Page 156 of Blood and Ruin: The Complete Series

The dark shadows that seem to be a part of his skin slide down his shoulder, disappearing behind his shirt only to come out on his hand. It lifts off his skin and, like a snake, slithers up and over to me.

Standing still, the shadow snake watches me a moment before whipping out and striking me in the neck. I gasp, feeling the sharp burn and wetness that follows before the shadow snake slides back up to King and disappears in the shades along his face.

The sharp burn in my neck disappears as quickly as it appeared.

I look up into his ominous, empty white eyes and feel a pit of dread fill my stomach. King’s dark chuckle slides over my skin, making me shiver. He ignores my earlier question and pulls something out of his pocket. He moves closer and only then do I see it. The green vial, but in a syringe.

“I’m going to need something stronger for what I have planned.” I feel the sharp prick as he injects the potion straight into my bloodstream.

“Why… Why do all this? What plan?”

After six years of pain and torture, I still don’t understand why he chose me to be his victim. I didn’t believe it was just because I could heal. I knew there had to be some

sort of purpose that he was pursuing. But I never understood what.

King continues to mess with the machine. I’m about to give up on asking anything more when he answers.

“Death leaves a mark, and the more violent it is, the larger the mark left behind.”

Death… like their deaths. Final and violent, leaving behind a mark so large, I can’t see where it starts and ends.

“Is that why you killed them? You get sick pleasure out of killing others?” None of it makes sense. What is the rhyme or reason to his goal? Why did he kill them to reach it? Why is it so important that they died, and I live on to become nothing more than something he gets to toy with?

I need to know. I need to know why their lives meant so little, and yet he went through the trouble of finding them and making sure we met again.

“Tell me why?”

He gives me a smirk, like he’s amused by my outburst. Which alone should tell me something isn’t right.

“Why? Why does anyone do anything? To reach a goal, a purpose. They were a means to an end, with you as the goal, always the goal.”

A means to an…end. An end, their end. With me as his goal.

“What goal?” I ask, but his words sit on my chest, tightening it and making it burn. It was because of me they were dead. It was my fault.

A blow to the chest would have felt less painful.

Whyhe wanted me, though, is still as elusive as ever.

“Why me?” He could have picked anyone.

“You’re… special. Unique. There is no one like you that exists.” That can’t be right. There are hundreds of healers out there, and they can extend their ability to others. Unlike me.

King steps closer and my body tenses up. “But after this, I’ll no longer require your…services.”

The cold chill he evokes in me spreads out to my hand and legs.

“Then why continue on like this?”

I try to flinch back as he reaches a hand out to my face. But I can’t move as the back of his cold fingers slides down my cheek, making my stomach turn.

“No one else gets to have you.”

The sick feeling grows with his words, making my insides twist and turn. I was not only his goal but also a sick obsession of his.

King steps up to the machine and presses a switch. I hear it the noise of fan turn on just before a loud beep sounds. It’s followed by a clicking sound that ticks out in a repetitive beat.

The noise drums in my ears as I glance back to King.

---