Page 42 of Temptation
At least not yet.
I was the victim now, but if we didn’t stop them, there would be more victims, and who knew who would be brave enough to stop the Order from killing innocent people?
I’d spent my entire life trying to forget, running away from all the ugly memories, storing them in the box of secrets deep inside my soul, never revisiting so that I wouldn’t have to live through them again. But I had to stop running away. I had to stop hiding from things that ate away at my soul.
I had to face them if I wanted to have a normal life one day.
“Sky,” Kane started, approaching me slowly as if I were a wild animal, ready to attack. “Are you sure you want to go back?”
“What choice do I have?” Something wet trickled down my cheek and it took me a moment to realize that I was crying. This whole time I’d been crying. “Shit,” I cursed and turned away from him. “You know I have to go,” I answered with a shaky voice. “He’s going to kill you all if I don’t.”
“He’s not going to kill us if we all leave from here,” Rowan interrupted.
“How, Ro?” I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. “How could we all leave when we’re the only ones who could stop this madness? This time it’s us, but just think about all those innocent people who could come after us. Innocent kids who would get molested, raped, married to their brothers and sisters, because their parents demanded them to do so.”
“Sky.” Rowan sighed. “I know it’s not easy but going back to him is not the answer.”
“Running away isn’t either. If I have to sacrifice myself, then so be it, but I’m not running. I’ve been running my entire life and I’m tired, Ro. I’m tired of hiding, being afraid, dreaming about a better future but being too weak to do anything to fulfill those dreams.”
“What are you talking about?” Kane asked.
Taking a deep breath, I put my phone in the front pocket of my jeans and sat down on the bench. “I’m talking about the fact that marrying Dylan wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me,” I murmured.
Silence greeted me and I refused to look at the two of them. The slamming of the wooden doors echoed around us and I knew that Ash had probably returned, but I couldn’t lift my head. I couldn’t look at them only to see pity directed at me.
I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want to be coddled or told that everything was going to be okay, because it would never be okay. None of us were okay. But we loved playing this game of pretense where we plastered fake smiles and fake bravado to our faces, telling pretty little lies, until the line between the truth and the lie started blurring and we weren’t even sure what was what.
With my elbows on my knees, I traced the crack on the dirty ground, counting seconds, while memories slammed into me. Memories I would gladly erase from my mind, if only I could. Memories that ate away those light parts of me until only the broken shell was left.
Anger started waking up, like a sleeping volcano awakening after years of dormant silence, but I was done. I didn’t want pity. I wanted revenge.
“W-What are you talking about?” Rowan asked. I could see their shoes, I could hear them shuffling from one place to the other, and I knew it was now or never. Courage sometimes came from parts of us we thought never existed, and the hardest thing I ever had to do would be this.
Lifting my head, keeping my eyes closed, I braced myself for the sad looks they were no doubt directing at me. But once I opened my eyes, it wasn’t pity or sadness that I found there. All three of them looked angry—so fucking angry, and it fed me. It fed the little monster in me that was hungry for blood.
It fed that dark and sick part of me that wanted to rip Judah’s throat out.
“Judah Blackwood.” I smiled morosely. “You all think that you know who he is.” I looked at Ash. “You think he’s only the murderer.” I turned to the right, looking at Rowan. “You think he’s the High Priest, pillar of this community, but Judah Blackwood is so much more.”
“Stop talking in circles, Moonshine,” Ash bit out. “Say it,” he barked. “Say it out loud.”
He knew—of course he did. I forgot that he could always see right through me. It didn’t matter that we met each other only a couple of months ago. It didn’t matter that we were forbidden to each other. Ash saw me—the real me.
He didn’t see a broken, fucked-up girl who drowned her demons with vodka, running after that sweet oblivion only drugs could bring me. He knew that something was wrong, he only never pushed for me to tell him what.
“It started two years ago,” I whispered, and it was as if all the air from the room got sucked out. I didn’t have to say another word. I didn’t have to explain. They understood what I meant.
Of course they understood—they saw what they were capable of. They saw the depravity, the madness, the darkness coating the walls of those catacombs. They saw the poison in Judah’s eyes even when he tried to appear as your friendly neighbor.
“Son of a bitch!” Kane yelled and started pacing around us. “Two years!” It wasn’t a question. Even though I knew he wasn’t angry at me, I flinched when he came closer. My mind knew Kane wasn’t the threat, but my body… My body reacted out of its own volition.
“Fuck,” he cursed and closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring, and I knew he was trying to calm himself. “I’m sorry, Sky. I’m not… I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I know.” I nodded. “I know you won’t, but you need to listen to what I’m going to say next.”
Ash slid down and sat on the floor; his hands fisted, the veins on his neck popping, and I knew without a doubt that he was five minutes away from marching out of here and going after Judah. Rowan observed me silently but make no mistake; he was livid as well. His hands kept clenching and unclenching next to his body, and it was only a matter of time before one of them popped a vein or did something worse.
“There’s more,” I mumbled.
