Era of Greed [✔ COMPLETE] (Chrim Chronicles #1)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Farren

The cracks in the walls reminded me of mouths and teeth, and the bursts of eyes. I could see through some of the cracks, see the foundation behind it, and caught glimpses of wood and white. What used to be bookshelves were now loose planks scattered on the floor. I left a trail as I shoved my feet through the debris, pages of ripped books and chunks of rock and wall and pieces of glass. Through a small gap in the roof a rope of vine had started to grow, its green strings crawling inside on the crumbling grey walls. It was hard for me to grasp that it had only been last month since we were attacked. Once, this mansion had looked like a French brothel, tacky as the damned Moreau's themselves. Then we renovated it and replaced all the hideous gold and red with warm shades of brown and green. Now it looked like a ghost house, its final renovation.

I bent to pick up the painting of the sad fiddler, leaning upside down against a wall. To my surprise, it had been left nearly intact with only a corner of its white wooden frame being chopped off. I remembered stealing it from the orange wing. 

Torill appeared next to me. "The one thing I always wished would be destroyed..."

"Yeah, well..." I held the painting in front of our faces and squinted at it. "Apparently fate does have a taste for art."

"Art? It's fucking creepy."

"You're scared of clowns? Tell me you're fucking kidding me."

"And sharks. Clowns and sharks."

I kicked a broken pot away which used to be home to a cactus. "Why sharks?"

"Because when you meet sharks, you're screwed." Torill walked over to the smashed window and peered outside. "With other things you still have a chance. With an approaching truck, you can leap aside. With a gun pointed at you, you can kick or duck or whatever. With a bear or a tiger, you can climb a tree or kill it with a weapon. You probably won't get those chances, but – how small they may be – they're still there. In the water, however, none of those chances are there. You're naked, defenseless. You can't run or outswim the shark, you can't kill it, all you can do is pray it isn't hungry, pray it'll turn around and leave." She scoffed and half turned to face me. "I can't imagine the shark turning around and leaving, can you? It's just you in your bikini and that big mean shark."

I moved next to her and peered at the crashing waves beyond the grass and iron gates. "I'm never going swimming again."

"What are your fears?"

"Well, sharks, thanks to you."
             "I'm serious."

It took a long moment before I answered, not because I hesitated, but because I did not know. When I finally knew, I remained silent because I could not decide which lie to tell her. I saw her looking at me from the corner of my eye and decided to tell the truth. "Insanity."