Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Face falling into an unreadable mask, his head hangs forward, and I have no idea what’s going to happen now that we have all this shit out in the open. All truths stained with lies.

Christopher didn’t kill our little girl. I know that. He made a choice that led us to that end, as did I.

We both should have known better than to believe we were untouchable.

Turning, he disappears into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him silently. It’s only me left standing in the middle of our ashes. All our words, the looks, the touches…everything floats around me like lava, and I wish to God that I was burning. That somehow, I wasn’t lost in the middle of purgatory.

I’m waiting and waiting for the oxygen in my tank to run out and to be swallowed entirely by anything other than uncertainty.

What happens now that I’ve said too much and I can’t take it back?

I’m on the brink of falling apart, and still I’m desperately trying to hold on in case there’s hope. In case there’s anything left that’s salvageable.

I only wanted to make things right.

You well and truly fucked that up too, didn’t you?

The sharp voice in my head bites back without pause. Always the first to drop me in the mire.

Retreating back to the sitting area, I pick up Christopher’s jacket. It’s the only thing in sight and reach. There aren’t any blankets or throws lying around, and Christopher’s always been impeccably house-trained thanks to his boarding school discipline.

Threading my arms through the sleeves, I can’t help the shiver that wracks me as the spicy scent of sweat and blood fills my senses. Almost the exact same scent from that night.

My stomach twists and all the hateful and desperate brine filling me stings my eyes. I feel it burn down my cheeks raining to the ground in thick suffocated sobs that I barely recognise as my own.

Fear is a strange thing. It can take on so many faces. It can be so many things. I’ve never felt this one before. It’s rancid and it eats away at all little vestiges of light left in me, rotting its way into my soul, and I can’t stop it.

My soul is screaming and yelling, pleading, and calling out to his, but there’s no reply.

This fear is insidious. It reaps all our good memories, bringing them all back to me even when he never comes. Like a creeping weed, it twists and knots around all the goodness left, and it withers it into nothingness.

I don’t want to be nothing.

Taking in what’s left of the dress, I pull Christopher’s jacket tighter around me, tugging the collar up so his scent doesn’t get lost in the smell of the fire.

How did we get so dark?

How have we ended up here?

We’re on opposite ends of the same side, fighting the same war. We want the same things, but we’re so far apart that we’re fighting each other. Our energy is being depleted by our own battle.

It’s my fault.

The moment I agreed to do what our fathers asked, I started this.

“If Christopher steps out of line, everything will be lost,” my father said in the same breath he told me my baby was gone.

“He’s hard-headed. All he’ll see is revenge.” Francis hammered their point home.

“We can’t have that.” The Foreign Secretary’s words blunt as ever. “He’s not a law unto himself.”

Now that I think of Francis’ words, I realise that’s all I was thinking about too. I wanted to hurt the people that hurt me. Even if it didn’t bring our daughter back, I needed to see their demise. And he wouldn’t let me. Christopher would have protected me from all of it.

I should’ve let him.

Our fathers were wrong—everything wouldn’t be lost. I would have my husband. Everything else wouldn’t matter.

They wafted the flames, and I let them consume me. And the thing about fire is that it keeps going unless you stop it. If you don’t, it gets stronger. Out of control.