Page 74 of Devoured
He leaned closer. I could smell the grave dirt on his robes.
“And do you believe,”he asked with terrible gentleness, “you deserve salvation... or damnation?”
My mind began to fracture under the weight of forced honesty. The pain burned through every layer of who I thought I was until there was nothing left but raw truth. I could feel myself breaking apart, piece by piece.
“Damnation,”I whispered, barely able to form the word. “I deserve to burn.”
That’s when the Executioner’s fury shattered whatever bound him.
The restraints cracked like breaking glass. He moved faster than human eyes could follow, crossing the distance to Gallows in one leap.
“Now, now... she hasn’t finished her confession—”Gallows began, but the awful calm in his voice finally broke as the Executioner drove his massive blade straight through him.
Finally, fear lit the priest’s eyes. “You cannot! I am Sanctified! I am chosen—!”
But the blade was already destroying him. His scripture robes unraveled, the text writhing as if trying to escape whatever hell had made them. His hollow chest imploded. Coins melted. Scales burned. The tunnel filled with acrid smoke that reeked of sulfur and charred parchment.
Gallows collapsed into ash and scattered pages. The scripture writhed across the stone floor before going still.
The Executioner drew the same vial he’d used on Helena’s shard and emptied it over the ashes.
The burning text vanished from my skin as Gallows died, leaving only the memory of pain—and the knowledge of what I truly was. I fell to my knees, tears pouring down my face. Not from pain. From something worse. Understanding.
The confession had stripped me bare. Every lie I’d ever told myself, every excuse I’d ever hidden behind—gone. I saw what I was now. And the truth was almost too heavy to bear.
“If this is happening to me,”I whispered, my voice breaking, “what about my friends?”
The Executioner knelt beside me, his rough hands cupping my face. His thumbs brushed away tears that burned against my cold skin.
“They’re survivors,”he said softly. “They’ll make it. You have to believe.”
I hoped he was right.
Chapter 23
My throat was raw from screaming during Gallows’ confession torture.
“Water.”The word came out as a croak. “I need water.”
The Executioner stopped and carefully set me down in a small alcove carved into the tunnel wall.
“Wait here,”he said gently, despite the inhuman echo in his voice. “There’s water ahead. I’ll get it for you.”
I nodded, slumping against the cold stone as he disappeared into the darkness.
The alcove felt ancient—older than the hospital above by centuries. These walls had absorbed suffering until it became part of their very foundation. Dark stains marred the stone in patterns I didn’t want to understand. How many had died here? How many had begged for mercy that never came?
That’s when I heard the scraping.
Not the skittering of rats or insects. Something deliberate. Human-sized. Trying to stay hidden.
Dr. Alan crawled from a hidden crevice in the alcove wall. She still wore the same black dress from the ritual chamber, though it now hung in tatters. She looked like she’d fought her way through hell. Her once-perfect blonde hair clung to her face in damp, matted ropes, twisted with blood and grime. Her expression contorted with madness but underneath it, that calculating gleam still flickered. The part of her that had made psychological torture an art form.
“You.”The word dripped with venom. “You ruined everything, you little bitch.”
She pulled herself fully into the alcove, and I saw what she’d been doing in that crevice. In her hand was a stone she had shaped into a crude blade, honed sharp through what must have been hours of obsessive grinding against the walls.
That level of dedication told me everything I needed to know about her mental state.
