[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]
He had hunted me, captured me, and locked me in a tower.
Season 3 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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While in RISING, Tabitha discovers something peculiar that may assist Nelle in her plan to escape the...
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When I strode into the family room, my aunt didn't acknowledge me. No one did. The room was deathly silent. I glanced around and realized why. Most of the candles had been extinguished and darkness enshrouded Jett.
My brother's connection to our mother kept us tethered to our purpose. It reminded us of what was at stake. What she was enduring all these years was reflected by him.
Worry and fear flooded my chest like bracken water surging on a high tide. Would she survive being tortured tonight?
"How bad?" my aunt asked quietly. She sat stiff-backed in an armchair, and her features were strained as she stared down at her fingers, spread wide across the leather armrest gleaming with the barest of candlelight.
Crushing guilt pressed down on me so hard I could barely draw a breath, or move my legs. This was what I'd done to my family with the choice I'd made years ago by saving Nelle. All my fault.
Ferne knelt on the ground beside the couch, her blue skirt pooling around her legs. She had laced a hand through Jett's, and he squeezed hers tight. He was lying down on the couch, one knee bent, the other leg outstretched. He had an arm across his face to hide himself from us. His fingers were bunched into a fist and were pulsing in and out as he clenched, then slightly released, only to repeat the motion, I suspected, in time with the waves of pain washing through him.
"Bad," he said through gritted teeth.
In some ways, I thought, Jett considered this a form of punishment himself and a relief of sorts. Her pain meant she was alive. But no amount of coaxing, bribing or even yelling, would convince him to take some pain relief. He endured the torture and suffering along with her. I had done my penance. This was his.
I went straight for the drinks cabinet, an art-deco affair, found a bottle of Glenfiddich, and poured the amber liquid into a crystal tumbler. I slammed it back, heat stinging the back of my throat, poured another. The bottleneck compressed in my hand beneath the force I used, the merest crackle, reminding me to relax my grip and take and deep breath.
Shit, shit, shit—
None of us knew what was being done to her, how long it would last, or even if she'd survive.
I was placing the whiskey bottle back down on the cabinet when I heard the whisper of material and guessed my sister had risen from where she sat, then her footsteps crossing stone, then rugs, and back to stone again as she approached. She faced me, leaning a hip against the wood and glass front paneling of the drinks cabinet.
She reached her fingers out, feeling for the tumbler in my hand, and stole it from me.
"Ferne," I warned.
She held up a finger, stopping me, and said in a low whisper, "Don't care, Gray. Tonight..." A pause while she sighed through her nose. "It's gone straight to hells." She arched her neck back and swallowed the 80-year-old whiskey. Her face scrunched up with disgust. She hissed through her teeth, shaking her head, her black hair shimmering around her shoulders. "Ugh."
