“No,” I repeated against her hand. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. I couldn’t stop her. Olivia was broken and harmed, despite my efforts. I was unworthy.

  My tears drenched her fingers clasped to my mouth as she moved. She licked the blood dripping down my neck.

  I couldn’t move, or Olivia would die. I couldn’t move, or I would die. I couldn’t move.

  She sighed as she sank above me. My stomach twisted as I pierced my lip with my teeth, forcing myself to stay beneath the hands that had hurt the one I love. She found euphoria and I found hell.

  I wasn’t me. I was William. I couldn’t survive this. How had he?

  ✷✴✷

  I ran my hands over my face, alone in the room. Empty of everything. Hope. Life. Meaning. Self. Sanity. I don’t want it anyway.

  My eyes ran dry. I thought nothing could ever hurt me enough to make me cry again. She left the room with promises of Olivia’s safety as long as I stayed hidden for the rest of the night. I realized my complete surrender was her plan all along when she had forced Olivia's presence.

  I couldn’t be in the blood-colored room. I couldn’t be in the room full of disease. I couldn’t be.

  I needed to make sure she kept her promise.

  I stood and righted my clothes, glad I hadn’t eaten. It wouldn’t have stayed down through the torture. I ran from the room, halting as I blinked at an angel on the stairs. Elizabeth’s face sprouted fresh blood. What did I take? Not enough.

  Elizabeth spun as she saw me. Her eyes were glazed with fury. “I told you, stay hidden.”

  “Going,” I muttered. I shoved past the men in uniform hunched menacingly at Elizabeth’s attacker. I yanked the red-haired woman who reminded me too much of Anya. Anya, who I’d never see again. Anya, who had tried.

  I shoved through the servants, and they backed away from my snarl. The woman freed herself at the bottom of the steps.

  My eyes caught a thin trail of blood on the floor leading from the library through the kitchen. I didn’t care to meet the curious eyes of the bystanders as they took in my appearance.

  I charged past them, into the too bright, white hall. I stopped and steadied against a door with a smear of blood. I cracked it open, my heart pounding.

  Beau, the malignant pain in Olivia’s side, sat on a servant’s bed with a towel to his blood-streaked face. It was strange, the pull of a genuine smile across my lips.

  Elizabeth underestimated her. I closed the door quietly, having at least an ounce of faith that she had escaped.

  I rose up the stairs, stumbling. The door was locked.

  Nothing could keep me from my sanctuary.

  Chapter 45- Reduction

  Hugh

  I barely kept my balance as the door fell open, the frame splintering beneath my shoulder. I had to believe Olivia was safe and left as I told her to. I clung desperately to the faith that for once the obstinate woman listened.

  I kicked through the debris covering most of the room and paused as I realized the condition of the attic. No, this wasn’t me. I wasn’t me.

  I hadn’t left the empty liquor bottles, torn, ink smudged pages, and various piles of trash around. I wasn’t the one who lifted an open whiskey bottle from the coffee table to my lips. I wasn’t the one who swallowed deeply, revelled in the burn, and prayed for it to cleanse me.

  I couldn’t digest what had happened but couldn’t forget her cold hands against me. Her voice was the usual mimic of everything I loved but now made me despise myself. No, not me. William.

  I was the one who lifted the folded page from the couch and spilled the contents on the table. I was the one who fought to free my mind as I inhaled, not caring to cut the clumps or draw a line.

  I pulled it in deeper and deeper until my lungs couldn’t expand anymore, relishing in the burn and pain. There was barely a pinch left on the table. My mind moaned with pleasure as my body tightened.

  I was the one who thought about the gun hidden beneath the couch and fantasized what the gunpowder would taste like. My fingers twitched at the thought of the cold metal. As I reached my mind hissed with pleasure, but my heart intervened with her name.

  Olivia.

  I huffed and sunk my head into my hands. Her image flashed from a million different memories. I wanted to forget. I wanted to forget this house and my life. I couldn’t be me. I couldn't survive being me.

  Did Hugh ever exist? Was I born specifically to become William? If that was true, why were my eyes blue? To give Elizabeth a reason to punish me.

  She once threatened to dig them out of my face with a spoon. She lunged and I finally hit her back. She eventually calmed and came close to an apology, “I’d hate to ever mar your pretty face.”

