Page 66 of Requiem & Reverie

Nectar? ‘The fuck is he talking about? “I already purified her.” I still can’t see shit, and the bullet in my arm is a reminder that I don’t want one lodged in my skull. Backing deeper into the hallway, I try to see past the darkness, but his black suit gives him an advantage. There isn’t enough light to catch the shine of it.

Another bullet strikes the wall beside me.

Come on, motherfucker, my thoughts implore. If I can get him to attack me, I can snap the little prick’s neck once he’s in my grasp.

“She tell you we fucked? I filled her so full of my cum, she’ll never be clean again,” I taunt.

An object flies out of the darkness hitting the wall beside me.

“No!” Another follows, crashing to the floor. Pots he picks up and throws at me in a fit of rage. Glass smashes in front of me. Something wet splashes against my knee and shoe, and the potent scent of pickles, or vinegar, hits the back of my throat like the stab of a knife. I bend forward, coughing at the gaseous odor overwhelming my senses. Dizziness strikes me with a vague awareness that I’m swaying, feeling like I’m trying to keep still on a rocking boat. Only a flash of light hits the darkness, before he tosses a lit rag that smacks my shoe and catches fire.

“Fuck!” I stomp my foot against the floor, using my non-flaming foot to try to stamp out the small blaze before it can climb my pants. A watering can sits nearby, and I douse the flame with the water inside of it, the flickering light dying down to darkness again. A barky cough fails to dislodge the burnt chemical scent sticking to my throat.

In the quiet that follows, his shaky breaths fill the black void, but I can’t see anything.

“She’s no use to me, anymore.” His voice is farther away this time, perhaps clear across the pole barn, colored in grays and darkness. Grim and hopeless. “I wanted to make her pure. I wanted to cleanse her. You destroyed my flower. You destroyed my girl. She’s beyond saving now. Nothing can be saved!”

Nola.

Bounding across the concrete on hands and knees toward them, I hear the clamor of more broken glass that stills my heart. The crazy bastard plans to burn everything.

No. No! I push to my feet, hustling blindly in the darkness to where Nola lies. A gunshot echoes inside my skull, followed by a sharp, piercing pain that hits the back of my thigh. Falling to my knees, I reach out, my finger just grazing the plastic sheath covering Nola, and I hear her gasping beneath. Ignoring the pain in my leg, I crawl toward her sounds of suffocation, over shards of broken glass that slice into my skin, and pat around for the tubing that was sticking out of her mouth before.

Cold metal hits the back of my skull.

“Give me your gun. Or the last thing you’ll see is the bits of your skull showering her.”

My mind spins with a number of scenarios: kicking his feet out from under him, reaching back for the gun, tearing his balls off with my bare hands. All it’d take is one stray bullet, though, and Nola would be dead.

Head bowed, I feel the sweat trickling over the back of my neck, dripping down my jaw onto the concrete below me, and that scent of pickles hits me again, before a glass jar shatters to the floor beside me. Formaldehyde, no doubt. It burns my eyes and nostrils, shooting up my sinuses, and I let out a cough, gripping my throat while the pungent odor invades my lungs. The burn intensifies, like small pockets of fire searing holes into my breathing passages and skin.

Every breath marks off the seconds. Seconds until she runs out of air. Seconds until he pulls the trigger. Seconds until he lights the flame that’ll burn this whole damn place and everyone in it alive.

I set the gun down on the floor beside me, only for Nola’s sake. Can’t risk it.

“When I cut out her eyeballs, I’ll be sure to keep her alive.” His voice is muffled, and I’ve no doubt his face is covered to avoid him breathing in the strong scent. The steel pushes my head forward until I’m staring down at blackness where the floor should be. “Pity I can’t say the same for you. Tell me, Voss, if given the choice, would you rather watch her suffocate, or burn alive?”

She continues to gasp behind the plastic, the fervent squeaking of latex giving sound to her panic.

“She’s going to die,” I grit out through clenched teeth, and wheeze.

“She is. And I’ll have her, either way. But I’ll enjoy her so much more while watching everything burn. Fucking in the flames. Doesn’t get any more divine than that.” The shaky quality of his voice, laced with a small bit of amusement, tells me he’s lost his mind. “Now, answer the question. You want to see this?”

The sounds of Nola’s screams and her nails scratching at the latex have me grinding my jaw, fists curled, ready to strike out and take my chances with wherever the bullet hits.

The taunting click of a lighter’s flint wheel trying to flick to life halts my retaliation. “Did you know formaldehyde vapors are explosive when exposed to a flame?” he asks.

For a split second, I’m a teenager again, staring down at a young girl about to be burned alive by my sadistic uncle. In my thoughts, her struggle mirrors Nola’s, as the two of them wreak havoc inside my head.

Another waft of formaldehyde assaults my nose, watering my eyes, reminding me there is nothing worse than burning alive.

I’m a trained killer. A merciless torturer. Yet, I knew this day would come. I dreaded it. The day when a woman would turn me weak. When my instincts would give way to caution. When I’d sooner die than watch her suffer.

“I’ll take your silence as a ye—” His words cut abruptly, followed by the sound of deadweight, like a heavy sack hitting the floor. Metal clangs against the concrete beside me. The lighter bounces to my side, mocking the fluids pooled around me.

“Voss?”

The lights flip on.