Page 2 of Fall

I say nothing.

He moves my face so that I can see a glowing metal rod being held by The Beast. I look back in Hades’s coal eyes, not understanding what he's saying.

"Do you see this ring? It's my family's insignia and it's also on the end of that," he says, showing me the ring on his index finger, then pointing to the metal rod. The Beast hands the rod to him.

Hades stares into my eyes while he presses the glowing end of metal hard into my right hip. He holds it there for minutes, ensuring that the burn is layers deep in my flesh.

My screams scratch the inside of my throat like shards of glass as the pain comes in waves. I'm being branded with his family's insignia. Something in me breaks.

I choose death.

Still looking at the ceiling, I promise myself that if I ever make it out of here, I will kill them all and ferry them to hell myself.

I start flailing and kicking as hard as I can, making the rod slip a few times from my skin, ruining whatever design he was trying to burn in my flesh.

Fuck him.

Fuck them all.

I'll gladly welcome death if it means getting away from them.

"Goddamnit," he says, and I can't stop the smile that creeps on my face.

I turn to look directly into his black eyes. "You've been warned." And spit on his face.

1

Ican hear Taylor and Celeste whisper-yelling in what I think is the kitchen, but I continue to stare out the window, unmoving. I don’t know exactly where Taylor brought me, but Celeste is here, so I’m guessing it’s where she’s been staying since spring break all those weeks ago.

“What the fuck happened to her, Taylor? There better be a goddamn good reason why she’s covered in blood, or so help me—” Celeste continues, but Taylor cuts her off.

“I don’t know! Ryan called, said Micah had been shot, and that Evie was in trouble. I went to the hospital, found her, and took her out of there before anyone else could see her. If she shot Micah, the Knights are… fuck. She’s in trouble.”

It’s so odd to hear Taylor sound so serious, almost afraid. He’s my goofy, bad dad-joke-telling comedian, but the seriousness in his voice right now says he’s anything but.

“Right now, I think she’s in shock. When we were driving up here, all she kept saying was ‘he knew. All this time, he knew.’ But I couldn’t get anything else out of her. It was fucking weird.”

Well, that’s certainly the understatement of the year.

“No fucking way would she shoot Micah!” Celeste snaps.

Ah, Celeste. Forever my defender.

“I know, but I couldn’t leave her there. I panicked.”

Their footsteps get closer to the room they put me in, but I don’t have the energy to pretend I’m okay right now.

I’m NOT okay.

I saw Hades. The man who tortured and raped me is Elijah’s father. What the hell am I supposed to make of that? Did Elijah know this whole time? Did he tell Caleb and Micah? Was all of this just a sick joke for the universe to have a good laugh at my misery?

The image of him standing next to Elijah at the hospital dances in my mind, mocking me. All this time I thought I would only have to carry the memory of those nightmares. Never once did I ever consider that they would come back in the flesh. How stupid am I?

“Honey,” Celeste whispers, effectively pulling me out of my inner rantings. She cautiously walks toward me. “Hey, doll. Let’s get you out of those clothes and into the shower. You okay with that?”

A shiver runs down my spine and my arms start to shake involuntarily.

“Come on, babes, we gotta get you out of those clothes.”

---