I stalk over to the stairs, and JW straightens up, taking a step to the side to block me from reaching them.
“Get the hell out of my way, JW,” I growl.
His eyes flick down to my bloody fist.
“You need to calm the fuck down, Emo. He won’t let you see her when you’re like this,” he says calmly.
“Fuck!” I roar and grip the hair on top of my head with my other hand. “Move!”
He doesn’t flinch or so much as twitch at my sudden outburst. He, along with my other brothers, is used to my erratic behavior.
JW steps closer, getting in my face. With the way I’m feeling right now, it’s a bold move. I’ve never wanted to hurt my brothers, but I’m so fucking close to laying this one out right now. He’s keeping me from the only thing that matters.
“You really want her to see you like this?” he grunts, his tone deep. “She hasn’t seen any of us in years, and this is the first impression you want to give her? Half crazed and dripping blood all over the fuckin’ place? Get your shit together, and give her time to see her brother first.”
I gnash my teeth at him, more pissed because he’s right than anything else. The last thing I want to do is frighten Rella. I’ve done enough damage to her to last a thousand lifetimes. Trouble has every right to deny me seeing her.
Even so, the rage boiling inside me is now overflowing. I grab the vase on the table by the stairs and hurl it at the nearest wall. Flowers, water, and glass fly everywhere. My eyes pinpoint on one of the shards, the sun shining in the window on it just right to make a colorful reflection of light on the floor. I walk over and pick it up.
“Emo,” JW barks behind me, the warning in his voice crystal fucking clear.
Ignoring him, I lean against the wall and slide down until my ass hits the tiles, my arms resting on my knees. The key in my grip still pierces my palm, but goddammit, I need fucking more. I need the pain to take away the darkness clouding my vision.
I bang my head back against the wall hard enough that it rattles my teeth. Dropping my head back down, I look at the triangular piece of glass in my hand. It would be so easy to slice through the sensitive skin on my forearm. Just a tiny bit of pressure and the skin would give way to the sharp edge, releasing both blood and the heaviness that sits on my chest. The ever-present demon that lives inside me. The relief never lasts. It always comes back full-force and with a vengeance.
But it doesn’t feel right. The glass is too smooth, too sharp, and too thick. The cut would be easy, not painful and jagged enough.
I drop the glass between my knees; the clinking sound it makes hitting the tile irritates me. I open my palm that has the key in it. It’s coated in blood, the new gashes mixing in with the old scars already there.
I pluck the key up, rip up the sleeve of my black long-sleeved shirt, and rest the teeth against my forearm, right below the inside of my elbow and directly over the devil eyes that stare back at me. I press down, but my hand begins to shake. I close my eyes, and the first thing I see is Rella. She’s standing just inside the doors of The Hill. She looks so damn lost and sad and alone. Terrified and tortured, her expression filled with a l
ifetime of pain.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper gruffly. “How in the hell could she be alive?”
When I open my eyes, I find JW watching me with a frown, his eyes narrowed on the key I still have against my forearm. I leave it there, but I don’t apply more pressure.
“I don’t know. I was there too. I don’t see how anyone could live with that much blood loss.”
I grit my teeth at the memory of walking up to the gazebo and finding Rella on the wooden floor, her white dress swimming in the pool of blood beneath her. The stark fucking pain of seeing her lifeless, pale body lying there.
“And where in the hell has she been all these years?”
That’s the part that tortures me the most. Where was she taken?
The thought smacks around in my head, filling it with every single nightmare imaginable. What happened to her in Malus, what my father did to her, what he made me to do her, was horrific, disgusting, and every other vile name there is, but what else has she been through? What other horrors have been inflicted on her?
“I’m sure she’ll tell us everything.”
I grunt and press down on the key until a small bead of blood forms. All kinds of questions bounce around the walls of my skull. Ones that have answers that will determine the fate of the people who had her.
When my eyes first landed on her standing outside The Hill, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I’ve had many dreams of Rella over the years; most of them would be considered nightmare grade. In my dreams, she was always the same little girl she was back in Sweet Haven. Standing outside The Hill, staring at the closed door, not the little girl of before but an adult, she still looked so much the same, just more mature. My mind denied what I was seeing for only a second before I knew it was really her. When that truth hit me, it was like a sledgehammer had pummeled me in the chest, stealing every ounce of air in the room.
When Layla opened the door and Rella disappeared for a moment, it scared the shit out of me. I was terrified that she would vanish into thin air or that I’d discover my mind was playing a cruel trick on me and she was never really there. But seconds later, there she was, standing just inside the doorway, her eyes immediately connecting with mine as if she was purposely looking for me.
So many things passed between us then. All the remembered pain and suffering. Every single agonizing touch I inflicted on her. Every degrading and revolting thing Father did to her. Every minute we were together, the good, the bad, and everything in between.
It’s those thoughts that have my hand letting up on the key. I want to gouge the fuck out of my flesh. I want to rip it away until it scrapes against the bone. But I want to see Rella more, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let the first time we meet again after so many years, after everything she’s been through, be with my arms torn to shreds.