Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
“Calm down, sister,” Noa heard, and she blinked, clearing her tunnel vision until she saw Dinah above her. Noa focused on her sister’s deep brown gaze and allowed Dinah’s steady breaths to be her guide. Dinah nodded, silently telling Noa she was coming back into herself.
Then Noa turned her head, and she froze. With her next breath, she bucked Dinah from her and scrambled across the attic floor to the boy in the collar and chain.
He wasn’t moving.
“No,” Noa whispered, devastation sweeping though her, gutting her where she sat. She wrapped her arms around the boy’s still, frail body and brought him to her chest. She pulled her scarf from her face and yanked back her hood—she needed air; she needed to see him unguarded. “Please,” she whispered, holding his pale cheeks in her bloody hands. She turned his face toward hers … and his eyes were wide open, lifelessly staring back at her.
“No,” Noa whispered again. She lowered her mouth to his, trying to breathe air into his lungs. She laid him on the floor, pumping at his heart with her hands. “Please!” she cried louder, but his chest didn’t rise on its own; no breath was taken. “Please!” Her voice cracked. She tried and tried to administer CPR, but when she sat back, she saw there was no life left in the small boy. His eyes had glazed with the heavy veil of death, and his skinny limbs were turning cold.
“No …” she hushed out, seeing the tight, unforgiving collar around his neck. She caught glimpses of the brutal red scar underneath … and then she understood. While she had killed the priest, while she had stabbed, unleashed hell and made the priest pay for his fucked-up crimes, the boy had choked himself on that collar. He had fought his restraints in so much distress that he had strangled himself just trying to get free …
… and Noa hadn’t heard him. Too furious, too deep in her bloodlust, she hadn’t heard him fighting, hadn’t heard him strangling himself. She hadn’t heard him die.
A sob escaped Noa’s throat as she pulled his lifeless frame into her arms again, and the next thing she knew they were both in Dinah’s arms. Dinah rocked her back and forth. “Shh,” she soothed. “It wasn’t your fault.” But Noa knew that wasn’t true. It had been her anger that had killed the boy. It had been the darkness that lived within her, the bitterness, the hatred.
She had killed the boy.
He had never known kindness. Not in his entire life. And now he never would.
The rest of Noa’s sisters rushed into the attic. Their shoulders sagged when they saw the boy lying limply in Noa’s arms. Priscilla walked though last, looking first at the dead priest, then the boy, he too slain by Noa’s wicked hands.
“I killed him,” Noa said to Priscilla, and the tears poured. Something settled in Priscilla’s onyx eyes right then, something that made Noa’s gut squeeze in dread.
The guilt and shame were evident in Noa’s broken cries. All the time, Dinah held her, caring for her and loving her unconditionally. Then for the days and months afterwards, Dinah held her when she fell apart, when she didn’t sleep for fear of what her nightmares would show her.
That night, Noa had failed to control the darkness. And in turn, she had failed that little boy. The frail, lost boy in a collar and chains. The one she failed to free. She vowed never to fail again …
Hot tears tracked down Noa’s cheeks. Her chest ached with the guilt that had weighed heavily on her heart ever since. Her voice was raspy and hoarse from too much emotion. She took a deep breath, then looked down at Diel. His hands had been wrapped tightly around hers as she’d shared her story, purged her biggest sin from her fractured soul. Right now, he was looking up at her, holding her hands just as tightly as ever.
Noa was waywardly struck by his excessive beauty. She was sure there wasn’t a more handsome man in the universe. The Triple-Headed Goddess, Mother Earth herself, had made Diel solely for her. She parted her lips, gaze falling to the red scar around his neck, and whispered, “That night when you came for the priest, when I first saw you and that damn collar around your neck …” She swallowed the lump that was bobbing in her throat. “I saw you in that collar. Saw the monster, that livid being within you shining through so easily for me to identify.” She shook her head. “And I was taken straight back to that night with the nameless little boy.”
She leaned down and pressed her forehead to Diel’s. “I had to free you. As soon as I saw you, in that house to kill the priest, that collar around your neck, I knew the Brethren had done something to you too. I knew they had hurt you somehow, just as they had the boy, and me and my sisters. I knew you were there for retribution.”