Page 14 of Burn Like An Angel

“The electrocutions didn’t work.” I hiss at the pain that attempting to shrug causes. “I’m stubborn.”

“Fuck me.” He scowls.

Xander remains silent, observing our exchange. I can see the memories dancing in his twilight-hued eyes. This isn’t our first bout of torture. That’s probably why my sanity is still semi-intact.

“You’ll have a pretty scar on your face.” Langley cracks his neck, trying to regain his composure. “Just pray the wounds don’t get infected.”

Suppressing a shudder, I force back the memory of the steel-tipped whip slashing into my face, parting skin and flesh. Thebitch pretending to be a guard didn’t have to go so hard, did she? The facial bandage feels huge and uncomfortable.

My gaze wanders back to the adjacent bed. “What about her?”

Ripley’s face is swollen and misshapen. Slithers of her badly bruised body are visible around the sheet she’s tangled up in. Her pale complexion makes the inked foliage on her arms stand out like dark thunderclouds.

With black-lined eye sockets, mottled purple bruises circling her throat and countless cuts and abrasions, she bears the evidence of all we endured beneath ground.

Bile burns the back of my throat as indignant rage threatens to take over. Those evil motherfuckers almost broke us. The pain-warped memories were real. It’s a small miracle that we survived at all, let alone escaped.

The memory of fleeing Craven’s house of horrors are blurred. Pain-laced fragments that no longer fit together in a neat patchwork.

“Similar story.” Langley’s forehead wrinkles with concern. “She’s resting now, but her wrists are infected. You guys were chained up?”

“Shackled in a concrete cell.”

“You were together?” Xander asks sharply.

Not trusting myself to speak, I merely nod. His pale-blonde eyebrows are furrowed, likely attempting to piece events together. I’m sure no one expected to see Ripley dragging me of all people out of the basement.

Langley visibly swallows. “I’ve cleaned her wounds and hooked her up to IV antibiotics. She’ll recover. Now we wait.”

Raine hisses through clenched teeth, appearing angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “What happened, Nox?”

A bubble grows and lodges itself in my throat. We’ve dealt with this kind of evil before. In Priory Lane, I saw the devil’s faceand lived to tell the tale. That gave me the strength to survive again.

But seeing Ripley, bare and battered as she fought to stay alive? Hearing her soft cries and whimpers while we clung to life? That did something to me. Something irreversible. Something far more crippling than their torture sessions. And I don’t know if I can fucking fix it.

“Trust me.” My voice is an aching rasp from all the screaming. “You don’t want to know.”

“Pretty sure we have a right to, though,” Raine argues, his slender shoulders fraught with tension. “You both disappeared!”

“How long were we gone?”

“A couple days,” Xander supplies.

Raine’s grip on my arm tightens once more. “We were worried sick.”

The panicked feeling is back. Breeding. Metastasising. In my head, I can hear Ripley’s cries ricocheting, ping-ponging around the internal cavities of my skull. My own pain doesn’t feature in the flashbacks—just hers.

Her body scrunched up, protecting itself from the battering water. Freezing-cold skin, snuggled into my chest, covered in gooseflesh. Her feeble whispers as she wrapped her fingers around the fleshy strings of my heart and ripped it clean out to keep it for herself.

If this is it… I just want you to know that I forgive you.

I didn’t deserve those words. Hell, I didn’t even know I wanted them. But now that she’s given me her forgiveness… Lord, fucking help me. It’s like an invisible dam has burst, and a torrent of guilt and self-loathing is spilling out.

Hatred has kept me safe. Protected. Immune. With that stripped away, I’m at risk of feeling things I’ve spent years trying not to feel. At least not for anyone but the family I chose in Priory Lane.

“Why didn’t Ripley just leave you down there?” Xander stares at me like he’s trying to figure something out.

“What?” I snap out of my musings.

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