Page 58 of Tarnished Embers

There’s only one way to set them free, to set all of you free, you know how…

Reaching out a shaking hand, I grasp the broken glass shoe around the wide part, the shattered heel glinting and shining like the answer to all my prayers.

Just two cuts, down the river, not across the stream…

Tears fill my eyes once more as I sit back on my sore arse, the throb of pain nothing compared to the lightness that is filling my veins now that I’ve made my decision.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” I whisper brokenly, bringing the sharp point to my left forearm. I know he’ll be hit the worst by this, after what happened with his parents. Hesitating for a moment, I worry that he’ll blame himself for this like I know a part of him still shoulders the burden of their deaths, but then I catch sight of my wrist, of the deep groove from the restraints that were used to hold me down while they…

A scream of soul-shattering agony rips through me as I slice downwards, blood immediately welling to the surface and dripping down my arm. I quickly swap hands and do the same with my other arm, the pain of my flesh parting quickly replaced with a wave of euphoria that has my nerves tingling.

Then my arms droop, the sound of the shoe falling to the floor a dull clatter as my body slumps against the boxes behind me.

Just a little bit longer and it’ll all be over.

* * *

“SLIP AWAY” BY UNSECRET, RUELLE

CAS

The breeze might be gentle, but when you’re climbing the side of a building, it feels as though it’s gale force, trying to pry me off. I relish the challenge, my body singing with each pull of my arms that takes me closer to my girl.

After the shitshow that was last night, the disgust I somehow hid as I was forced to fuck woman after woman, I couldn’t wait to get in the shower and rinse them off me. Like the others, I didn’t come, couldn’t orgasm with some stranger that I didn’t even want in the first place. Though washing couldn’t get rid of the itch, so I went out on the balcony to see if the pre-dawn air could help.

It was when I turned around, feeling like if I didn’t I might try to throw myself off the edge, that I saw the trellis that was fixed to the wall, providing the perfect hand and foothold to climb up.

Not thinking about it, and with only the desperate need to see and feel Ember, I started my ascent, and here I am, grateful for my small dabble with parkour back in the States as the trellis soon ran out. Luckily for me, the coving moulding of this old place also helped, and before long, I’m at one of the dormer windows that I’m fucking hoping looks into the attic.

I notice a window further down slightly open, but I can’t reach that, so I’ll just have to hope that she’s awake and can let me in through this one without me falling off the fucking roof.

The tiles creak under my feet as I shuffle along, peering inside to discover the room a mess, a bare lightbulb casting a yellow light over all the odd shapes. My heart fucking stops when I spot the bed, but Ember isn’t in it. Instead, there’s a patch of crimson in the middle, the covers mussed and hanging off the side.

Barely feeling my fingers gripping the sill anymore, I follow a small trail of blood, and when I find its end, a cry of pure animal-like anguish leaves my lips at the same moment that my hand punches through the glass of the window.

Uncaring of the cuts on my flesh, I pull the broken wood and glass aside, heaving myself up and through the window, then dropping to the floor in a heap but quickly bouncing back up and rushing to her side, landing hard on my knees.

“Cinders, baby, no, no, no,” I beg, my voice panicked and unlike my usual deep timbre. Her face is so fucking pale, too fucking pale, and blood sluggishly pours from jagged cuts along her forearms, telling me she did this to herself.

“Cas?” her soft voice whispers, and I look away from the ruin of her arms to find her beautiful blue eyes looking up at me. She gives me a small, sad smile that shatters my already breaking heart. “The only way to free you, to free us all, was to take myself out of the equation. I’m sorry I broke my promise, Cas.”

“I will not lose another fucking person to suicide. Please, Cinders, don’t leave me.” Tears drip down my cheeks as I hover over her, unable to take my eyes off her beautiful face but knowing that I’ll need to if I’ve got any chance of saving her.

Think, Cas! Fucking think!

I tear my gaze away from her, my eyes landing on the rumpled bed sheets, and with gargantuan effort, I force myself to get up and rip them off, tugging the fabric until it tears.

“You’re not allowed to leave me, Cinders,” I grit out, my voice harsh and thick as I rip a strip of fabric and then drop back to my knees beside her.

“It’s better this way, especially after…” she cuts off, her eyes closing as a tear drips down her pale cheek.

I swallow hard as I look beyond her slashed wrists, seeing her missing clothes, the bruises littering her skin, and the blood in between her legs. Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt flows over me, so strong it’s almost calm, like the eye of a storm.

Odette broke her word, and she will pay. So will the dead men who hurt Ember, for I have no doubt that there was more than one of them.

Focus, Cas.

Pulling my gaze back up to her face, I take her arm in my hand and bind it tightly.

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