Page 34 of Haunted Heart
But that isn’t what is going to kill him.
“You aren’t going to want to watch this,” I tell Jonas, but he stays, sitting on the top step of the cellar, like it’s a play.
Dylan’s arm moves, and he stares at it, brows pinched.
“How…” Jonas trails off.
“Julia can interact with her house… her house is in him, and so now, he is her puppet.”
He screams when she wrenches that arm back, and I wince as I hear the bone snap.
“Genevieve was going to let you live,” Julia intones. “I won’t.”
“What did she say?” Jonas leans forward, eyes wide.
“She’s going to kill him.” I glance back at him. “Like I said, you might not want to be here.”
“I mean… I’ve already watched three people get swallowed up by Hell tonight. What’s a fourth?”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and makes an ugly sound as Dylan’s wrist rotates completely around.
Dylan’s legs give out, but he doesn’t drop to the ground. Suspended by the wood embedded in him, he floats in front of Julia.
I almost tell her not to torture him. But I remember what he had planned to do to me in Hell, and I wonder if he hasn’talready done the same in the living world… if he would do it to someone else if I asked her to spare him.
Maybe I’ll join Julia when I die and we’ll descend to Wrath together.
Bit by bit, Julia breaks him like a doll in the hands of a sadistic child.
He is a crumpled and crying mess by the time she is done.
“Please,” he whimpers.
But Julia shakes her head. “There is no mercy in you. You’ll get none from me. Go back to Hell where you belong.”
His scream is bloodcurdling this time, but it cuts off when his head snaps cleanly to the side.
I look out into the night sky.
Sound might not have carried in Hell, but these would have. I have to hope no one is out for a midnight stroll.
FIFTEEN
Jonasand I both move out of the way as Dylan’s body floats toward us.
Julia flings him out of the cellar, tearing the splinters from his skin at the same time.
“I won’t share my resting place with him.”
“I understand.”
She looks at me, reaching out, and I take her hand. “Will you deal with him for me?”
I nod, and she wraps me in her arms. Held against her like this… I can hear the beat of her heart. I look back at it. In the living world, it’s a dark and shriveled lump.
“Will you be safe while I do?”
She nods. “I can close this off for the night.”
