Page 5 of Divine Violence
You were loved, but you wanted more and more and more. When would more stop being necessary? Would there ever be a day where I didn’t feel as if the void was trying to swallow me whole, leaving just a broken shell of a girl that could’ve had everything?
I was certain that there were thousands of people thinking just like me, lost in the most crucial moments when their destiny was at stake. I just wished that there was someone to tell me what to do. To tell me how to feel. To hold my hand and tell me that everything would be alright, even if that was the biggest lie of them all.
Was it possible that the only time my heart thundered in my chest was when the danger I craved so much presented itself in front of my eyes?
I knew who owned that building. I knew what kind of depravity hid behind its closed doors. Even though I was oblivious that first time, the second, the third, fourth—I couldn’t even count how many more—I knew which monster of this city owned it.
And I still went there, hoping to meet my kind of monster.
I hoped that there would be a monster out there sick enough to love a broken little girl, because that’s all I ever wanted—love. For someone who claimed how cold, detached, and uncaring she was, I felt everything. I craved that closeness with another person, no matter how fucked up that same person was.
It made me sick to my stomach that I needed it to feel alive. It disgusted me that I couldn’t love myself hard enough to fill in that emptiness inside my stomach.
You can’t replace what you’ve lost with a new, shiny thing, but toxicity worked wonders. If it wasn’t another lover, it was alcohol, the drugs, the need to both feel and stop feeling altogether that filled the emptiness for at least a moment, until reality came crashing with the violence.
I pressed my bike against the stone wall that surrounded our group home, and walked slowly through the main gate, almost on my tiptoes, afraid that one of the guardians would see me. Not that they cared about what I did now that I would be leaving, but they still had a reputation to uphold. If someone saw me sneaking in and out in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t bode well for the other older children that still did the same.
I avoided the windows, bending down as I shuffled toward the metal stairs that were now completely covered in ivy, breathing slowly as if the sound of my breathing would alert them of my whereabouts.
My hand gripped the first rail and I pulled myself up, wincing at the squeaking sound my shoes produced. I should’ve worn something else other than these converse shoes, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. Most of my things were already shipped off to Corwynth. My muscles groaned, protesting, as I pulled myself up and up and up, until I reached the window of my room.
I shouldn’t have exerted myself this much while dancing, but it was too late for regrets now.
Grunting as I went over the part of the roof that extended from my window, I finally reached the small balcony I used to sit on. With the careful maneuvers, I dropped my legs down to the solid ground, thankful that I hadn’t slipped tonight.
But then I saw it—my door ajar and a cigarette butt on my balcony.
I smoked, but I was careful to never leave evidence behind. Adult or not, our guardians still cared about our well-being and smoking was a very big no. I was sure I’d closed the door of the balcony.
Carefully, with my heart in my throat, I walked forward, ignoring the thundering fear gripping my shoulders, and pushed the door open wide.
“Hello?” I whispered, praying to everything that was holy that an answer wouldn’t come. Did one of the other kids get into my room somehow?
I toed off my shoes and stepped inside, reveling in the warmth of the room. My eyes flickered from the door of my room to the old television standing in the corner, and all the way to the wardrobe, but nothing was out of place.
I walked toward the opposite door and turned on the light, letting it illuminate the entire room. That’s when I saw it. That’s when the momentary relief I felt completely disappeared, leaving me with the gripping fear once again.
There on my pillow, a stark contrast to the white sheets, a lone black rose lay, right on top of a black square box with a piece of paper on it. I approached slowly, as if what was there on my bed could jump up and bite me.
Leaning down, I could see that it wasn’t just some random piece of paper. It was a music sheet, the first page of Mozart’s “Requiem in D minor”, the introduction to the masterpiece that some say killed him. It was there, on my bed, in my room, and I had no idea who’d placed it there.
My hand wrapped around the stem of the rose, immediately regretting it.
“Fuck,” I cursed, letting it drop on the bed with a single droplet of my blood staining the white sheets. The stem was full of thorns. As I leaned down to get a better look at it, it wasn’t exactly black. No, the redness peaked through the darkness, the color of blood and a crimson promise right there on my bed.
Maybe it was the shock or maybe the knowledge that someone came into my room while I wasn’t here, but as I pulled the box closer to me, I could feel how heavy it was. Opening the lid, I half expected it to have scorpions or snakes inside, but what greeted me was neither.
An envelope the same color as the box was inside, resting on what seemed to be black fabric. There was no return address on the envelope, nothing but my name written in cursive in golden ink.
Echo Selene Winslow.
I dropped onto the bed, finally realizing that whoever this was, knew my middle name. The name that I haven’t used in years.
My hands trembled as I opened it, careful not to tear it apart. I never expected to see an invitation inside. Maybe this was all a sick joke, but the way my heart thundered and my hands shook told me otherwise.
“Dear Ms. Winslow,” I read out loud. “You are cordially invited to Quell Island for an annual Samhain celebration by Mr. Adair.”Holy shit. “Please make sure to bring this invitation with you, as it will serve as an entry ticket.”
I couldn’t breathe. Holy motherfucking shit.
