Page 46 of Run

“No.” I parrot back to her, tapping my boot on the wood, but it doesn’t clomp like her step, it squishes with God knows what that’s stuck to my sole.

“I stayed. But you know that don’t you?”

“I covered you up, you were cold.” I say, not knowing how else to respond to that.

If she were begging me for her life, or screaming at me in passion, the filthy words would be flowing from my mouth, but this, her misplaced devotion to me after what I’ve done has me next to speechless.

“I’m not helpless.”

“I never said you were.”

“Yeah, but I think you thought it. You did have to rescue me twice.”

“You put yourself in situations where you were getting hurt.”

“And you stepped in like my white knight.”

The words white knight make me laugh, a deep belly laugh that must look horrendous with all the goo dropping off me, and the maggots crawling on my clothes. For some reason though, she hasn’t run off screaming in fear. My princess isn’t afraid of me anymore. She should be, I’m as evil as the man who owned the skull in my grasp.

“Black knight baby. As black as my soul, if I even have one left.”I say, taking a deep breath in, turning around to finally face her.

The gasp from her is so loud I can hear it over the breeze and the barking of the dogs in the distance. Her eyes grow huge, and her hand comes up to her mouth, covering it in her shock.

“H?”

“I told you to go back in the house.” I say to her, taking a step towards her, raising the skull up, shaking it to get her attention onto it.

Run princess

“N…n…no.” She says, staring at the skull dripping with the same ooze I’m covered in. “This isn’t you.”

“Isn’t it? You don’t know me, remember? I’m the stranger who watched you fuck yourself in your bed. The fucking stranger! Goddamn it Lily, run from me!”

“No.”

She’s a defiant little fuck, I’ll give her that, but that’s what gets her into the trouble she finds. She doesn’t listen to reason; she throws herself at men that are no good for her. What I thought was her best attribute before, I now see as her curse.

Stalking towards her, I hold the skull out. A maggot falls from my shoulder, and she curls up her lips in disgust, but she stays put.

“This, right here Lily, this is all that’s left of my father. How can you stand there and not run from me. I killed him. Along with all the others.”

“What others?” She asks, her eyes starting to shimmer.

The look on her face, the stench radiating off me, and the piece of shit in my hand is too much. My anger and rage are boiling again, with the surprise of her arrival disappearing and the hate coming back. I wrap both my hands around the already shattered skull and press them together, my muscles flexing, the tattoos on my hands rippling with the force.

She jumps when it shatters, and I squeeze more, grinding my palms together, turning it to dust that blows away on the wind when I open my hands. What doesn’t escape into the air falls to my feet, covering my already sticky boots in a fine grey powder.

“Why?” She asks, her unshed tears ready to fall from her light-colored lashes. “What did he do to you to make…this?”

“What didn’t he do?” I ask, clapping my hands together brushing off the last remnants of the ghost that is now gone from this place. “He made this, me, the monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” She says, the first little teardrop rolling down her freckled cheek.

“Oh no?” I ask, reaching out for her, grabbing her arm with my filthy hand. “I’m not a monster? Look. Look in there, see all that? I did all that.” I yell at her, dragging her to the edge of the open hatch and forcing her to look down into the pit.

“No, no that can’t be.” She says, shaking her head, trying to back up and away from me, but I hold her tightly. “You may be dark, but this…no, I refuse to believe it.”

“Believe it princess. This was all me. Years of killing and dismembering bodies in the cellar you slept in the first week here. In your room is where I did all this.” My voice is rising, and I’m shouting, holding her tightly, digging my fingertips into her arm.

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