“Then why?” she persists. “Why hide me?”
“You know exactly why.” I hang my head. “I was only supposed to have you for two months. That was it.”
Her face softens. “Do you have real feelings for me?”
To answer her question, I bring her hand to my heart. “I’m in love with you, Ella.” The words are faint and vulnerable but not any less meaningful. “I won’t ever let you go. You have to know that.”
“I don’t want you to.” Tears spill over her eyelids as she offers me the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. “I’m in love with you too, Thorsen. So much.”
Leaning into her, I grab her face and kiss the hell out of her until we’re both breathless. When she kisses me back, I feel whole again, and I’m tempted to climb into her bed and fuck hospital rules by fucking her. But not like this. She needs to rest, and we still have something important to discuss. I pull away, reluctantly, and Ella looks up at me with a dazed expression.
“Your turn.” I brush her hair back from her face. “Tell me what happened today, gudinne. No more lies.”
She expels a shaky breath and sinks into her pillow as she stares up at the ceiling. “Lavinia found me at the sanctuary while I was waiting for Olivia. I’d fallen asleep, and when I woke up, she was there. Things got ugly. She’d doused me in lighter fluid, intent on finishing the job. We fought, and she poured the elixir down my throat, thinking it was poison.”
An edgy, twitchy feeling takes over me as my vision clouds. What Ella just described is too gruesome to comprehend. And right now, the beast in me is rattling his cage, demanding I let him out. His thoughts are loud, punctuated by violent images of torture and murder. I want them all to pay, and I won’t have peace until they do. It’s only when Ella reaches out to touch me that I realize I still haven’t spoken.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”
“You couldn’t have known.” She shrugs. “I’ve made excuses for them for so many years. But there’s nothing else to say. She’s psychotic.”
“Why did you lie to the doctor?” I ask.
“I didn’t want the police involved,” she says. “I hurt her too, and I was afraid she’d twist everything up to make it all my fault. At the time, I was pretty sure she was engaged to you, and I didn’t know what would happen if I had told the truth.”
“Do you really think I would allow you to be punished for something like that?” I can’t hide the hurt in my voice.
“I didn’t know what to think,” she answers softly. “All I knew is what she told me and what I’d seen in the article. You never brought it up with me, so the only conclusion I could make was that it must be true.”
“It’s my job to protect you,” I tell her. “And I can’t do that if we both have secrets. You’ll only ever have my honesty from now on, and I want the same from you.”
“Okay,” she agrees. “That’s what I want too.”
She finally looks at peace, and I don’t want to shatter that, but there’s one more thing I have to know.
“What about the whipping? Was that Lavinia too?”
“Yes.” She touches the scar on her face, absently. “That was her too.”
We sit in silence for a few moments, each of us lost in our own thoughts until I kiss her on the forehead and tell her to get some rest.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asks.
“After you go to sleep, but I’ll be back before you wake.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to finish this, gudinne. It isn’t your battle anymore.”
34
Thorsen
The manor is quiet and dim. Narcissa and her daughters have long since gone to bed. I’ve waited until the early hours of the morning to execute my plan, and for once, the darkness in my mind is a solid companion.
There is no sympathy in my heart for the woman who has coldly refused to acknowledge Ella as her own over the years. As for the spawn she raised to be just like her, they can burn in Hades for all I care. Ella has only ever known suffering at their hands, and tonight, the scales of justice will find balance again.
I work systematically, dousing each window and door frame with petrol. When I’m satisfied with my efforts, I retrieve the bottles I spent the past two hours fashioning. Some call them petrol bombs. Some call them Molotov cocktails. I call them retribution.
There isn’t much time for me to do this and get back to the car. While the bombs are incendiary, they aren’t explosive, but the glass shattering will make noise, and it won’t take long for the smoke alarms to activate. The women will realize as they try to escape, there’s only one way out, and it will be straight through the fiery birth canal of hell.
I’m not too concerned about the neighbors hearing the ruckus right away, considering the manor sits on a decent chunk of property. But I don’t plan on sticking around either.
One last time, I look over the house that should have been Ella’s home. I don’t know if she has any happy memories here, but I hope she will forgive me when they go up in flames. I begin my work on the left side of the house, smashing the first bottle through the largest picture window, along with the empty petrol tank for good measure. From there, I methodically work my way around to the back. The entire process probably only takes a couple of minutes, but the adrenaline flooding my body makes it feel like ten.
It isn’t long at all before the bloodcurdling screams unfurl inside as the women stir to life and realize what’s happening. But I don’t have the privilege of a VIP seat for this show. They will have to find their own way out.
Leaving them behind, I walk across the field and return to my car. From my driver’s seat, I watch as the first fiery shape leaps from the picture window, spilling onto the grass outside. Two more orange-flamed silhouettes follow, clinging to the earth as they mourn the loss of the only thing they hold dear. Their vanity.
When sirens sound in the distance, I slip back out onto the dark streets and drive to an abandoned petrol station. Parking behind it, I dispose of my shirt in the dumpster and wash myself quickly with a bottle of water and some hand soap. It’s already past four in the morning, and I need to get back to Ella.
The hospital is quiet when I arrive. Only a few nurses are hanging around, including the one I spoke with yesterday. She recognizes me right away and stops me on my way to Ella’s room.
“Did you leave?” she asks.
“I had to get some things for Ella.” I hold up the black bag in my hand.
“That’s so thoughtful of you.” She smiles, but I’m fairly certain she’s already thinking of ways to leak this to the media just as soon as Ella is discharged. Regardless, I don’t care about that right now. As long as I take her home with me, I don’t really care what the press says anymore.
When I get to Ella’s room, she’s still fast asleep and stays that way as I take a proper shower in her adjoining bathroom. Once I’m dressed and freshly shaved, the exhaustion hits me all at once, and I barely make it back to the chair beside her before my eyes fall shut, and I drift into the easiest slumber I’ve had since she left.