Page 25 of Divine Violence
“Oh, yeah.” I started laughing. “The Infernal Triumvirat, isn’t that the name? The three boys make a pact with the Devil, and all they have to do is find the Maiden to keep them all together. Newsflash guys—that won’t be me.”
“You still won’t be able to kill all three of us,” Alexander spoke. “There’s no way.”
“You underestimate my power, babe. What was it that you called me? A sparrow?” I stepped toward him, but it was another body that slammed into me, blocking him from me that had me narrowing my eyes.
Dominic towered over me, breathing heavily. I knew that if he could, he would snap my neck within seconds. But he needed answers. He wanted to know who was after them.
“Who sent you?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“A fairy godmother?” I giggled. “Elves? Sir—”
“Stop playing around!” he roared and wrapped his hand around my throat, cutting off my oxygen intake. My back hit the wall as he pushed me away from Alexander and Kairos, the vein at his temple throbbing. “Who sent you?”
I smirked, looking in his eyes. With a hoarse throat, I said, “The Devil himself.”
I lovedtheir confused and angry faces.
All the emotions running rampant, so strong they could be seen in the stiff posture of their bodies. They wore their hearts on their sleeves and I could only imagine all the thoughts going through their minds right now.
They didn’t expect this.
They didn’t expect me.
None of them ever expected that a poor orphan girl, suffocating in her own grief and sorrow, could be their downfall. The ones before them and the ones after them, they all made the same mistake—they underestimated me.
They thought that just because I wore a dress and a wobbly smile, I would be easy prey for their filthy games and their wicked dreams. They didn’t know that the divine violence lived in individuals such as myself, patiently waiting in shadows for the day when justice would prevail. When the powers in hand would need to surrender.
The Society was yet another stain on our world that needed to be gone. Now that I knew their name and their M.O., I could share it with my sisters in The Order of Themis.
I’d been living in hell ever since my brother died, but two years ago, my misery became a burden heavier than I could carry. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to stop feeling, stop remembering, thinking about everything that was taken away from me.
I almost succeeded.
I’d chased down a bottle of Adderall with vodka, hoping that the light shining through my windows would be the last one I would ever see. Deep inside my bones, I was done with the life that felt as if it was constantly trying to destroy me, to show me I didn’t belong. I wanted to make it easier for everyone.
Easier for me.
And that’s where they found me, gasping for breath, going in and out of consciousness, praying that the spasm in my body would soon stop. Praying that the void would finally swallow me whole, leaving behind nothing but a pile of bones no one really cared about.
But The Order of Themis cared.
Athanasya Erikhante cared, and they gave me a choice. They told me who killed my parents, who condemned me and my brother to darkness, all because they couldn’t see eye to eye. She asked me then if I were truly ready to die, leaving nothing behind me.
No legacy.
No family.
“Do you really want to fall into oblivion, darling?” Athanasya asked. “Or do you want them to pay for what happened to your family?”
Guess what I chose?
If anger and the need for revenge were what fueled me in order to live, to survive, I couldn’t complain. At least there was something holding me to this mortal realm. Something that helped me get up in the morning. Something that made all of this easier to bear and knowing that at the end of the road, those responsible for so much misery and pain would be destroyed.
These three miserable fucks were just a means to an end.
If only you truly believed in that, the inner bitch I often ignored piped in.They remind you of you. Deep inside, you know they could be yours forever if you allowed yourself to believe in it.
But I didn’t.
