Page 30 of Tainted Serenity

This building and all its secret corridors.

She guides me through numerous corridors until we arrive at a door I instantly recognize. This is where it all started about an hour ago.

I feel the panic take hold of me; the realization that she has led me right into the wolf’s den. Arthur Grimhill might be in there, and it’s as if she wants me to lose.

I take a step back, but she stares down at me with such authority before she grabs my wrist tightly, making me wince from pain. She pushes me against the door, motioning for me to open it, but I try to struggle to get away. She’s stronger than me, making me look weak and pathetic.

“What the fuck are you doing? Let me go!”

She stares at me, continuing to push me until I collapse into the door and it slides open. Time seems to stop as something claws against my chest, making it impossible to calm my racing heart in the chaotic mess I have become.

I look at her with betrayal shooting into my mind, and she gives me a sad, broken smile that has confusion rattling within me.

“Saving your life,” she whispers.

And then I see all the people gathered inside the empty room we were in earlier. Arthur Grimhill stands in the middle of the room with two girls on their knees on the floor, one of them being the girl who pushed me down the stairs.

Their hands are tied behind their backs, and both are unable to speak as the tape is plastered against their mouths.

Everyone turns to stare at me as I stumble inside the door, and the discomfort overtakes me from all attention. I see how Arthur’s smile breaks into a malicious one.

“Esther, sweetheart,” he states proudly.

When I look behind me, Esther enters the room with her head held high and appearing calm on the outside, but I see how her hands tremble as she approaches Arthur, hinting at her panic.

Her throat bobs, unease making it harder for her to walk, but then she’s in front of Arthur as he reaches a knife into her hands. She gives me a glance, sadness swirling inside me at the realization.

She’s the one who won the game. She protected me from having to murder those two losing women. Nausea biles in my throat, threatening to make me puke, and I force my gaze away, unable to watch as Esther yanks away the tape from one of the women’s mouths, a painful scream tearing from her throat.

I bite my lip, tears brimming the corners of my eyes that I refuse to let fall. Out of nowhere, a forceful slap lands on my cheek, searing with a painful intensity that burns.

“Look at them, you insufferable imbecile,” Irene sneers, her voice cutting through me like a frigid wind, sending tendrils of ice down my spine as I am forced to watch Esther, prepared to take the lives of the two women.

I shut my eyes when she lifts the sharp object, plunging it into their skin, causing it to tear and blood to seep out until it reaches their hearts. A cry escapes one of the women, and I desperately try to stop the trickling tears, but it is futile. Esther plunges the knife into the other woman, who bites her lip, tears glistening in her eyes as all the other dolls in the room look at them with a sick fascination. The second woman slumps to the floor, precisely like I did when Arthur plunged the knife inside me with the intention of killing me.

They both struggle to breathe, and the first woman claws at the floor while begging to be saved, but it falls on silent ears. A piece of myself slips away as I watch them both drag in their last breath, my heart tearing apart.

A piece I’m not sure anything can ever bring back.

Chapter 12

Naya

Heartbreak.

The one true thing enough to crush the heart into pieces, impossible to glue together again because of the million shards. Now it feels as if my heart will explode inside my ribcage, making it collapse until it strangles my lungs in its vile weight.

“You’re mine, little doll,”he told me. “You’ll always be mine.”

My soul may be his, belonging to him in ways it has never belonged to anyone before, but where is he now? Where the fuck is he when I’m ready to give up on everything, and he’s the only one who ever calmed the demons inside my head?

I remember how terrified I was of catching feelings for him—to feel even the tiniest of emotion for him—but he broke through the wall in my chest with his fists as if he had the goddamned right, and now I’m left to suffer without him.

As we advance, the gentle thudding of our footfalls echoes against the walls, waking me from my thoughts. Irene’s high heels click against the floor when she strides ahead, punctuating the silence with a distinctive click every few seconds as she looks over her shoulder to ensure I’m following her. I don’t know why she doesn’t walk behind me if she is so paranoid for me to run away. It’s not like there’s anywhere to run. This place is surrounded by forest with nowhere to go.

Exhaustion makes me dreary as my breaths feel amplified. The corridor is dark, with only the torches on the sides casting a shimmering light over the surroundings. It feels oppressive and as if something bad is about to happen.

In some way, it is.

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