Dishonorable

I was always too late.

This time, the house was different.

This time, there were no sirens, only the sound of fire and destruction in an already destroyed house. This time, when I reached the bedroom and pounded on the door and heard her inside, I knew it was too late, knew what I heard was her dying.

And this time, when I broke the door down, it wasn’t my mother’s charred body I found. It wasn’t hers at all.

I shot up in bed, breathing hard, sweat covering me. My eyelids flew open, banishing sleep, leaving only the carcass of this version of the nightmare that had been repeating for six years. I looked over at Sofia beside me, who somehow still slept.

Would she be the Sleeping Beauty who would turn to ash this time?

Would it be me to strike that match and set the fire?

Who else but me who would destroy her?

I told her I wouldn’t be a beast to her, but wasn’t that my intention all along? Wasn’t her destruction central to this plot of vengeance? Wasn’t it in motion now, fully in play, after that change her grandfather had made to the contract?

I was a monster. I knew that. But to destroy her?

Her?

While my mind warred, she lay sleeping, oblivious and unconscious beside me. She held such a strange power over me.

Why couldn’t I hate her? I was supposed to fucking hate her.

I got out of bed, angry and irritated and frustrated as fuck, and went downstairs, through the kitchen, taking old faithful—my favorite bottle of whiskey—with me. I didn’t bother with a glass. Didn’t need one. I knew where I was going. To that hated place.

Still no fucking lock on the door. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t chance not being able to get in there.

I opened the cellar door, the smell already taking me back years and years.

Was this a twisted sanctuary of sorts? A tangled, dark thing, one I couldn’t escape, one I dreaded that drew me back time and time again?

I drank gulps of whiskey as I made my way down the stairs. No lights tonight. I didn’t need them. I knew every inch of the place, and the two small windows at the top of the one wall let in enough moonlight. It fucking highlighted the whipping post, as if it were a spotlight shining on the thing.

I drew back the cover of the first table, letting it fall to the ground. A spider crawled away, its long legs delicate on the worn leather. Whips lay all coiled as if waiting for their turn. They wouldn’t get it, though. Never again. Not on my back.

For a long time, I stood looking at them. I knew the feel of each one and flinched at the remembered pain.

The whippings only took place at night. Always after I’d gone to bed. Maybe I was still conditioned to wake up at the same time as those nights. I think he liked it. Liked knowing I slept with dread, never sure if I’d be shaken awake and dragged to this place to be punished for sins I didn’t even know. I don’t even think it mattered to him whether or not I’d done anything. Whether or not any of us had.

I drank again, swallowing half the bottle this time. My throat burned, but I didn’t care. I needed it. I needed that burn as I reached out and touched the long fine leather of one of the whips, the one he’d used the most. Without thinking, I wrapped my hand around the braided handle. It was worn, the sweat from his exertion a part of the thing now. Lubricating it. Keeping it supple even years later.

When I drew my arm back, I watched, transfixed, as leather slowly uncurled like a snake. I snapped my arm back, cracking it on the floor, flinching with the sound, a thing I could never forget. Memory made my back tense in its attempt to protect itself.

I drank more of the whiskey. Then, keeping the bottle at my side, I turned my attention to the whipping post. It, too, was worn in places. The carvings were softened where flesh had hugged it time and time again. I drew my arm back and struck it, heard the sound of leather wrapping around wood, remembered how the tail would circle back as if each stroke would count for two.

As if the leather itself were greedy. Ruthless.

But what did it feel like for him? To stand here behind me, or behind her, hearing our cries, seeing our pain, watching blood slide down our backs. What did he feel to stand here and hold all that power? To be master of our pain? What?

“Raphael.”

Her voice broke the silence of the room. Disrupted the chaos of my mind.

I knew she’d come.

“I want to know,” I said, looking at the worn wood, as if she’d heard my thoughts, and I was just continuing the conversation. “I want to know what it felt like for him.”