The Unholy Bride: In God's Name, I Kill

Chapter 22: Six Digits

Every time I exhaled, the flame of the candle in my hand flickered and cast dancing shadows across Camila's face. After Roman and Enzo left to bury Catherine and Mason, I hurried down to the dungeon to pay her a visit.

"Your daughter is dead. I'm sorry," I whispered, then quickly clarified, "I'm not apologizing to her—I'm apologizing to you, Camila."

Catherine was her little girl, just like Scarlette to Thia. I knew how much it hurt to lose them—it was the deepest pain a mother could endure. I understood that because I had seen it in my own mother's eyes when she lost me—not to death, but to a choice. She lost the innocent little girl I once was because I chose to become someone else, someone I needed to be to survive.

"Rule no. 2: Do not let the daughters of the family know," I blurted out, reciting one of the two sacred rules of the Steel family's traditional sacrifice. I moved the candle in my hand, its light casting eerie shadows across the women imprisoned here. "You were all daughters—not of this family, but of your own. Once cherished like treasures, now offered as sacrifices."

I slowly sauntered over, studying their faces one by one, searching for any hint of familiarity. But since it had been so long since they were murdered, they had become unrecognizable.

"And I refused to be one of you," I added to what I had said earlier, my voice firm with determination as my eyes flickered in the glow of the only light I had tonight. "I'm not a sacrifice. I am a woman; monsters should kneel before me."

After delivering my speech, I began to prepare to leave, but I froze when my eyes landed on the demonic prayers scribbled across one of my woman's wedding dress. I stalked closer to read it, but instead, my attention was drawn to the dirt I hadn't noticed during my first two visits. Tilting my head, I realized it was soil—some of it mud, seeping into the fabric over time and leaving behind dark stains. I tried to scrape it with my fingernails, but it was useless. All it did was leave dirt under my nail beds.

Bringing my hand closer to my face, I examined it, frowning as the type of soil felt strangely familiar—like it was used for something very specific, but I couldn't quite place what. I stared at it for what felt like an eternity, doing my best to figure out what kind of soil it was, but I couldn't make it out. So in the end, I decided to shrug it off and leave the dungeon.

I was cautious with every step on my way back to the mansion, worried that Roman and Enzo might already be home and that my brief disappearance would raise suspicion. But my heart nearly leapt out of my chest and a shriek escaped my throat when a rabbit suddenly hopped right in front of me in the mansion's garden.

Holding my chest to steady the frantic beating of my heart, I stared at the rabbit, which had stopped right in front of the garden lantern, nestled into the soft earth. It was grooming itself, licking its paw and ears. I found a bit of entertainment in its movements, so I lingered, watching it for a while—that was when I noticed its shadow on the mansion walls. This animal was only the size of my hand, yet its shadow made it appear as though a beast had wandered into the garden.

Following the shadow with my eyes, I realized it stretched all the way up to the third floor of the mansion. There was nothing special about it and I had more important matters to attend to than this rabbit's shadow, so I had made up my mind to continue on my path when, instinctively, I halted, as though a puzzle had just fallen into place in my mind.

My gaze swiftly shifted back up to the wall, landing on a window... Camila's window. The semi-sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze, the moment pulling me back to the time when I first read her diary.

That night, as I slept, I saw the monster he had spoken of. It was a massive shadow, looming outside our bedroom window, its horns sharp and its long tail writhing in the darkness.