I stepped forward and plunged the knife deep into the muscle of his shoulder, shuddering in pleasure as the blade of the knife scraped against bone. Finn gasped in pain, and I twisted the knife for good measure, causing his eyes to roll back in his head. He was breathing harshly as I ripped the knife from his shoulder, knowing the wound couldn’t start healing until the weapon was out. Then, once he was healed, I would be able to start all over again. I would be able to torture Finn until all of my pent up anger and frustration were gone.
Then I would torture him some more.
Tabitha stepped forward. “Let’s get started with the rest of them while he heals. We can save him for last so you can spend the most time on him. You wanna do the vampire bitch or the demon freak next?”
“She’s next,” I said, walking forward with the knife raised. Holly’s eyes narrowed as I approached; she was trying to prove to me that she wasn’t scared, but I knew from the tense set of her shoulders and the trembling hands at her sides that she was absolutely terrified of me. She was terrified of what I had become, and that made me happy.
Before I could lower the knife to her skin, something slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. A hand gripped the back of my neck and pressed my face into the dirt. The dirt filled my lungs as I struggled to breathe, and I began to choke and cough. I could hear Tabitha being subdued in a similar manner. “Get your hands off of me!” I screamed, trying to twist my head around so I could see who was pinning me down.
A face leaned forward and pressed against my cheek. “Don’t move,” Kevin hissed, eyes blazing. “If you so much as utter a single word, I will rip your throat out with my fangs, bleed you dry, and then leave you here to rot with the corpses you love so much! You and your sister both.”
Kevin wrapped an arm around my throat and hauled me roughly to my feet. He spun me around and I could see Marcel and Lisa the Witch subduing Tabitha in a similar fashion. Annie was untying Finn, Holly, and Ezra, and I could see Finn trying to explain everything to her.
Marcel and Lisa dragged Tabitha over to where I stood, and her eyes locked on mine. I could see a few different emotions pass across her eyes, but the most prominent one was fear. I didn’t understand what she was afraid of until I saw the rope in Annie’s hands. She walked over to a nearby tree and threw the twin strands of rope up over a thick branch. At the end of the rope were small loops which I assumed could only go around our necks before tightening.
Without a word, Kevin marched me over to the tree until I was standing directly beneath one of the nooses and Tabitha was beneath the other. We were forced to step onto small wooden stools that lifted us off the ground and put us within reach of the noose. As I grabbed her hand in mine, everything seemed to slow down, like everything was moving in slow motion. Kevin reached up and grabbed the noose above me and fitted it around my neck. The rope settled at the base of my throat, applying pressure to my windpipe.
The second the noose tightened around my throat, time sped up, along with my heartbeat. My heart raced in my chest, creating a dull roar between my ears. The sound was like static, and it blocked out everything around me, including the Council’s final words. I could see Marcel’s thin lips moving as he recited something that might have been a prayer–or possibly a curse–but I couldn’t make out the words. I was too focused on the sound of my own heartbeat, and the determined look on Tabitha’s face. She was three years younger than me–barely more than a child–yet she looked ready to laugh in the face of death whereas I was scared beyond belief.
Lisa forced us to let go of one another so she and Annie could tie our hands together behind our backs. The loss of contact between me and Tabitha was like a hole in my soul, and I yearned to reach out and comfort my baby sister. When the ties were finished, Marcel stopped speaking. For a split second, the entire graveyard was perfectly still and silent. Then Lisa kicked the stool out from under Tabitha, and she dropped with a harsh choking sound as the noose constricted around her throat. Her feet were too far off the ground to touch, so she just swayed there under the tree branch as the rope slowly choked the life from her. I screamed her name over and over again, trying to reach out for her.
But my hands were still tied behind my back, and I could do nothing but watch in horror as my sister’s eyes began to bulge and her face slowly turned red, then purplish blue. The choking noises stopped after a minute, and I knew that she had lost consciousness, but she wouldn’t be dead for a few more minutes. I wondered if they were planning on forcing me to watch her die before killing me, or if watching her pass out would be torture enough.
“I knew you were better off dead,” Kevin hissed. He kicked the stool out from under me, and I lurched toward the ground beneath me.
I gasped for air as the scream built up in my throat, and I sat bolt upright, clutching at the soaked nightgown that clung to my chest. My hand automatically went to my neck, searching for the noose that I was sure was wrapped tightly around my throat. I expected to feel the coarse rope, or perhaps the welt at the base of my throat, but there was nothing there. As I laid my head back against the pillow, my entire body began to tremble. I hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a while, and this one had been the worst one yet, since it featured my friends.
Someone knocked on the door, and I sighed to myself. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” Finn said softly. “Can I come in?”
I had a feeling he would barge in whether I invited him or not. “If you want to.” The door slowly opened, and Finn stuck his head in. When he saw that I was still in bed, he closed the door behind him and took a seat on the side of my bed. His hand nearly brushed mine, but he didn’t move to get any closer. “What do you want, Finn?”
