Page 1 of Bloody Valentine

The hooded figures surrounding me were silent, their faces obscured by the eerie darkness. Lanterns were set in the corners of the area, lighting up the room and creating shadows that danced along the walls, but the only light in front of us was a crackling fire.

I hissed between my teeth when the knife hit my skin, more blood sliding down my back and splashing onto the rocky texture of the ground underneath me. Watching the reflection of the scene ripple in the red pool made this torture too real. I’d run from this moment more times than I could count, kidnapped so many in preparation, and killed even more.

I knew my father was the man in front of me. Our family crest prominently adorning his head told me that. It was a copy of the brand deeply embedded into my skin. Now, it was something I could never escape, no matter how fast I ran or where I tried to hide.

My little brother, Hayes, fidgeted in the sea of black cloaks. He never was one to sit still, and after succumbing to my fate in this fucked up family of ours, he would no longer be able to rely on me to be there to cover up his dumb fucking messes.

Sometimes, those duties entailed killing girls that were stalking him or picking him up from parties without his drunk ass even noticing he went from point A to point B. My brother was a nuisance above all, but I loved the asshole. My sacrifice had to be enough for him.

This inauguration felt like a betrayal to us both.

I couldn’t keep running from the ‘duty of my bloodline,’ and there would come a point when he wouldn’t be able to do so either. It was only a matter of time until he would understand that acting like a fuckboy would only get him so far. I just hoped he would realize that sooner rather than later.

My body still bore the scars of Valentine’s Divine ‘reminders’ of my place in this fucked up society. The university hid its secrets beneath it. They were the Divine’s channels of torture. So many tunnels led to another area of pain and anguish. The school, the chapel, and the mausoleum were all on a different level of hell.

Tonight was my twenty-first birthday. I was supposed to get legally wasted and enjoy passing out drunk as fuck. But no, not me. My party consisted of me being carved up like a Christmas ham by thirteen old fucks that played golf with my pops.

Hearing the rip of the flesh on my back was making me ill. Another slice began because each one of these assholes was ‘required’ to carve their name into my skin.

The blood felt weirdly cold as it continued to slide down my back. I kept my face as absent of emotion as I could. I didn’t want to be seen as weak, and I’d lost too much to get here. These men were now under my rule. Tonight’s ritual made me the king to all the descendants of St. Valentine and all his men.

The robed figure behind me whispered the line we all repeated during these fucking rituals, and of course, it was in Latin.

“Sanguis meus et tuus, frater meus. Dorsum habes nostrum, et nos habemus tuum.”

My blood is your blood, Brother, mine. You have our back, and we have yours.

This line created the true definition of brotherhood in this society.

Each new slice burned worse than the last, but being held still by my father’s strong grip somehow burned the most. I couldn’t disappoint the monster. Our mother was long gone, our sister too…everyone was but Hayes and me.

Trying to understand why I knew I couldn’t fail him was confounding.

We were the two people in this world that our father hated the most but had to mold into his perfect puppets.

If I was being honest, I stopped running from this fate to save Hayes.

It would have been easier to die, but I wasn’t willing to let Hayes pay for my sins.

Besides, if there were ever a chance to change history, my brother would be the one to do it.

Why did there have to be so many goddamn names?

Fourteen.

Fourteen long-ass ancestral names spoken aloud, carved in jagged lines as they each stepped up and dug them into my flesh: Viktor, Charlise, Bradford, Arthur, Ambrose, Vincent,Nikolause, Amos, Henry, August, Enoch, Leopold, Matthias and finally Valentine. My last name cut the deepest.

My father’s hand was strong and sure as it felt damn near deep enough to etch into my fucking bones. He enjoyed this. His smirk was almost radiant, so I had no choice but to suck it up. Baring my teeth, I swallowed the pain of the next slice.

I felt faint, my back on fire, the blood spilling down my skin like rain, creating a shallow pool around my feet.

‘Please, don’t pass out. Just fucking get this done,’ I begged to whatever asshole god decided to listen.

My father held the bloody knife in one hand and the mask of a ram skull in the other.

“Maddox Nathanael Valentinus. Tu unus ex nobis es. S. Valentini, filij mei, Fráter inter nos omnes. Nunc arcum tibi…”

Maddox Nathanael Valentine. You are one of us—a descendant of St. Valentine, Son of mine, Brother among us all. We now bow to you…

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