Page 56 of Dead By Dusk

Dead By Dusk: Silene

I’m not quite sure how I got here. When I open my eyes, I’m tucked into Ronan’s chest. His arms are wrapped around my body as he gently rocks us back and forth, and for a moment, I’m content. I don’t want to move from where we rest, but I know we need to. However long we’ve been here is too long given the situation, but the throbbing in my head makes me want to stay. The swelling of my eyes makes it hard to even keep them open long enough to see anything, which almost solidifies that desire.

But I need to move.

My body aches, and as I try to stretch, Ronan’s hold on me tightens and he rests his chin atop my head.

“How long have we been here?”

My throat feels overwhelmingly scratchy as I speak, but the sound of my voice is much worse. It’s raw and deep and cracks more than it doesn’t. Self consciously, I bring my hand to my throat, deeply rubbing the expanse of my neck. Coughing wracksmy body for a moment, and when I open my eyes again, my gaze lands on my fingers and the dried blood packed under my nails.

“What is…” I attempt to remove myself from the fortress that is his arms, but he just continues to hold me in place while I observe my skin and clothes. Multiple areas are covered in the same dried blood, even though there are no real wounds to dignify the amount of evidence left behind. “Ronan, what is— where is—let me go.”

I’m struggling to escape his grip, but he won’t release me. Won’t even loosen his grip. No matter how much I try, his hold just gets tighter, and the longer I struggle, the more I remember. But whatever well of tears I had been made of before sleep found me, has run dry. And suddenly, I’m not fighting to remove myself from his grip as much as I’m fightinghim.Still, he doesn’t let go. He remains steady through every punch I throw into his chest and every question or accusation I toss his way.

He endures until I tire myself out and am left weakly questioning why it had been her and not me. Not once does he correct me, probably assuming that nothing would be able to change my mind and that guilt will most likely weigh on me for as long as I breathe.

It’s not quite guilt, though.

No, it’s rage. An inferno burning me from the inside out, chanting a dark prayer for revenge.

“Let. Me. Go.” His hold on me hesitantly loosens as I grit each word out through clenched teeth. I immediately remove myself from his embrace, crawling several feet away, taking deep breaths, trying to cool the fire that feels like it’s burning me alive. The chill that flows through the air does nothing but suffocate me with all the words I’ll never get to say.

I slowly move to stand, but Ronan doesn’t move. He instead stays seated on his heels, and I take this opportunity to fully look at him and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He is hunched over,and he looks so defeated and withdrawn that I can’t help but step closer to him again. His eyes trail the length of my body, from my shoes all the way past the hand I have extended out to him and land on his face. I steady my breathing under his graze while sorting out my thoughts. Everything that needs to be tucked away for the time being and what I’ll keep at the forefront of my mind to guide me the rest of the way through this insanity.

“It’s not safe out here,” I calmly state, and he slowly nods, taking my hand and standing up to full height. I drop his hand to turn around, but he grips my wrist and pulls me back into him, holding me again. But this time I don’t pull away. I hold him the way he held me as he murmurs in my ear—emotion lacing every word. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save her but I made sure you were safe. The whole night, I made sure you were okay.”

I let my hold on him tighten, not trusting myself to speak before pulling away and offering him a small grateful smile.

“I tried to find her, I swear it,” he whispers, his eyes pleading with me to understand what he’s saying. For a moment, I remember the fight and the screams that sent terror racing through me before the rage took over. I remember him telling me he would save her, and I do understand what he means. The direction he ran was completely opposite from where I had found her. There would have been no way for him to know it was a ploy to separate us.

“I know, Ronan,” I say softly, offering him my hand, but instead of taking hold of it, he laces his pinky into mine and brings it to his mouth, softly kissing my knuckles. When our hands drop, we hold each other’s gaze for a moment more before looking to the house and then the space around us.

“It’s quiet,” he notes, his eyes squinting as he looks at the surrounding emptiness.

“I’m not surprised,” I start while shading my eyes and quirking my eyebrow at him. He looks down at me, tilting hishead to the side as if wanting me to continue, and I stare back out to scan the treeline, searching for any hidden movement. “He’s lost a lot of men recently. He’d be stupid to send anyone else out here when he’s going to need protection.”

“Protection from what?” he asks, but the way he’s looking at me when I turn back to face him tells me he already knows the answer. Even if he would rather leave now and fly to some remote island, he knows I would never leave things unfinished.

“Me,” I state plainly, and his eyebrows draw together as he tries to grab me, but I move out of his reach, holding out my palm as a way of asking him to not try to stop me or talk me out of what needs to be done. “No, you can’t stop me. It’s already been decided.”

“You can’t seriously still want to go back there and kill him, Silene. You have to let this one go,” he speaks with urgency, borderline begging me to give in just this once. But I cannot simply turn my back on what has been done to us and the others who came before. We cannot all be casualties of this man’s power hungry paranoia. Not anymore.

“You know I have to. I have a score to settle.” I shrug lightly as I say this, and he just brings his fingers to his tired eyes and presses into them before roughly rubbing his face. When he drops them, any sign of exhaustion that had been there before is gone, replaced by his cool, calculating gaze. For a moment, I see part of the man I love again. His steadfast confidence in me and unwavering support will forever be something I carry by my side, and I think that when this is all over, I’ll say the words I haven’t dared speak yet.

“Okay, so you kill him and then what?” he asks, but he’s no longer focused on me or what I’m saying and doing. Instead, he’s turning over plans in his head. Assessing the probability of each idea that could result in our survival or death. As another breezeflows through the air and pushes my hair out of my eyes, I think about how this all should end and know there’s only way it can.

With fire.

Something that will cleanse the Earth of the stain he’s left. No evidence of who he was or what he did will be found, no one will remember the man who clawed his way up to the top of the food chain just to be overcome by madness and tormented with delusions that he would never be safe. There will be no proof of the payments he sent so others would kill innocent men and women who had families. There will be no hint that suggests there was ever a monster who sent his daughter to die.

He will be what he fought his whole life to escape becoming.

Nothing.

“I’m going to burn that place to the ground.”

I’m not sure if it was the conviction in my voice or the confidence I carried, but he no longer appears concerned. Something about him seems more proud than anything as one side of his mouth tips up into one of his half smiles accompanied by an irritating wink of his capacious blue eyes. Before I can get lost in the comfort of knowing he’s on my side no matter what, I gently push his shoulder and look away with a smile.

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