Page 40 of Be My Sacrifice
“You have one chance to keep breathing, Ezekiel.One.Where is Sammy?”
Chapter twenty-six
The Forsaker
Zeke
Ican’tbreathe.Noair is entering my lungs as my chest compresses painfully, pushing against my broken ribs, and it feels like a stretched-out balloon that may pop at any moment. I’m terrified that if I even blink and take my eyes off of them, they will disappear, and I will wake from this nightmare, once again, trapped and alone.This is not happening. This is not real. I’ve taken too many blows to the head.
She can’t be here; this is my mind playing horrendous tricks on me. This is some sick torture that my father has devised, to force me to the brink of delirium and finally break me. He will finally win with this cruel and merciless trick. I watched her die. I plunged that blade inside of her soft, warm body, her blood coating my hands in the evil of my deeds. I watched that light leave her beautiful gray-blue eyes, eyes that always remind me of a winter storm.
I did that, me, the man who had promised before our God to love her. The man who had made that promise long before, when she was just a gangly, long-limbed girl with a crooked smile. My beautiful Snow White, with skin made of porcelain and lips as red as blood.
I was there, present, without the ability to escape, without a way to save her when she uttered her last request to me in her small despondent voice, and I could not answer and reassure her, for fear that my demonic father would hear my words, and renege on our deal and kill Abe anyway. I had no choice. Can she not see that? Can she not see inside of my soul and know that I bled on that floor with her? I carved my own heart out of my chest at that moment. Her warm, red blood burned into my skin, searing me forever.
Now, here she is, alive and filled with vexation and madness, pointing a gun at my head and demanding to know where her lover is, when I was about to once again betray her. The magnitude of the actions I was about to commit, finally forces the air out of my lungs in a harsh wheeze. I would have married that girl, regardless of if it was demanded by my father. I would have married her, and defiled that marriage bond between Dinah and me. I would have severed the thread that keeps her bound to me, with just a few words and the strike of a knife. Monster. That is what I am. A beast who would have betrayed the only woman he has ever cared about.
Did my father know she was still alive? Is it possible he’s known all along, and this was just one more way for him to hurt me? I wouldn’t put it past the bastard. His cruelty knows no bounds, even when directed at his only child.
“You have one chance to keep breathing, Ezekiel. One. Where is Sammy?”
I recoil, pulling back on myself at the cruelty in her tone. Her words are filled with malice, and none sound like my kind Snow from our childhood. There she stands before me, a dark warrior and an unrepentant goddess, with a powerful stance and eyes alight with rage. Just by observing her in her majestic form, I know that I have never been worthy of her. No one will ever be worthy of her, because we are but mere mortals, and she is more. She has always been more.
My eyes keep sliding between her and Abe.My Abe.Who won’t even acknowledge me, who it seems has forsaken me and picked a side, and it’s not mine, despite the years of love and companionship we have shared.Is he only hers now?Have I lost my claim on him with my actions? The consequences were and are so harsh. I have lost everything, even him, it seems.
Despite doing it all to protect him, to keep him breathing, the stains on my hands and soul are so dark and can never be cleaned.Tarnished, broken, forsaken.Yet here he stands before me doing just that, breathing. My heart should be overjoyed, but sadness reigns supreme, knowing that he has turned away from me now and perhaps forever.I’ve lost him.The most important person in my life, gone with a foul plunge of a blade.Mysoulmate, my best friend, my love, gone.
Her words vibrate back through my dazed mind.Sammy.That is the key to getting her back, to getting both of them back. He is the key to my survival, and getting everything that I have lost back. I have protected him the best I can. I have kept him alive using my own life as a bargaining tool for him, a shield against my father. Surely, when she sees that, she will forgive me my trespasses against her. I can’t lose both of them, all three of them now. I. Can’t. Be. Left. Alone.
My mind warns me that it will not be enough. No forgiveness and exemption will be provided for what I have done, regardless of whether I did my best to keep him alive. I will be discarded, abandoned, and left to either die alone, or murdered at the hands of the only people I have cared for in this miserable life. Fate is so cruel and sadistic to have the tables turn on me, and my actions mirrored back to me. Death will be a kindness that I do not deserve, after all that I have done.
“Alive,” the word leaves my battered lips in a whisper. Emerald green clashing with stormy gray-blue as she determines the honesty of it. “Basement.”
All the strength I had left leaves me, and I crumple to the cold floor, unable to keep myself sitting up any longer. My adrenaline is gone, and my purpose for forcing myself to keep going is gone. The knowledge that Sammy will be safe now fills me with a calming glow. I allow my eyes to finally be parted from hers, as I hear orders being issued and movement all around me. It is done now.Over.I can finally rest. I allow my eyes to close, knowing that I may never wake. There is nothing more that I can do. I am at the end of this tragedy, which I had a starring role in.
Forgive me, Snow.It’s my last thought as the world goes dark around me.
“Wake him up. Slap him again if you have to,” feminine words greet my ears, but there is no softness within them. They are spoken without warmth or consideration for the magnitude of the pain soaring currently through my body, even though the voice is familiar to me. Even unconscious, my mind and soul will always recognize her.Snow.
I try to crack one of my sore eyes open, just as a heavy slap across my face blares pain along my aching jaw and down my neck. A groan leaves my dry lips, my mouth once again tasting of iron, and I feel something cold and hard pressed against my temple.Fucking hell, was that necessary?
“Where is he, Ezekiel? You lied. He’s not in the basement, and your demon of a father hasn’t been found either.”Panic.I hear the edge of panic and perhaps madness in her voice.
Confusion circles in my mind.Snow, basement, demon of a father? I force my tired eyes open as wide as I can and realize I’m sitting up against a wall. The sight that greets me has my senses reeling.Dinah.
Dinah before me, so close that I can smell her scent of amber, smoke & bergamot, mixed with the scent of blood. So near that I can see the outline of the tattoos along the flesh of her shoulder and arms. So near that if I reached out, I could stroke my finger down those scattered freckles she has along her nose.My Snow.
The reality of her words hits me like a freight train. Sammy is not in the basement where I was last with him, before my father dragged me up here for this farce of a wedding with that young woman. More frightening even than the knowledge that Sammy is not where I left him, is that my father is also missing.FUCK!
“He… he was in the… basement,” I cough, blood rising to my lips. “Left him… there, when… I was forced… to marry… her.” My coughs wrack my body, causing me to have to lean forward to brace myself against my legs, but even then, the muzzle of the gun pressed to my temple follows the movement, refusing to release me from its grasp.I’m going to die. She’s going to shoot me. She has no further need of me, and she believes I’m lying about Sammy.
“Where is your father?” The coldness in her voice terrifies me. Is Dinah really gone, and been replaced with this blood-covered woman before me?
“He… was here… when the attack… started.” Another fit of coughs takes me over, and finally, she pulls back and turns to speak over her shoulder. “Get the girl.”
I want to look past her, my mind reminding me that Abe is here somewhere. Abe, who no longer loves me, and believes I betrayed him, betrayed her, and, even worse, betrayed Gabriel and was a party to his death. How could he think that of me? Doesn’t he know how much I loved him too?
A shriek and begging fill the air as the girl, Ruth, tries to release herself from the tight hold on her hair as she is thrown mercilessly at my feet. My gaze travels up the long, dark fabric-covered legs before me, over the bare, hard muscles and broad tattooed chest, until I meet a pair of amber eyes heated with an internal fury—eyes that I have loved all my life—eyes that used to look at me with joy, now filled with hate.