Page 114 of Madness Behind the Mask
My eyes dip to his neck.
“Sau,” Caden murmurs, and I jolt.
Signing my name quickly, I then hand the pen back to him. He wastes no time leaving.
My eyes fall tothepile of boxes. They don’t look big enough to hold my boy.
“Maybe he’s not in them,” I say.
“We don’t have to open them.”
I stare at them for a long moment, the door opened only a crack, as if opening it wider will invite all the bad things in.
But then I pull it open all the way.
Caden starts to use his telekinesis, but I shake my head as I pick up the first box. It’s a lot lighter than I thought it’dbe. I remember Leon’s bulk, his heavy form, his body thick with muscles.
Maybe he’s not in them.
I tell myself that with every box I carry from the porch into David’s room. I don’t want to open them in view of the street…and maybe seeing Leon in David’s quarters will remind me enough of his sins that it won’t hurt so much seeing him.
A foolish wish – as foolish asmaybe he’s not in them.
When all of the boxes are inside the gutted room – the renovations to the place not yet done, I stare at them once more.
“We don’t have to open them,” Caden says again. “You can just take them into your shadows. You don’t need to give him the chance to hurt you.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “He already has.”
Kneeling down, I pull out the small knife I have picked up every morning for the last few days, and cut open the box in front of me. With shaky hands, I part the flapsand find scrunched up paper inside. There isn’t a smell yet, but my nose wrinkles all the same. My heart in my throat, my ears, in every part of my body, shaking me with every pulse, I pull out the packaging.
Another box, this one covered in dark stains, sits inside it.Scrawled across itin even more blood isa message:
No one ever gets to hurt you but me.
I swallow down thebile and hurriedly open the lid. A sharp gasp leaves me, but I trap down the scream. I don’t let it out. Don’t give him that victory.
Even as my eyes land on Leon’s dick, both of his balls separate and spaced out above it – morbid eyes in the face Aleric arranged for me – a bit of intestine curved into amouth screaming in pain.
I fall back on my heels, a hand pressed to my lips. I will not cry. I won’t.
Caden wraps me in his arms, but he can’t protect me from the chill running down my spine, can’t stop me from seeing the butchered body of my boy. My eyes fly to the other brown boxes, and I know they all have messages inside them.
Look what I did for you, Sau.
Tearing myself out of my husband’s embrace, I grab the next box and cut it open. Rip out the paper on top.
You’re welcome.
For you, love.
You still owe me that date.
You should’ve got a bloodoath from me.
The mockery of those words slaps me across the face, and now I’m damn near vibrating with rage. As if Aleric would honor a fucking bloodoath. As if he wouldn’t enjoy the magical pain he’d get from breaking it.
As if he dares put the blame onme, on my naivety in thinking I could argue for peace when I traded my panties for his word.
