Page 116 of Babalon

Nathan falls back from her in a few large steps, his unimpressive cock deflating from the lack of blood, before he drops to the floor. Closing the distance once more, I crouch over him, looking down into his dilated eyes and grin. His chest caves with every attempt to breathe, but it won’t be long now.

The last soul I need.

Reaching out, I coast both hands through his blood then lift them to smear over my face. The two goons standing off to the side retching at the sight. I did it again, and again, and again, until every inch of me was covered in his crimson, and my hair now saturated with the metallic fluid.

This is what he is good for, bathing in the purest form of sacrifice.

“Clear!”

“Clear!!”

“CLEAR!”

Here comes the calvary.

CERT officers burst through the door right as I am standing up. One raising his gun and fires off two rounds, clipping Paul and Vance between the eyes. Both of their heads are thrown back before their bodies could hit the floor.

Me, however; I just simply raise my hands—getting caught red handed has nothing on the view before them.

I love irony.

“On the fucking floor!” the one in front shouts at me, to which I comply without question. Dropping down, I go so far as to lay stomach first in the growing pool of Nathan's blood. It is going to be a long time before I make it back down here, or get to feel this again, so what is one last hoorah?

With my hands behind my back, a second officer approaches and quickly restrains them, then moves on to place a pair of cuffs around my ankles, an elongated chain connecting them together. I lay there silently as they check each of the still full solitary cells before returning to the gruesome scene before them.

“The fuck happened here, inmate?”

All I can muster is a laugh that started at the deepest depths of my stomach and crawled up until the darkest part of me bared itself to the world.

Chapter thirty-two

Nadia

Ifeel like I am still in the prison, day in and day out. There is no amount of changing my bedding, medication, music, or warm food for my belly that can convince me otherwise. Mentally, I’m still in solitary, my heart splintering for a man I’m sure I’ll never see again.

The red and white flashing lights still filled my peripherals, the sirens echo in my ears, and my knees still feel raw from holding myself up while Nate raped me. I have never been the praying type, and though I didn’t start that day, there is a guilt inside of me that makes me think I should have started a long time ago.

What’s done is done, sadly.

Anytime I try to sleep here at the hospital, I wake up screaming. The nightmares, the pain, the phantom feeling of Nate, and the other two, violating me keeping me awake for days on end. It doesn’t matter when I try to sleep, daylight, under the stairs, I hate closing my eyes and getting sucked back into the memory of Darkwater. Once my eyes pop open andmy heart slows down, the panic subsiding, I stew in mounds of worthlessness. About the time I finally make it to the end of my despair, it’s time to sleep again.

A repetitive cycle that is slowly driving me insane.

Under it all, there’s the heartache. It’s been five days since the riot—five days—and I still don’t know where the hell Kace is. Five days and no one has told me if they found a body. Five days and my chest feels like it’s going to cave with each breath.

There are times that I hear him over the terror in my head, telling me how much he loves me; something I know I don’t I deserve anymore. I feel his hands in my hair, holding me steady as I cry into him, but what I see as his strong chest is just my pile of pillows.

Of the people remaining, there were only a handful of guards left on the inside of the prison. The ones that manned the areas beyond the checkpoints maintained their barricades until the Emergency Team arrived and they took down any inmate in their way.

I did this. It’s all my fault. Innocent people lost their lives because I pulled an alarm over one inmate. The one I can’t let go.

Speaking of the prisoners, there are still several of them that survived, even after rescue came through. At the moment, they are being transferred to different prisons throughout the country until Darkwater is cleaned up, the dead laid to rest, and new safety measures can be implemented.

Some of the inmates remain behind, the ones in solitary for example, then a handful of others. Out of the bodies carted from the prison, dead or alive, not a single one belonged to the man I ache for.

Wherever Lucien left him, he’s not leaving there.

“You should eat, Nadia,” my nurse says when she walks in.

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