Page 215 of The Harbinger
I nodded, my eyes flickering between the masked women and Ruslan’s imposing figure. The weight of his threat hung heavy in the air. Any misstep and he would make me wish I was dead. Of that, I was certain.
I followed the three women inside the house I was all too familiar with but no longer hummed with safety.
Soon they’d parade me through the woods and carve out my heart.
As they pushed me through the foyer, a door closed upstairs, its echo reverberating against the walls. The Asmodeus statue looked on smugly, its stony expression unchanged.
Ruslan barked a command, and his bodyguards escorted me up the stairs. The voices grew louder as we approached the source until one tone stood out above the rest.
Whipping my head around, I saw him standing alive and well beside a woman and Lydia, the new maidservant. My stomach dropped as my heart leaped out of my chest.
“Sacha?” I exclaimed, unable to believe my eyes. “Sacha, you’re alive?”
But his cold, deadpan expression shattered my hope as he looked at me with a chilling stare.
The two guards grabbed my arms and dragged me down the hall. Panic surged as I looked back at Sacha, hoping to see some sign of compassion or understanding.
Instead, his face was hard and unyielding, his jaw set in a tight line. He held a crumpled piece of paper, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“I’m sorry, Sacha,” I pleaded, my voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to do it. You have to believe me.”
He glanced down at the paper, and the weight of indifference hit me like a physical blow. My stomach churned.
I stumbled down the hallway, my muscles and sinew slowly deteriorating due to the lack of nutrition and sustenance. All the hard work I’d built with Sacha slowly faded.
Gasping for air, my chest throbbed with pain, and my cries for help echoed through the walls, but there was no response. He had no concern for my well-being, and it was clear that Sacha held nothing but contempt for me. It was understandable, considering I had attempted to take his life and had come dangerously close to succeeding.
With a brutal shove, they pushed me into a room just two doors from mine. It was nearly identical, except for the missing bookshelf and ticking clock above the fireplace.
With a gesture, the three veiled women directed me towards the bathroom while the guards roughly pushed me forward. My balance faltered, but I managed to steady myself as I crossed the threshold into the nearly identical room.
I quickly scanned the bathroom and closet.Would this have a secret passage too?
Did it matter? Even if there was a hidden escape route, with six pairs of watchful eyes trained on me, there was no way I could hope to evade their scrutiny.
The blonde woman stood beside the brunette while the other lighter-haired brunette turned on the shower water. A sudden impulse overtook me, and I darted forward, tearing the grimy dress from my body and plunging into the hot water. It rippled over my skin, sending chills down my left side. With trembling hands, I picked out the pins that had mostly fallen out of my hair and vigorously scrubbed my skin, repeating the process three times while ignoring the men’s intense gaze.
He was alive, yet he’d not cared that I’d been held in the catacombs with dead things and the skulls of the previous sacrifices for company.
He didn’t care that they’d intended to sacrifice me and place me alongside those women and men.
Why would he?
Killing was second nature to him. He’d practically said so himself.
Hands rushed down the front of my body and another pair down my backside, and I jerked out of my stupor. The two brunettes scrubbed my skin, catching what I’d missed.
“Get off of me.” I swatted at them, and they backed away. I pressed my back into the corner and wrapped my arms around my chest, modesty flooding my body with embarrassment.
The two women rolled down their sleeves, the tattoos missing from their bodies, unlike everyone else who’d been part of the church. They grabbed towels and held them out for me to walk into.
“Get out,” one of the bodyguards said.
I wasn’t ready yet. The grime and cold of two weeks in a wintery dungeon clung to my skin like rat poison, but the stern look on his face sent spikes of fear bolting to my toes.
With a quick twist of my good hand, I turned off the water and yanked the towel from the woman in front of me. I wrapped it around my body and moved towards the vanity as they beckoned. My hair dripped down my back, the beads of water rolling down my legs, catching on the hair that had just started growing back.
I sat, and the blonde wrapped a towel around my hair and dried it, using her fingers to scrape my cleaned scalp, my tender skull aching from the touch.