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She palmed the blade and aimed it at the side of Eden’s neck in warning. Her grip tightened in Eden’s hair, making her wince.
“Every mark. Every prick and pain I will pay back in full,” I warned through my teeth.
“Oh?” Vindictia dropped her face and pressed a kiss to Eden’s cheek. “What about the ones you can no longer see? We’ve been quite busy. She was a lively thing… until she wasn’t.”
“Those will be the hell I trap you in,” I assured her.
She shoved Eden forward and released her hold on her hair.
A sob echoed through the room as Eden’s weight fell onto her knees.
Drip, drip, drip.
Vindictia paced the space behind her, pressing the tip of the stone to her finger. “It’s quite rude of you to deny your wife. You know she wants to hear just what is happening to those vermin she holds dear.”
I bared my teeth as my eyes returned to Eden. “Where are they?”
“I left them to their trepidations. The human mind is full of all these corridors just filled to the brim with fears. Nothing but madness awaits them. Isn’t that wonderful?” She turned to look at me with mischievous satisfaction on her face. “I wonder what battles are being waged.”
Eden’s head lobbed lightly but her eyes were closed. There was no way for me to know if she heard what Vindictia said. She looked completely unaffected by the news.
“Jokes on you,” Eden muttered as she forced her eyes open. “They’re all already crazy.” Her chuckle was far too breathy and it quickly transformed into a cough. The coughs deepened before her head fell forward and her face was hidden behind the curtain of her hair.
Vindictia’s mouth continued to move. Silent words blown into the air. With the magic that pulsed around the room, I felt the first wave of Abuela’s rot hit me. It made me sway slightly, weak on my feet. She intensified it. Strengthened it as she did whatever else she planned.
“What are you up to?” I forced the question through my dizziness.
Eden’s weight slumped forward, the pull of the threads in her flesh deepening and sending the sweet scent of her blood into the toxic air.
“Just what witches do.” Her eyes beamed.
My stomach dropped as I steeled my resolve. She could be up to nothing good.
40
EDEN
My mind was filled with flashed scenes that brought the taste of bile to my mouth. The witch’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of my mind. Muffled. Unclear. The boom of my demon’s voice sent me heated comfort, making the pain feel like it was being chased off.
Being imprisoned by the witch was like being thrown on my knees in the darkest parts of my mind. It was a surrender that was made against my will when my resolve was weakened and all the happy parts of me were bound and gagged. It was a void of misery and I felt it in every inch of me. So fully, whatever wounds she decorated my skin with were mere whispers in the darkness. I couldn’t tell where they came from or if they hurt because I was so engulfed in pain already, there was no comparing one pain to another.
All the big feelings I refused to feel with the intensity they deserved were unchanged and set free.
Everything hurt.
The girls… she had said something about them. Echoed whispers I couldn’t quite catch as they ran through the dark.
I hated the dark. No, I hated not knowing if I was alone in it as I wandered around with a stone of fear lodged in my throat. It was terrifying not knowing what surrounded me. Hearing the soft whispers that boomed in my ear through the silence.
I turned. My feet moved quickly as my hands whipped out. I needed to feel something. Needed to know there was more around me than just nothingness I couldn’t navigate.
The dull glow of the moth I’d seen so many times before my terror came for me appeared. One moment I was surrounded by nothing but darkness and then there it was. Flittering before me. It moved slowly, flying a lazy path that drew my eyes further out into the darkness.
There!
There was something else there in the dark with us.
A dim light flickered so far away I almost missed it. A mere star in the dark sky.
