A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 1)

It was beautiful.

It blinked, and I saw that there were two sets of eyelids. The first looked like more of a sheen that slid over from the side. Then the human equivalent, top coming down and meeting the lower lid. The blink happened quickly, but the movement made me jerk.

“Finley?”

Dash’s voice rang down the hall. The golden eye flicked in that direction, as if the beast had heard.

A different sort of fear ate through the first, and I was all action again, launching forward to intercept Dash running into the living room.

“Stay back,” I barked, stopping in the center of the room to block his progress. I held out a hand. “Stay back! Stay out of sight.”

That gorgeous but awful golden eye slid back to me, taking me in, pushing past my barriers and taking my measure. I could feel it, as if he’d ripped out my soul and placed it on a scale.

The eye disappeared, and the body followed, dark scales moving beyond the window. In a moment, the moonlight came back, flaring through the darkness.

The sound of shattering glass made me flinch and lift my arm in front of my face. Something thunked against the wooden floor and skittered to my feet. My pocketknife.

I stared at it as though from a different body. A different world.

It had retrieved my pocketknife. Then it had tracked me here. It knew who I was and what I’d done. It must.

And now it had come to collect.

This might go very badly, everybody. Hang tight for the finale, I thought desperately, my whole body shaking.

I needed action. I needed to break out of these fear-induced shackles and use the energy for something useful. But what? What the hell was I going to do against a creature this size? Hiding seemed to be the only thing available to me right now. Hiding…or a distraction.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I didn’t give in to them. To save my family, I’d do anything, including running blindly toward the Forbidden Wood so it would chase me. So that my family could get out.

“What do I do?” Hannon asked quietly from the hall.

“Keep them safe,” I said in a hollow voice as I steeled my courage. I bent slowly and picked up the closed pocketknife with my free hand, avoiding the shards of glass on the floor. The light guttered out again, and there was that golden eye, taking my measure. Waiting, it seemed like. Offering me a choice. Give myself up or risk my family.

Choose.

With the window broken, I could now hear the beast. Its puffs of breath in the quiet night. The simmering growl deep in its chest.

It wasn’t a choice. Not for me. It was an eventuality.

“Gather the kids near the large window in your room,” I whispered to Hannon, a tear dripping from my eye. I slipped the pocketknife into the pocket of my pajama bottoms. “If it comes to it, you climb out with them and get them to safety. Otherwise, hunker down and stay put. I’ll distract the beast.”

“No, Finley.” Hannon stepped forward as if to grab me and haul me away to safety.

I threw out my hand. “Stay put, damn it! You have the everlass. Chartreuse in the village square knows how to make the nulling elixir better than anyone else besides me. Ask her for help. Keep Father alive. I’ll…” What would I do? What could I possibly do against a beast? “I will get through this somehow, and I will come back for you, okay? Keep them alive. All of them.”

The tears leaked down my cheeks. My words dripped with sorrow. We both knew I wouldn’t be coming back.

It was okay, though. He’d look after them better than I could. He was the family rock in the ongoing storm.

“I love you all,” I said, turning and stalking quickly for the door.

“What’s she doing?” Dash whined.

“No, Finley,” Sable said, all of them huddled at the entrance to the dark hall.

I removed the wood blocking the door. I paused but didn’t look back. I wanted to go out a hero. I didn’t want the last image they had of me to be of a scared girl headed out to meet her fate.

4

After closing the door behind me, I took off at a sprint. I’d be damned if the beast would kill me in front of my family.

I didn’t take the path through the neighbor’s yard, either. It might barrel after me and take them and their house out in the crossfire. Instead, I took the lane down the center of the houses and around.

The beast’s roar sliced through me, making me stumble, commanding me to stop. The force nearly locked up my legs and turned my body to wood. The effect tickled a memory, but my bleating panic wiped it from my mind.