Page 86 of Blood and Reign

I don’t even want to think about where she might be. If she’s going through anything like this, I can only imagine the pain she’s in.

Axel disappears as I fist my bloodied hands. If she’s hurt, in any way, those who have caused her pain will pay.

The ground beneath my feet shifts and changes like every other time before it. The scene rewinding and starting again all new as if no destruction or death were here moments ago. The only thing that never disappears is the blood on my hands. It coats them each time as if reminding me that every one of their deaths is my fault.

A nail in the coffin for the past fuck ups I can never fix.

I stand up, readying myself for the next attack. I tried sitting out on one but watching my brothers call out to me, even as an illusion, felt all too real, making those deaths even worse than the rest.

So, I keep trying, hoping this time will be the time that I save them.

I turn to my left, knowing from the last few times the attacker will come from this direction. But looking at it now makes me pause. The dark alley is no longer there and instead I’m standing in a room, a lab.

The room lightens and reveals a wide lab with white floors and walls. There’s an empty metal table in the middle of the room with utensils on the tray beside it.

There’s no one else here, but I know it won’t be too long before someone or something shows up.

I walk over to the wall lined with various sharp weapons. I pick up a small dagger just as I hear a gasp from behind me.

Tightening my hand on the hilt of the blade, I whip around ready for the oncoming attack but freeze with what I see, the dagger clanging to the ground as my heart fucking stops.

Kiarra is tied to the metal table with blood all over her as a man with no face walks up to her, a gun in his hand.

“Please, please don’t do this.”Kiarra’s pleas break my heart.

“Please.”I snap out of my frozen state and push forward, making it over to her in seconds only to be blocked by some invisible force a couple of feet in front of her.

My eyes widen in horror as I realize what’s about to happen. “No.”

I punch the invisible barrier again and again as Kiarra’s pleas grow louder the closer the man gets.

“Don’t do this. Let me save her. At least let me save her.” I punch harder and harder, my hands going numb from the force of it, but still the barrier stays in place.

The man raises his hand and points the gun straight at Kiarra’s head. She squeezes her eyes shut just as he pulls the trigger.

“Please.”The gunshot rings out alongside Kiarra’s final whispered plea as I’m brought to my knees.

Blood splatters my face as everything in the room turns silent, the only sound my rattling chest as I try to catch my breath.

My eyes are on the ground, the once white ground now covered in blood.

Kiarra’s blood.

This is what she lived day after day for six years. This torture. And it’smyfault.

I stare at the bloodied floor until it’s all I see. Until my heart is bleeding alongside it, ripped and raw from watching this one moment.

One moment is all I saw, and Kiarra went through this torture hundreds of times… maybe more.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to tell me that this is my subconscious way of dragging up the nightmares of what Kiarra went through all those years with King. And how much guilt I feel for not looking harder, for giving up when I never should have.

The scene rewinds and resets itself, the lab immaculate with Kiarra and the man gone. The only thing left behind is the blood on my face and hands.

This is what I deserve for giving up on her. I sigh, working on autopilot, and move to get up and go through it again and again. I push myself up to stand, but a force similar to the barrier stops me from getting up.

I frown, trying again, but only move a few inches before a slight weight sits on my bent knees. I blink and Kiarra is in my arms, dying slowly in front of me.

“No. Please, not like this.” Kiarra looks up at me with so much sadness and pain, it rips my heart out all over again.

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