Page 124 of The Scars Within
Maybe I’mnotmeant for more.
Maybe the anonymous sender meant that package as a sign tonotenroll.
A sharp, trilling sound echoed from above.
“Open your eyes, Scarlet,” Lakota’s voice called out.
“I can’t. I am so tired of saving myself.”
“You may jump, but you will not fall. I will catch you. I will bulldoze this castle to rubble before I let you hit the ground. Now open your eyes!” Lakota roared.
My lip quivered, but I obeyed. I opened my eyes and lifted my gaze to see him soaring high above Mageia.
“No matter what I do, I find myself back in that dark corner of my mind. I can’t take this anymore! I don’t have a reason to stay!” I cried.
Lakota blew a gust of flames in the air. “You’re all I have. I may not know how or why we share such a bond, but I do know that I am honored to know you, Scarlet Thorne. You are meant for so much more. You have so much more to give and so much more to be given. But you have to choose yourself once again. Again and again. Until you conquer that darkness within you. Tonight is not the night you lose. Tonight is the night you take it back.”
“Take what back?”
“Your life.”
Pain surged through my chest. I lowered my foot back onto the parapet.
“I am so ashamed of myself,” I whispered. I watched him circle above me in the air.
“You are your own reason to live. I think that is something to be pretty damn proud of.”
I inhaled and stepped backward. Guiding myself away from the ledge.
“I’m here,” he reassured me from his aerial vantage.
Even though he wasn’t physically by my side, he was as close as possible. I let my head droop again, eyes closing, trying to find solace in that fact.
Then I heard a thud and the scatter of pebbles across the rooftop. Whipping around, I saw Noemi landing gracefully, her powerful wings stirring debris. She perched on a parapet wall, crumbling it slightly as shelowered her shoulder, allowing Rhodes to dismount onto the narrow walkway.
He hurried towards me, panic in his eyes. “Scarlet, who hurt you?” he asked, cupping my face in his hands and drawing my gaze to his.
Everyone is out to hurt me. And I’ve let them.
My lip trembled, and I shook my head softly, unable to hold back the tears. My voice cracked, “Every time I escape—” I swallowed hard. “I’m dragged back in.” Rhodes remained silent, giving me the space to find my voice. “The only place that I belong is lying on the wet, cold floor of Rock Bottom.”
As I continued, the sympathetic look on his face made me close my eyes, trying to hold back the wave of emotion. “I was abandoned. No one came for me. No one cared enough to find me. I felt lost and useless. I wanted it all to end.”
A sob broke free. “But I clawed my way out with my bare hands. I fought. And I survived. Yet, no one sees that. No one cares. Nobody would miss me if I were erased from this world, but they won’t let me erase myself.”
Rhodes wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his embrace.
“I don’t understand why I deserve this life,” I murmured into his leather jacket, my voice muffled and as broken as my soul.
I felt his grip tighten as if holding me together while I felt like I was slipping away. I’ve spent my life treating my silence like a favor to everyone around me, as if locking away my story was a kindness. People see me and think I’m ordinary. But inside, my mind speaks a language no one else knows. I’ve always believed that my story wasn’t worth hearing.
But maybe I was wrong.
Maybe locking it up is why it’s starting to tear me apart.
And maybe that is why I can’t seem to put myself back together.
“Everybody who has ever held me has left me,” I whispered. “My biological mother dropped me off in the stables like I was just something to toss away. That was when my mother found me and kept me warmand loved until Captain Thorne returned from deployment. He stuck around for a little while, but his distrust in her took over. He thought that I was a bastard child from her fooling around while he was gone. He left. Then she died. Then Cora took me in. And she left. And then I found Jaelyn. And she died. Nobody has ever wanted to keep me.”
