’d seen. I knew.

Danny sobbed softly on the floor.

“I won’t kill you,” I said, coming to a decision.

He looked at me with hopeful eyes.

“No.” I moved and straddled his body. “I’m just going to make you hurt really, really bad. Then you won’t forget the rules. And what are the rules?”

“I-I don’t touch your fore-forever g-girl.”

“Correct. What else?”

He stared up at me with wild eyes.

I sighed. “The answer is you promise to scream even though no one can hear you. You fucking promise to remember who you’re fucking with. The rules are you don’t forget who the fuck I am or my mercy. That part is important.” I leaned in to whisper in his ear. “I am merciful.”

He struggled weakly beneath me and opened his mouth to scream. I was fast though and stuffed his wadded-up sock into his mouth before I began to hum our song, my knife carving all sorts of pretty, intricate, deep lines into his quaking body like my blade had a mind of its own.

But we all knew who was in control.

Me. Always me.

And Danny Linley wouldn’t soon forget it.

It was amazing what I was willing to do all in the name of love.

And obsession.

But my forever girl deserved it all, and I’d make sure she got it.

Starting with Danny-fucking-Linley.

ASHES

My chest ached. My head pounded.

“Relax,” Stitches said thickly, his leg bouncing as he sat next to me in the waiting room of the medical wing. “She’s OK. Angel is OK. She’s OK,” he whispered on repeat, his head in his hands.

I knew his words were more for his benefit than mine.

She wasn’t OK. We all knew she wasn’t.

The image of pulling her limp body out of that cement tomb inside the mausoleum would haunt me until my dying day.

And her voice as she had screamed for Church on repeat. Him, hauling her into his arms, rocking her, weeping as he had tried to calm her trembling body.

But she was gone. Wild. Unhinged.

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