“Bella,” Mae said cautiously, after many seconds. “Come here.” I blinked away the blur from my eyes and saw her gesture to a spare chair around her table.
My stomach lurched.
I did not know what to do here in this place. I did not know how to act around my sisters after so long apart. The feeling almost destroyed me as much as any schooling from Brother Gabriel had ever done. Because these women were my lifeline, they were my safety. They were all I ever used to think about when I feared I could not cope. I had lived for them.
But now I was confused. My head was a thick fog. And I . . . I . . .
I wanted Rider. I needed Rider.
My hand burned as if I could feel his comforting fingers threading through my own. If I concentrated hard enough I could almost hear his gruff voice whisper “Harmony” through the thick stone wall. His voice echoed in my head, and my heart started to beat in the regular rhythm it had lost when he was taken away. When I was with him, my lungs allowed me to breathe. I felt whole. I did not feel lost.
I felt . . . complete.
I closed my eyes, and it did not surprise me that my mind transported me back to the small cellblock in New Zion. I found it ironic really. I had spent my entire life yearning to be free. Yet I knew that the only time I had ever felt anything remotely close to freedom was in the captivity of those four stone walls, with that strong, safe hand wrapped in mine.
Mae cleared her throat, and I opened my eyes. I sat down on the chair she held out for me and almost broke as she leaned down and pressed a kiss to my head. She sat down, the four Cursed Sisters reunited in this wooden almost-paradise.
“This housing . . . ” I did not know how to explain the strangeness I felt that my sister lived in such a place.
Mae blushed, but I knew it was not in pride. She was embarrassed by this. I used to know my sister. I used to know each of these girls by heart—every expression, every soft-spoken word. Now, I stood on the outside, looking in on their newly found, and much-deserved, happiness.
“It is too much,” Mae said as I cast my eyes around her home. I knew by Maddie’s and Lilah’s faces that they must live in homes just as grand.
“Never be embarrassed for being free,” I said facing them again. I meant every word. “Freedom never comes without sacrifice. Be joyous in the reward. I am sure you deserve all of this.”
“Bella,” Lilah said. “What happened?” Her expression was pained. I immediately covered her hand with my own, the maternal role I had always adopted with Lilah pushing to the surface. “I came to you . . . when Mae had left. I came to sit with you at the punishment cell, even though you had passed.” She sucked in a breath. “But you were gone.” Her face contorted in pain. Maddie took Lilah’s other hand, and I knew then that Maddie had been there too. She had come to say goodbye too. “I thought they had disposed of your body already. But . . . but I was clearly wrong . . . you were alive and I never came to your aid.”
“You did not know. How were you to ever believe my heart was still beating?”
“Because I should have checked somehow,” Mae spoke up. “I should never have assumed you had passed. I should have somehow got into that cell and tried to save you.”
“You cannot . . . ” I whispered. “You cannot blame any of this on yourself.” Heat and anger flooded my chest when I remembered Brother Gabriel, when I remembered that night.
“Bella,” Maddie said softly, and I looked into her big green eyes.
“It was all him,” I said through gritted teeth, shaking my head as I tried to banish the memory of that final meeting from my mind. But I could not.
“Tell us,” Mae pleaded. So I closed my eyes. I closed my eyes and took myself back to the days I vowed I would never relive again. Because it hurt too much.
But I would do it for my sisters.
We were back together, and everything had to be explained . . .
*****
I blinked into the darkness of Brother Gabriel’s room. My body felt like a dead weight. My cheek throbbed and my head pounded so much that I felt it all the way to my skull.
I tried to shift my legs, but had to stifle a choked moan. The pain in my head was nothing to the agony between my legs. I inhaled through my nose as I endeavored to breathe through the pain.
It was no use, the agony was too great. I slowly brought my arm down to my bare thighs. I fought back nausea when I felt warm liquid on my skin, at the apex of my thighs—blood.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. The salt from the droplets stung my cut skin, but I let the tears fall. I was tired. I was so, so tired. And not just of the pain that Brother Gabriel had brought me over the past few weeks. But of it all.