49

Alayna

Thursday 1st October, Year 828

My eyelids fluttered open as I clutched my legs in bed. I was not sure whether I had been unconscious or asleep. Confusion swept over me briefly before I remembered why the darkness had engulfed me. The darkness was a good thing. It stopped me thinking or feeling anything. I wanted the dark back.

I nudged myself toward the edge of the bed; the tug on my stitches sent a dull ache spiralling up my leg. Taking a bottle of Venenum out of my drawer, I poured half of it back over my leg as the grimace twisted across my face. I downed the rest of it—the bitterness barely registering before it washed away the throbbing pain I didn’t realise was everywhere until the potion worked.

I looked around at my room which was thankfully still dimly lit with dying candles. The black in my head was good. The black in reality terrified me. Being a grown woman who was scared of the dark was a relatively new craziness I’d picked up. But in the dark all I saw was Paul bleeding to death; Renee shedding her skin; blood from my waist oozing through my fingertips. It felt like breathing when the blackness from my thoughts took over sometimes.

The clock read just before two in the morning. As I eased out of clothes stiff with dried blood, an involuntary shiver passed through me. Not all of the blood was mine. The thought made me claw viciously at my skin as if it would make me cleaner. I had killed a woman so easily tonight. I didn’t even think about it. I remember thinking she looked a bit like me when I used to be a bit pretty as she lay gasping at my feet… I had shot Tiv. Until that moment, he was just another faceless golden-eyed Lambentian that I would have easily put down. The recollection knotted itself around my throat like a noose. Each breath became a gasp under the weight of what I could have done; his blood on my hands, his life snuffed out by whatever I had become. A monster.

Nothing would ever make me feel clean again.

Peeling away bandages from around my waist, I grabbed a bottle of water from my desk soaking myself and scrubbing at the crimson away with a clean t-shirt. The fabric stuck to the dried blood as I went. I sobbed until I heard a tiny knock at the door.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly.

“It’s me,” Ben said.

I shook violently and grabbed a fresh T-shirt to cover my now clean body. Cracking open the door revealed only a sliver of his face.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“I’ve been better?” The words were frigid and hollow.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed.

“It’s been a shit day. Everyone copes with stress differently,” I shrugged.

“Don’t do that,” he replied quietly—a plea dressed as admonishment.

“It's fine. Just go before we wake Dad up and he throws you out again,” I dismissed.

“I was angry today because I thought that Hawes brat had hurt you. Not that you had let him go. I wanted to find him to stop him from ever hurting you again. But then I hurt you. I don’t think you’re spying for them. I-I just—I dunno. I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ve lost a lot today without me breaking you down too. I’ll tell Aaron I was chatting shit. I’ll tell them all I was. I know I haven’t handled anything very well, well, since Hayley died,” his voice broke on the last word.

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I had nothing to say, thinking again about how infallible Ben was. Or at least everyone assumed he was. Maybe that was the problem. I knew how much worse I got the harder I tried to hold myself together.

“Everything will be fine. It always is,” I tried to smile but it felt like a grimace. “I’m sorry about Michael.”

“Me too,” he whispered. “I’m going to stay here tonight. Or maybe for a while if Leesa crashes on the sofa… and if I’m allowed.”

“Will Leesa be okay?” This time my voice cracked.

He stiffened, “Yeah. I made her injuries seem worse because I wanted you to tell me where Tiv was. She’ll be alright.”

“I don’t think you’re well,” I whispered, trying to hold together the chasm opening in my chest.

“I don’t think I am either,” was all he muttered as he walked down the hall to his old room.

I locked the door and leant against it, sliding down until I sat on the floor, hugging my knees close again. I wished beyond anything Ben had never lost Hayley. I wanted that Ben back. Not the angry, vengeful monster he was. I played with the beads at my neck and wondered if Tiv’s death would have sent me as mad as Ben had gone. Then I remembered the explicit thoughts of hurting Ben if he had touched Tiv. I shuddered at the images in my head but was pulled from my morbid daydream when I heard a noise at my window.

Can’t I catch a break for once?

Darting behind the closet door, I heard the window slide open with a low moan. A gust of icy wind blew out the already weak candles and the room was plunged into darkness. Something bad was here. Like a sixth sense, I registered that whatever was in my room was worse than Umbrith. Frozen by the sudden darkness, all rational thought left my body. All I wanted was a candlelight flicker. Something small to illuminate the room.

I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

But not without a fight.

Thankful that I kept a small arsenal of weapons in my room, I crouched down; it didn’t take me long to find a small dagger on the floor of my closet. I heard something crossing my room so I jumped out silently from the wardrobe ready to strike with my knife but found nothing there. Panic surged through me as my eyes raced frantically around the room trying to adjust to the dark. The air in the room held a chill that sunk into my bones, making my skin prickle as if brushed with frost.

The sudden grip on my arm was ironclad, wrenching the dagger from me with a force that spun me about. A hand clamped over my mouth stifling any scream while pushing me back against the wardrobe with a dull thud.

"Don't move," he commanded, his voice a gravelled whisper.

My eyes met Tiv’s and if I’d thought they were cold earlier, now they were just deep wells of glacial hatred. All life they once had was dead.

He removed his hand slowly, his voice coming out in a deep growl, “I need to talk to you.”

My voice caught in my throat as I felt the sharp edge of my own knife pressing against my hip.

“I saved your life,” I managed to rasp out, confusion tangling with budding fear.

Silence stretched between us as I thought about my options: Fight him—but I had little chance of survival. Ben was just down the hall, if I screamed he’d have the door broken down in a heartbeat. But Tiv would definitely kill me if I screamed. If I was dying, I really didn’t want it to be at the hands of a Hawes. He continued to stare at me wordlessly so I decided my best chance of survival would be to keep quiet and wait. Each tick of time intensified the throbbing ache at my wrist, pinned to the door. Agony crashed over me as I realised he just had not had the opportunity to kill me earlier so he had returned to finish the job. The thought sobered me, all sadness eradicated by hatred.

Flashes of bittersweet memories flickered; we had laughed about Marco’s arrogance. We had flirted. He was kind. He was the only snob at that horrible college to treat me like a person. I wished I could have known what happened between that moment and this moment to make him want me dead. The lows of loving Tiv finally were worse than the highs. Murdered by the person I loved most in the world. My enemy. But even if loving him was the stupidest decision of my life I couldn’t exactly turn it off now. That didn’t mean I was going to make it easy for him.

The minutes passed by and I wondered if Tiv’s head was as loud as mine.

“Just be quick,” I taunted, moving his hand that clasped the dagger to my throat.

I looked directly at him. If I was going to die, he was going to watch me and live with it.