Page 36 of Cast Stones
Chapter Fourteen
Madi stares down at me,her eyes rounded in a distorted reality. “That’s not true. I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…”
Oh, but you did.My beautiful, wilted rose has spent so long shrouded in shadow and dying of thirst that she doesn’t realize it was never for water.
It was for blood.
It’s always been for blood.
“Cara mia…”
Splaying her hands across my chest, she pushes herself up and locks her arms. As tempting as it is, I don’t offer to drag her back down. She knows keeping me away won’t change who she is—what she is. “You’re lying,” she shouts. “Stop lying!”
She can force her lips to speak the lie, but she can’t force it into her eyes. She never could. They bleed truth, a fault that those work colleague bastards discovered and used to their advantage.
I watch patiently as the broken pieces of Madeline Benning wage war against the iron shield of Madigan Bailey. The battle plays out in her dark green glassy stare, and I watch as all the familiar emotions fall like unstoppable dominoes across her face.
I watch as reality sets fire to fantasy, consuming Madigan Bailey in a cloud of thick, dark smoke.
“The bleeding walls…” she chokes out, her elbows buckling.
I simply nod.
She doesn’t have to explain. Like I told her, I’ve been watching her. I saw the dam break. I saw the walls crack. When her knife drew the first Disciple’s blood, I knew the clock was ticking. My Madi was unraveling. She was alone, afraid, and slipping away.
I lost her once. I refused to lose her again.
“It’s true,” she whispers, her arms finally giving out as she collapses against my chest once more. “I know it’s true. I’ve felt it inside me for months. Almost like there’s beast—”
“Trying to claw its way out,” I finish.
Blinking through the last remaining cloud of revelation, she tilts her chin up at me. “You know. You’ve been trying to tempt this beast out yourself. To make me remember. That’s why you lied on the stand during Cain’s first trial.”
Of course, I do. It’s why my chest is a hollow cavern of nothingness, save the glass case where I’ve kept her. However, my only response is a slight dip of my chin. I’ve had decades to come to terms with my demons. To accept them as a part of me. To accept they will stay with me until death claims us all. Madi will do the same with hers in time.
“Why can’t I remember them? Why can’t I remember their”—she swallows hard, casting a glance downward as she forces her lips to form the word—“murders?”
“One thing at a time,cara mia. You’re a defense attorney. You should know better than anyone that pushing a victim too far too soon can cause irreparable damage.” Tipping her chin, I force her eyes on me. “And youarea victim, Madi. Of all of us. My father, the other Disciples…and me.”
Especially of me.
“No!” The powerful conviction in her voice prompts me to raise an eyebrow. Undeterred, Madi pushes off my chest again and kneels on the dirty mattress next to me. “You came back, Luca! You put yourself on trial for crimes I committed! If I’d failed to overturn the charge, at the very least, you would have spent your life in prison, or…” She lets the rest of her words hang in the air. She doesn’t have to speak them. We both know she meansor die at the bang of Harris’s mighty gavel and the swift hand of lethal justice. “You nearly sacrificed yourself,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
Ten years ago, I asked her if she loved me enough to put her life in my hands.
It was only fair I returned the favor.
“No, my sweet rose,” I vow, my thumb brushing her lips. “I closed the circle.”
* * *
Ten Years Ago
The time has come.
The words filter through the black mist in my head as my bare toes sink into the rain-soaked earth outside our cabin. I stare up at the old Cypress tree, its branches bright green and willowy. Like her eyes. Maybe that’s why it gives me a hollow semblance of peace now.
Even after all is done, a piece of her will remain with me for eternity.
