Page 62 of Lamb

I turned back out to the window, my fingers tracing absently up and down my soft skin and shaved shins, thoughts emerging from their mental recess.

“She was the first one,” I reminisced, feeling a bittersweet smile tug at my lips, “to tell me I was not normal.” I stared down at my feet, rough and calloused from endless walking. I soothed my hand over the top of my feet, tracing the soft veins running beneath the surface.

There was a beat as I trailed to my toes before I heard the metaphorical click.

“Anna?” Lamb probed.

I nodded, unsure whether he could see the motion. “She called me a freak, actually.” I chuckled, the ghost of her wordsrepeating in my ears, as they had done many times. “I could count on one hand the number of times I had ever left the estate. One of those times when I was fourteen, I think. Maybe fifteen? I have never really been sure.”

“Of your age?”

I shrugged, not looking up. “When any record of your birth had been burnt, and there was not a single person nor reason to celebrate your birthday, you lose count pretty fast.”

A pregnant silence followed my comment, and I sensed Lamb was not pleased with my nonchalant answer. I did not care. I had never told my story to anyone before. It sounded more like I was talking about someone else than myself. I had expected to be emotional when I did speak of the past, of my pain and my scars. Instead, I was distant, looking from the outside in at a little girl who had drowned in her dark world because nobody had ever taught her how to breathe.

I heard Lamb’s feet settle on the carpeted floor, but I struggled to track any movement in the dark.

“Anna was the daughter of one of my father’s business associates and, in a strange turn of events, we had been left to each other’s company.”

I could see her standing in front of me, the small, blonde-haired girl wearing makeup too mature for her age, blue eyes piercing with the clarity of an old soul. I wondered what I looked like to her, the dull, lifeless girl she had met that day. I had looked up into her young face and seen her staring straight into my soul from day one, becoming the first pure and bright colour in my otherwise grey world.

“I had met very few people—never another child—but I did not know what to do. It was safe to say my social skills were lacking.” I remembered our meeting; how strange I had felt inside, some concoction of anxiety and excitement I had never felt before. It had been new, exhilarating and confusing all atonce. “I did not know what to do, so I did nothing. I must have just stared at her for minutes on end, not saying anything before she finally turned around and asked me what type of freak I was. For her, it was a strange meeting, but for me … it was love at first sight.”

It was as if she were standing before me again. The warm streetlight running over her soft, young features, the slight red of her cheeks, the freckles that had splattered her nose before they had faded over time, and the crook of her brow as she had looked me up and down.

“We became friends. Though, for her, I think it was out of pity. I was so scared I would not see her again, but over the years, I could see her every few months, when the opportunity permitted. I think my father saw it as a way into the company her father ran, one of the many he had predated on in the hopes of taking over. Though it had largely turned into a mistake. Soon, Anna was teaching me what it meant to be a teenage girl—what I was supposed to be doing, supposed to be seeing; how I was feeling and what I wanted. She brought out the girl who had been buried long before she was even born.”

As the warm memories left me, a cool breeze circled back through the room. The autumn air rustled young Anna’s long platinum hair, her eyes regarding me, the new me, the broken. The familiar disappointment and disgust weaved through her features. She would hate me now. Hate what I had become. Hate how far I had fallen.

At least she had never changed. Back then and even now.

I stared back at her, feeling that same weighted emotion from many years ago. No air to breathe, my lungs burning, floundering … drowning.

Young Anna shook her head, her mouth moving, but no words coming out. My eyes burnt, but I knew no tears would form.

“It was my biggest regret … meeting her,” I whispered, my voice weak and tight. “If only I had never known what was out there. Never knew what I was missing. Never knew what I could have. Then maybe I would not have wished for more and … I would not have ruined it all.”

The darkness hugged me tight, its cold claws sinking deeper into my bones. The cold chill settled under my skin, and my anxieties churned. I could hear her voice again, a mix of old and young, past and present, as it echoed in my ears. Echoed the words I had begged for, the words that had daggered my heart, before I allowed it to bleed and decay.

A foreign weight fell over my shoulders, surfacing me from my thoughts. My mind had sunk into its depths. Even looking up at the dark brown eyes, flecks of golden light dancing across their depths, I stared from a mental distance.

“Come on,” Lamb’s deep voice rumbled, his arm sliding beneath my legs and around my back. He lifted me with ease, and this time, I did not fight him. I allowed him to carry me over to the bed, toss back the covers, and lay me down.

He climbed beside me, his warmth trying to break through my chill. I could still hear the ghostly whispers of my past, memories flickering through my mind in broken, mismatched pieces. Of a past that smelled of bitter blood and cold coal, of the neglected fireplace and Anna’s laughter, of my screams of pains, and ofherfinal breaths. Everything that had led me to right here … to right now.

“Everything that I am,” I whispered, unsure if Lamb could hear me any longer, “everything that I have done, and everything I have become, were all the result of my choices. I am responsible for every break, every crack, and every splinter that makes me who I am. My choices are my own, and the consequences are mine to bear. And mine alone.”

Darkness began to take hold, lulling me into a rare second sleep. The same words played over and over in my mind before the nightmares anchored my soul.

My sins belong to me.

And they shall end with me.

Chapter Seventeen

ASH

“I’m not a walking pharmacy,” Mint snapped.

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