Page 8 of A Match Made in Hell
‘Go back?’ She chuckles. ‘You say that like it’s an option.’
‘Isit?’ If I could just get confirmation that it’s not, maybe I could find some kind of peace. Or as much peace as it’s possible to get in Hell. But I can’t give up before I know for sure.
Otherwise I’ll never hit ‘send’ on that job application and become some high-flying businesswoman who complains about budgets until four in the morning. I’ll never marry Noah and pop out a bunch of children with hair as red as mine. I’ll never visit Mum’s grave and sayI did it. I did all the things you wanted me to, and I’m sorry I’m the reason you didn’t see me do them.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘I need to fix this.’
‘Oh, there’s no fixing you.’ She picks up a blank clipboard at the end of a slab and waves it at me. ‘I probably have yourssomewhere.’ She cocks her head. ‘Or maybe I remember you. Yes, I think I do. I looked into your soul and saw a river of blood.’
I freeze. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You tell me. Could have been your past, could have been your future, who you would have been if you’d lived. Hard to tell sometimes. But all that blood, death, potential for chaos . . .’ Her smile turns feral. ‘You’ll fit right in here.’
‘But – that’s not –’ My mind races. Maybe therehasbeen a mistake, because I’ve no idea what she’s talking about. The most blood I’ve come across was the time I almost sliced off half a finger rushing to make Noah his lunch. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘I’m never wrong.’ Her gaze drops to my hands, at the way they’re balled into fists, nails digging deep into my palms. ‘You seem upset.’
‘Of course I’m upset. I’m not supposed to be dead.’
‘Your presence here would beg to differ.’
A rush of familiar heat spreads through me, and my whole body trembles. ‘I’m here because of anaccident. I was too close to the edge; I must have lost my footing.’
‘An accident.’ Her smile grows. ‘Aw. Poor you.’
‘That’s why I have to go back, don’t you see? I can’t be dead because of one misstep; I can’t have thrown it all away because I . . . because I . . .’
The Sorter’s grin is so wide I think her face might split in two, and I grow hotter still, because she’s not listening; no one ever listens and I can’tstandit.
‘Stop laughing at me.’ Tears cloud my vision. She laughs harder. ‘Stop it.’
She doesn’t stop. Her cackles echo and bounce between the metal walls, the sound drilling into my skull until I can’t think. I step forward, overwhelmed with an urge to grab her hair, rip it from her head, make her as cold and lifeless as the bodies on the slabs, and see how much she likes being here when she’s asmiserable as the rest of us.
I hate her, I hate this, I hate –
Something clatters at my feet. I jump, startled, to find a tray full of surgical instruments knocked to the ground. They’d been on a table to my left, out of reach of the Sorter, which means – I glance at my finger to find it’s bleeding. A drop of red glimmers on a pair of scissors on the floor.
‘Oh dear,’ the Sorter says. ‘Look at that. Another accident.’
Tantrums will get you nowhere, Willow. I take a deep breath. Another. Anger thrashes inside me but I ignore it, swallowing sharp words until they lie in the pit of my stomach with all the other things I’ve left unsaid over the years. Arguing my case isn’t going to get me anywhere here, either – not when the Sorter is clearly going to mock everything I say.
I steel my expression into one of practised calm, the transformation into Demure Willow almost perfect apart from the slight shake in my hand when I wipe the wet from my cheeks.
‘Don’t cry in public,’ she tells me. ‘The demons don’t like it.’
‘I know. Sathanas sent someone to . . . Gla . . . something.’
‘Glacantrum.’ Her face hardens. ‘Of course he did.’
Her annoyance piques my interest. ‘What’s Glacantrum?’
‘The Ice Prison.’ She taps the nearest corpse’s ankle and black ink spreads across the clipboard, looping letters presumably telling their life’s tale. The words have barely had time to dry before she yanks a lever at the end of the slab, causing it to tip backwards. The body slides down the chute, thudding as it hits the sides. ‘Very cold, very solitary. But there are no demons there, so it’s not bad as punishments go.’ Her hands curl around the clipboard. ‘He has worse options at his disposal.’
A chill creeps down my neck. ‘Like the Void?’
‘Hm.’ Another body gets dumped. This time, black smoke puffs from the chute when it opens, filling the room with the acrid stench of rotten meat mixed with iron. ‘I suppose. You canbe released from Glacantrum any time, but the Void will keep you trapped for thousands of years, forcing you to relive all your worst moments. By the time it spits you back out there’s not a whole lot left of the person you used to be.’
‘That sounds worse to me.’
