Page 6 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
When she finally looks down at me, I give her a smile and choke down the emotion in my throat with a thick swallow.
I love you, Ediye, I sign.
“Shut up,” she says. I can see the tears already glassing her eyes. I don’t think I can bear to see her cry again. I force my smile to grow wider. But with a single sound, it’s yanked from my skin.
A clank at the end of the hall.
There are two pairs of boots down the corridor. The jangle of keys echoes on the stone walls.
My heart claws its way up my throat and I swallow it down as I meet Ediye’s eyes. Her onyx gaze fills with sorrow, replacing the light that was there just a moment ago.
See you soon, I sign before clasping her in a tight hug. Her shoulders start to shake within my grasp.
“I hope so, love,” Ediye whispers, gripping tighter as the key slides into the lock and the iron door squeals in protest. A hand clamps like a vice around the back of my neck and wrenches me out of Ediye’s arms. She lets out a strangled cry and grasps onto my grimy, bloody sleeves. The guard kicks her away and she lands on her back, her helpless expression turned up at me. I look at her face one last time, her brow crinkled in despair, tears streaking across her dark skin in glistening layers.
It’s okay,I try to say, but not even a squeak comes out as the guards drag me from the cage. Motherfucking Reapers. I should have stuck to my plan. I should have burned this whole place to the ground, somehow. Fucking idiot. Everything I said I wouldn’t do, I did. Everything I said Iwoulddo, I didn’t. And now I’m fucked. Worst of all, I’ve screwed my best friend over too. That thought overwhelms me every time it creeps into my brain, which is often. I try to push it down but I can’t, and the tears flood my eyes as I sayI’m sorry, over and over without sound. My bloodied toes scrape the floor as I try to right myself. I don’t want Ediye to see me like this. But I’m powerless to stop it.
Ediye calls my name as the door slams shut behind me. She scuttles to the bars and my last sight of her is her hands wrapped around the iron. The last thing I hear is her calling my name.
CHAPTER3
Ican’t stop myself from shaking.
It’s so fucking embarrassing. Seriously.
I’m a five-fucking-thousand-year-old vampire who has lived through all manner of horrors over the centuries, and I’m trembling at the sight of a frail old man with a needle in his hand.
At least the little bald scientist doesn’t look any more comfortable with our current situation than I do. His Adam’s apple bobs with a thick swallow that makes my own throat burn with hunger. The butterfly needle quivers in his expert grip. Gallus watches off to the side with a bored expression, the thick, heavy muscles of his arms bulging as he folds them across his broad chest. I glare at the sweeping lines of his tattoos flowing beneath his rolled-up sleeves. He’s not even close to me and yet I’m terrified. He doesn’t need to touch me. He doesn’t even need to be in theroom.
It’s this table. This place. These silver shackles locked across my wrists and ankles. It’s this endless cycle, day after day afterfucking day.
I don’t know how long it’s been now. Maybe twenty days? Thirty? My infallible vampire memory was definitely fucking fallible in the first few days of my imprisonment. The hours blended into one another, a seemingly endless loop of vomiting and seizing and sweating and shaking. But in the days since, as my condition has evened out to a more consistent level of pain and despair, I’ve memorized every detail of this place.
There’s a silver table where Gallus stores histools. It shines with a brighter spot near the left edge where there’s a dent that captures the light of the overhead lamp.
There’s the ridge of stone that is darker than the others on the wall that faces me. It’s the shadow I focus on. In the worst moments, I imagine it can swallow my pain as Gallus takes his hammer to my bones or his scalpel to my flesh.
The smell of antiseptic. Sometimes I make stories to entertain myself about how he got it. I imagine Gallus passing into the Living Realm, waiting at a pharmacy counter to pay for rubbing alcohol as the woman in front of him buys lottery tickets and scratch cards. I imagine him becoming annoyed, yet powerless to stop the human social conventions of waiting in line. I like the idea of him being the powerless one for a change.
I look for anything that will take me away from my body, if even for a moment. As long as it’s not memory. That’s been the only condition I’ve placed upon myself. Why? Because if I was going to survive a broken body in this room, I couldn’t live in a broken heart. In the days that have passed, I’ve only allowed myself that luxury in the cell with Ediye. And it feels like a luxury to wallow in my sorrow. It’s like slipping into a hot bath. It’s like lying beneath the Reaper’s silky sheets, feeling his fingers coast across my skin.
But I can’t keep going on like this anymore. I know they’ll never let me leave. The Reapers won’t give me a swift death here in the Shadow Realm, not after the crime I’ve committed against them. Not if I’m a weapon they can’t fix or figure out. And even if this little Swiss man can do it, I refuse to fight for the Shadow Realm. I’m only prolonging the inevitable when I keep fighting to survive.
So, this time, as the little old scientist pulls the tourniquet tight across my arm and taps my weakened vein with his finger, I let myself fall away into memory. Memory of the Reaper, his hand on my back as he dipped me toward the floor when we danced in Bit Akalum. His palm on my cheek as he looked into my eyes with such sorrow in front of the cafe in Cairo. His kiss as he pressed my back against the wall by his bed.
And every word floods back to me with the images that scroll through my mind.
I’m the one who is left defenseless as you dismantle my walls, stone by stone,he’d said in his room, whispering his words across my skin.
If you’re trapped in the Realm of Light, I will still find you, he’d said as he brushed my cheek with his thumb, his face so beautiful in the lamplight and the passing cars near the Khan Al-Khalili market.
Can you try to place your trust in me?he’d asked as the song faded away and our dance came to an end. And even though I’d only smiled, that’s what I did. I placed my trust in him.
Him.Ashen.
And every word he said was a lie.
I close my eyes and tears roll across my skin.