“Marcel has had some of the people here patrolling the halls since Tabitha left that nasty surprise for you earlier. He’s worried she’ll try and break in or something. I was making sure this hallway was secure, but when I walked by your door, I heard you muttering in your sleep, and I could tell something was wrong. I could tell you were terrified of something, and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
I sighed again, and turned my head so I could look at Finn. I felt kind of weird lying here in bed while he was here, especially when he said things that warmed my heart, but I forced myself to brush that feeling off. It would be nice to talk to someone that would understand me and not judge me. I had talked to Tanya after my last dream and it had helped a little. Maybe telling Finn about my dream would make me feel better…
The image of Tanya writhing in pain on the ground as I shredded her wings and her skin flashed across my mind, and I felt my stomach heave. Finn must have seen something on my face change, because he grabbed the gray trashcan from beside the dresser and shoved it under my face just as I puked. While I emptied my stomach, Finn crawled into bed behind me and pulled my hair back from my face, trying to keep me from getting vomit in it.
“Do you wanna tell me about your dream?”
An involuntary shudder went through me, and I pushed the garbage can away, hoping the smell wouldn’t cause me to be sick again. I could only imagine how strong it must have smelled to Finn, who had extraordinary senses. He was probably trying not to gag and upset me. That thought almost made me smile, until I remembered the vivid details of my nightmare.
“It wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare. The worst nightmare I’ve ever had,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My throat burned and I would have given anything for a glass of water, but I didn’t feel like getting out of bed to get one. “It was so real that I expected to wake up with a noose around my throat…”
Finn immediately tensed behind me, and I rolled over to look at him. “Ronnie, I think you need to tell me about your dream. What the hell is going on in your mind right now?”
I moved closer to Finn, and he instinctively wrapped his arm around and pulled me even closer, almost as if he was trying to protect me from the final vestiges of a painful nightmare. Not for the first time I was inc
redibly grateful to have Finn in my life. Even if our feelings for each other did tend to complicate things from time to time, I couldn’t deny that I would always be better off with him by my side, whether it was as a friend or as more.
I took a deep breath before beginning, inhaling his wonderful scent in the process. “Tabitha and I were in a dark graveyard. You and the others were there, too. You were tied up and on your knees, and we started to torture Tanya. We ripped off her wings while she screamed and cried and begged us to stop, but I just kept going until I slit her throat and she died at my feet. I enjoyed it, Finn. In my dream, I actually enjoyed hurting someone!
“And that’s not all that happened. Before we could move on to torturing someone else, Annie and the Council showed up. They captured us. I tried to get away, but Kevin dragged me over to this tree, where they strung up two nooses. I had to watch while Tabitha was hung, and I woke up just as the stool was kicked out from beneath me. I dropped, and it all felt so real,” I whispered. “I thought I would wake up with a noose around my neck…”
I bit my lip to try and keep from crying, but the tears worked their way out. Finn didn’t say anything. He just held me while I cried, waiting until I was done before trying to comfort me. “Ronnie, there is so much wrong with your dream. First off, a simple rope would never hold me. I’m a werewolf with super strength; the only thing that could stop me is maybe some kind of chain or some kind of drug.”
“I didn’t think about that,” I said quietly. During my dream, it hadn’t seemed at all odd that Finn couldn’t break free of a simple strand of rope, but now that I questioned it, there were other things that were wrong as well.
“Second, you have power over Kevin, so he could never hold you captive anywhere. You could have used your power to turn him into your slave, and you would have escaped. Tabitha, too. Third, even if the Council did manage to capture you, they’re not allowed to just execute you on the spot; that would give them too much power. They’d have to have a trial. And finally, there is not a single evil bone in your body. You are not capable of hurting your friends. You’re just not. That dream is not nor ever will be plausible. You’re a good woman, Ronnie. You can’t forget that.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Finn. I needed to hear that.”
His lips brushed my forehead. “It’s still early. Why don’t you try and get some more sleep? You have a funeral to attend in a couple of hours.”
I curled up against Finn’s side, thankful for the comfort his mere presence brought. Resting my head on his massive chest, I listened to the sound of his even heartbeats until the soothing sound lulled me back to sleep…
*****
The sun was bright as it shown down on the empty cemetery, creating a stark contrast between this and my earlier nightmare. There was no eerie moonlight, dead trees, or dark sense of foreboding. Instead, there were bright flowers and a light breeze that lifted my spirits despite the reason I was here in the cemetery right now. And the fact that Finn and my friends were here with me was making this whole ordeal much easier.
I took deep, even breaths as I walked over to the mound of dirt near the center of the cemetery. My mother’s coffin had been hoisted out of the ground by a few of the supernaturals at the compound, and what was left of her body had been gently laid back inside on the bed of velvet. I refused to open my eyes until the coffin had been closed, because I had seen more than I wanted to last night. When her body was safely tucked away in her coffin, Finn helped a few other guards from the compound to lower her into the ground.
I watched Finn as he helped out with a stony expression on his face. He seemed completely focused on the task at hand, but I could tell he knew that I was watching him. He always seemed to know when I was watching him, probably because he was usually watching me at the same time. It seemed like the two of us rarely took our eyes off of each other these days.
