Page 33 of Their Will be Done

Ilost control today.

It’s the girl.

Trinity has a talent for tearing down the walls I’ve meticulously built up around my dark heart. When she’s around, I can’t forget how fucked up I am.

Because of her, I lost control. Now the darkness doesn’t soothe me like it should, nor does the joint I just smoked envelop me in its usual mind-numbing fog.

I feel sick, but not in a physical way. Times like this, it’s as if the disease in my mind is actual cancer, slowly spreading through my neurons.

Infecting. Weakening. Killing.

What will happen when my sanity is gone? When there’s nothing left to hold onto? When I can’t slow down the clock?

The things I did today were supposed to give me more time. But instead of resetting that fateful countdown clock chiming out the minutes till my next breakdown, everything I did today sped it up.

Hurting Cassius.

Our fistfight.

Punishing Jasper.

That last one I’m particularly pissed about. It should have been Miriam, that steward of righteous repentance, doling out his punishment. But I thought it would tame the demon clawing its way up from hell through my body, so I did it instead.

I struck him over and over again, punishing him for something I don’t consider a crime.

There’s a faint noise from outside.

Have one of my brothers returned to our nest? They know better than to disturb me when I’ve gone dark.

Something could have happened. Something important.

Or maybe they’re in as much need of solitude as I am right now. Rube comes here for the quiet sometimes. Just sits on the couch and stares at nothing as he rubs his thumb over his rosary.

Not his anymore.

But does that change anything?

I have to get up and confront whatever—whoever—it is, but I don’t trust myself yet.

Maybe I never will.

Orange light from one of the lamps on the other side of the partition spills through.

Something’s wrong.

My brothers know the dark soothes me. They might dare to come close, but they wouldn’t risk provoking me.

I rally myself, calling back the tendrils of my mind from the far-away places they drift to when I don’t keep them contained. It takes effort, and time.

By then, I can hear soft noises as the invader starts hunting. Tins rattle. Clothes rustle.

I push into a sit and hang my head between my knees for a moment. The cool air slides against my bare back as I breathe deep and try to center myself before standing.

I head for the edge of the curtain, the padded floor masking my footsteps, and zone in on the sound of a tin rattling. Sliding a finger behind the curtain, I part it far enough to see a sliver of the room beyond.

My chest tightens painfully.

I’m suddenly too aware of the slowthump-thump-thumpof my heart.

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