  Pretty face. William was nothing more than a pretty face. I was simply a doll, a face, and hair that Elizabeth refused to allow me to tame. The thought made me run my fingers through the curls, trying futilely to pull them from my head. A bullet would help.

  My heart thrashed as I lit a joint. I desperately wanted to calm and enjoy the high. I couldn’t end my painful existence after having pulled Olivia from the water myself. Was William the hypocrite in my head or was I?

  I tore the desecrated shirt from my body. I was staring at the busted door to the attic when I felt it.

  The intensity of her filled the air. I didn’t have to look. I could feel her eyes on me from the single clean corner of the room, Mom’s area. She hadn’t listened. Damn her Aquarian pride.

  My mind began to laugh even as I cursed. Rage burned through me, uncontrollable and unyielding. She didn’t understand the other-worldly danger of this place even after she herself had survived it. Survived me.

  I lifted the whiskey bottle and flung it across the room. Glass and amber liquid sprayed against the wall and floor. “Why are you here?” I screamed, turning to her.

  She hid behind the half wall. On her hands and knees, eyes wide with reverence and fear, she stared up at me. She tried to push away but I charged. I lifted her by her arms and tried to shake sense into her until her teeth rattled.

  I dropped her as something heavy fell on my foot. I looked down to the black, leather-bound book.

  Numbness moved from my face throughout my body. We both stared at what I knew to be his diary. Elizabeth asked me so many times where I hid it and described it to me in fine detail until I thought I knew what the words must say.

  Olivia bent and retrieved it from the floor. She held it out to me with shaking hands, words stuck to her tongue. I could see the way her thoughts mangled her. I stepped back, away from it. Away from her.

  Her eyes filled with glorious fury.

  I couldn’t see the book. I could see nothing but her. The room became tinted in the crimson caving my vision.

  She stood, ethereal, her alabaster skin glowing against freshly forming bruises. Perfect handprints were manifesting in places meant to be cherished. Her bare feet took me back in time. Her dress was torn, limp, and hanging. I wanted to tear apart the man that had ripped into her with my own teeth.

  Her silver eyes burned into my face as she looked over my own marks but my reaction to the diary sparked her indignation. The book dropped to her side as her eyes flashed.

  The voice still haunting my dreams lashed at me, “You know?” Her being trembled with anger as she fought for control.

  Magnificent.

  I knew what she was asking. My eyes met the unholy bible at her thigh. I nodded, my head spinning and screaming words I didn’t recognize. “I’m the spawn of evil incarnate.” And that makes me your villain.

  “You know and still you stay with her?”

  There was no pain in her voice, but I could taste her reluctance, distaste, and rejection.

  “Not by choice,” I admitted, unable to hold my own tongue. My hands flew to my mouth, trying to close it as everything fought to release. “I haven’t touched you since. I haven’t touched you. I haven’t told you. I swore I’d never tell you. I have to protect you.” The muttering of my crazed mind wouldn’t halt. I wanted to ram my head against the wall until I saw black simply to shut myself up.

  She stepped forward, confusion in her eyes and on her lips as she spoke my name. “Hugh.”

  Hugh. To her, I was Hugh. To her, I was worthy. Of her, I had never been. I could never be. I had saved her so often, trying to be good enough. No one could save me.

  She watched me with eyes narrowed in worry. I cringed and turned my face away as her hand lifted though I craved her touch. My thoughts began to spill like the words on the pages scattered at our feet.

  “I’ve prayed a million times to be able to see you the way I’m supposed to, but each time I’ve been unanswered. I walked away from my life. From you.” Her eyes fell as she fought to argue.

  Her focus was captured by the tattoo I wore from wrist to heart- ivy. Her eyes widened, her lips shaking with realizations she couldn’t fully conceive.

  I couldn’t stop my hands as they lifted her, too roughly, wrapping around her back. The kiss I laid on her lips was different than the force I had received. I wanted to die as her fingers fluttered against my throat with her sigh as I held her.

  “I love you,” I whispered against her lips.

  She pulled back to meet my gaze. Her hand lifted and pushed a curl from my eyes, “Come home.”

  If she didn’t escape and Elizabeth caught her again, there would be nothing I could do to save her. There would be nothing standing between me and the gun.