When my mother’s coffin was resting at the bottom of the large, empty hole, Finn looked up and his pale blue eyes met mine. He ran a big, dirty hand through his shaggy, tangled hair, before walking over to take his place next to me. Dirt covered his white, sleeveless shirt, and it was smeared all down his thick arms, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
“Are you alright?” he asked, reaching out to gently touch my face. I nodded against the rough, callused palm of his hand, glad for the comfort his touch brought. “If you want to be alone, we would all understand,” he said quietly.
“No, I want you guys here,” I said, looking first at him, then at Tanya, Holly, and Ezra. They were lingering back a bit while they pretended not to watch the two of us, though I knew they were hanging on our every word. “I mean, if you guys don’t mind keeping me company. I don’t really have anyone else…”
Tanya put her hand on my shoulder. “Of course we’ll stay with you. We’d never leave you alone at a time like this.” She looked over my shoulder at my mother’s grave. “It looks like they’re about done filling it in. Do you wanna head over?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking up at Finn. “Stay with me?” He nodded his head and put his hand at the small of my back, guiding me over to my mother’s freshly redone grave. The others stopped just behind me, but Tanya looped her arm through mine and gave me a tiny smile, letting me know she would be here for me as long as I needed her. Knowing that my friends were there gave me the strength to not cry.
Marcel was the only Council member in attendance, and he motioned for the people that had filled in my mother’s grave to return to the cars that waited for us. He looked from the grave to me. “Would you like to say a few words?”
While I had been staring at her headstone, my mouth had gone paper dry, and I couldn’t find anything to say that I hadn’t said the first time. All I could do was stare at the disturbed dirt and pray that nobody would ever try to use my mother against me again, because I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. I wasn’t sure how much more horror I could overcome before losing myself.
“Ronnie, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” Finn said. His thumb traced slow, lazy circles across my lower back in an attempt to comfort me, and strangely enough, it began to help.
“I know,” I said quietly. I took a deep breath. “I’ve already said my goodbyes once at her first funeral, and a second time before her spirit faded away for good. So she’s not here to hear me anyways. She knows I love her and I’ll miss her, but I’ll see her again someday. Hopefully not too soon, though.”
Finn wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer, before kissing my temple. “You’re gonna be fine, Ronnie. I promise. None of us will let anything happen to you as long as you’re here.”
“I know,” I said, offering him a small smile. “I trust all of you, and together, we can overcome any obstacles in our path. Now, let’s get back to the compound and see if we can’t find Tabitha. The sooner we put a stop to all of this the better…”
Chapter Seventeen
The Council room was silent as Marcel and the other members regarded me with neutral expressions–or at least as neutral as Kevin could get. Of the three of them, Marcel was the only one to let me know how sorry he was to have to pull me back into matters so quickly, but I waved off his concerns, knowing this was more important than sitting alone in my room sobbing into Finn’s chest. I had done enough crying lately, and it was time for me to get things done and start pulling my weight again.
“Have you found Tabitha’s location yet?”
Marcel frowned. “Yes, we have,” he said, startling both me and Finn. “We know that she has been bouncing from one place to the next, never staying in one area for too long, but it seems she has finally settled down somewhere important to her.”
“Andrew’s place,” I said, knowing that would be where she wanted our final showdown to take place. She would want our father’s memory to give her a possible advantage if she was to fight me. I should have known all along that would be the stage for our confrontation. She would have avoided it until she wa
s ready for me, in case the Council decided to burn it to the ground.
“Yes,” Lisa said, looking at me. “We’ve gotten in contact with the High Council, and they’re deliberating on what is to be done. In the meantime, we’ve been ordered to not approach her, and instead focus more on doing some damage control. There’s no telling what mischief Tabitha is up to, and she could attempt to create more widespread panic while the High Council makes its decision.”
“But…I don’t understand,” I said slowly. “If we know where Tabitha is, why don’t we just strike? We can take her out before she does even more damage than she already has. We can spare innocent people if we attack now! Why would the High Council refuse to let you take her out?”
“That’s just the way things work,” Lisa said quietly, watching me with solemn eyes. “And it is not your place to question them, Veronica.”
“Well I am questioning them,” I said defiantly. My temper didn’t choose to reveal itself often, but when it did, the results could be catastrophic. “Why does the High Council insist on making this decision for you? You’re the ones in charge here. This should be your call, not theirs!” I said, waving my hand in their general direction. Turning to Marcel, I continued my rant. “I don’t understand why you’re letting them make this call. You know it’s wrong. You know our best bet is to attack now, before Tabitha gets settled and manages to find followers to help her with her evil plans. We need to take maybe a night or two to gather some surveillance, and then we need to strike. Now!”
Marcel folded his hands on the table in front of him, and his kind brown eyes met mine. “I agree with you, Ronnie. I wish I had the authority to override their decision, but I don’t, and neither does Kevin or Lisa. The only reason we sit on this Council is because the High Council allows us to. We must do as they order, or we risk losing our positions. I’m afraid that even though I agree with you and think their decision is wrong, it is not our place to act against them. For the time being, we will remain vigilant and do our best to minimize Tabitha’s impact on our small community.”
Dark Heritage Trilogy Page 36
