Page 48 of Malevolent Hearts
Her fist swings toward me, a pathetic attempt to counterattack, but I’m faster, fuelled by pain that refuses to be quenched. Dodging, I weave into her space, close enough to feel the heat of her breath, tainted with panic.
“Did you think you could replace me?” The question is a blade, sharp and unforgiving, and my voice is steady while wielding it. “Did you think you could take what’s mine?”
With a final surge of adrenaline, I pull back my arm and let loose the culmination of every shattered dream, every whispered lie. My fist crashes against her nose with a sickening crunch that resonates through the marrow of my bones.
Blood splatters across her face, painting her features with the scarlet hue of guilt. She crumples, her body hitting the floor with a thud.
Victory is bitter as I stand over her unconscious form, my breath coming ragged, torn from the depths of a soul darkened by too many losses. My hands tremble, not with fear but with the weight of the knowledge that this violence is only a shadow of the war that rages within me—a war where love and hate are indistinguishable foes, and the battlefield is my own broken heart.
Cadden’s hands, those traitorous tools of comfort and destruction, fasten around my waist, wrenching me from the crumpled form of Meila. His grip is iron, unyielding as the chains that bind my heart to this saga of love turned venomous.
“Let go of me!” The words rip their way out, ragged shards of glass that shatter against his unrelenting resolve. I turn in his hold, a wild thing cornered by betrayal, but he is steadfast, an immovable force shaped by streets that demand hardness to survive.
“Beibhinn, stop!”
A bitter laugh bubbles up, laced with cynicism. “Let me fucking go, Cadden!” My demand is punctuated by a thrash of limbs, but he’s a boulder against the tide, absorbing my fury without faltering. In his eyes, there’s a plea for reason, a silent call for the woman he knew before grief became my shadow.
He doesn’t understand. How could he? He’s the cause and the cure, the architect of my pain. Each touch from him is both salve and brand, a reminder of what was lost and what can never be reclaimed.
“Listen to me,” he urges, a whisper amidst the chaos. But his words are drowned out by the thread of my pulse. He tries to reach me, to bridge the damage that his actions have carved between us.
In defiance, I buck against him once more, a last-ditch effort to escape his confinement. It’s not just about freeing myself from his physical hold—it’s a desperate attempt to sever the ties that bind my soul to his, to take back the fragments of myself that he has marked as his own.
“Beibhinn,” he breathes, and there’s a tremor in his voice that almost—almost—halts my assault.
“Let me go.” I will not be held captive, not by him, not by anyone. I am my own reckoning, unleashed upon the world that dared to break me.
As I fight against the man who once promised me forever in the shadows of this lighthouse, I vow to ruin him and turn everything he loves into ashes at his feet.
Cadden’s grip slackens, a surrender to the storm I’ve become. Seizing the moment, I whirl on him with anger that could shatter the world itself. “Fuck you. I never should have come here.” The words are bullets, and I aim them straight for his heart.
I pivot sharply, boots slamming against the worn floorboards as I make my escape. The ladder looms before me and I descend with reckless abandon, each rung a step further from the chaos above.
“Beibhinn!” Cadden’s voice chases me. “Wait, just fucking listen to me!” His plea echoes, bouncing off the spines of ancient texts and forgotten lore. He swears it—that he didn’t know it was Meila, that alcohol and drugs veiled his sin. But his words are just another melody in this dark, twisted symphony we’ve composed.
“Listen?” I scoff, my tone a razor’s edge. “I’m done listening to your lies.” My feet find the solid ground of the library, its musty scent a balm to the venom still dripping from his tongue.
“Please, Beibhinn,” he begs, his footsteps a frantic rhythm behind me. “You have to believe me—I didn’t know.”
“Believe? In what, Cadden? That you’re anything but the monster you’ve revealed yourself to be?" I spin to face him, eyes ablaze. “You’re as transparent as these glass panes we once watched the sunrise through.”
“Damn it, I’m telling you the truth!” His hands reach out, grasping for something beyond his reach—forgiveness, redemption, me. Who fucking knows.
“Your ‘truth’ is a lie, Cadden.” I step back, putting distance between his desperation and my resolve.
“Beibhinn—” His voice cracks.
“Save your breath,” I hiss. “You’ll need it to quell the flames of your precious empire as it burns to the ground.” I turn my back on him, on us, on the love that now tastes like ash upon my tongue.
My fingers graze the spines of books. A shrine he built not just to literature but to the love we once shared, a love that’s now a festering wound on my heart.
“Beibhinn, please.” His voice is a shattered whisper, but I don’t falter. “Don’t do this. Look at me!" His plea is desperate, but my gaze is fixed on the mahogany shelves.
“Look at what? You? The man who took everything from me?” I whirl around. “You’ve left me with nothing but ghosts and shadows, Cadden.”
“Beibhinn, I swear?—”
“Your oaths are worthless!” I cut him off, my voice a blade drawn against the veil of deceit. “You destroyed someone I loved. It’s only fair I take something you love!”