  My heart galloped at the thought of home as my mind laughed mockingly at the pathetic hope. “You don’t get it, Olivia. I can never be free.” Not as long as you live. I gestured at her shredded dress. A handprint burned against the flesh across her ribs. My stomach twisted with self-loathing. “This is what happens when I disobey.”

  I dropped her back to the ground gently. The tears in her eyes annihilated me more than Elizabeth ever could. I turned from her, seeking an escape from my heart. I slammed the door to the bathroom, suffocating.

  I gripped the sink, struggling to simply continue standing. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I saw the face that wasn’t mine. I saw the man glaring, hateful, from the glass. His hair fell, masking my eyes. William.

  I groped in the cabinet for shears. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe.

  Nothing made sense but for my urge to escape- my life, my imprisonment, and the day that had turned into a nightmare with an angel's touch.

  If I died, Elizabeth would surely punish Olivia but if I wasn’t William, she would punish me.

  I gripped the curls, ignoring the pain and blood when the blades missed their target. The more I removed of Elizabeth’s ebony trophies, the more relief I felt. The room began to spin as I littered the floor with the despised curls.

  I opened my eyes and saw the blue yet I could still see him. It’s never going to be enough.

  His reflection shattered beneath my knuckles as my lungs constricted. I stared down at the fresh blood streaming from my hand into the sink as I lifted the long shard of mirror.

  If I had to wear his face, I’d make it my own.

  Chapter 46- Garnish

  I rushed to the bathroom at the sound of a crash. My heart pounded in my head as my breath shook through my lips. Afraid to move too fast and scare him, I cracked the door open.

  I looked at his bare, scarred back as he bent over the sink. He stared down into a mess of shattered mirror. His knuckles gripped the porcelain as blood trickled to pool on the floor.

  His curls lay mutilated across the tile with scissors open at his feet. My lungs squeezed as he lifted a large piece of the mirror. Scarlet sprouted from his palm around the edges but he didn't flinch.

  My heart erupted at the sight of the room. There was so much chaos.

  “Hugh?” I tried to call to him but my voice croaked out in a quiet whisper.

  I could feel his mind wrenching and cracking. He couldn't hear me through the pounding, destructive mania.

  His hand lifted. Blue eyes flashed as he peered into the bloody fragment, too close to his face. Before I could react, the shard of mirror pierced and tore.

  I slammed the door open and flew to catch him as he crumbled. His cries rang out distorted and feral.

  I crashed to the tile. My hands trembled as I tried to close the gash gaping from the corner of his jaw to the bridge of his nose. My stomach heaved as I struggled to hold him together. He quaked with violent sobs and desperation.

  I grasped his hand as it lifted again, still wielding the weapon. Tears mingled with blood as my pleas became lost to the void of his erratic mind.

  “No, stop, please,” I begged, twisting my body until my back was against him.

  My elbows locked for leverage but it was useless. I watched in horror as the shimmering corner pierced his skin. I couldn’t stop him as blood blossomed along the slow, jagged cut.

  We had fallen too far, maiming ourselves and our souls for survival.

  I shoved my knees between his wrist and my chest, finally freeing his face from the mirror. He slumped against my shoulder and clung to me.

  I gasped in relief and grief as the fragment of mirror shattered against the floor. “I’m so sorry,” I pleaded into his hand as his blood seeped across the room.

  He tightened against me. His moans changed from the agony of his body to something deeper and unrecognizable. I spun, terrified of the new sound.

  He fell back as his legs straightened beneath me. I panicked as he locked and became rigid. The blue of his eyes flashed momentarily before the whites dominated. His groan quieted and I foolishly thought it was over.

  I fought to contain his body as convulsions shook him. His skull crushed my hands as I protected his head. I screamed for help, but no one could hear us.

  I stared down at his face as he stilled. He looked dead. I scrambled to my knees, ready to start compressions. His gasp shook softly as his limbs softened.

  I buried my face in his bloody throat, sick with grief and guilt.

  I grasped his arms as he curled around me and the soft moans of pain returned, muffled by my hair. His mind was exhausted and his body limp. His blood poured and drenched me. I cradled his head in my lap and wished I could save him from his pain.

  We sat on the floor of the bathroom as his arms crushed me against him while he slept. He held us together and kept me from falling apart with him.

  I lifted his face, checking his injuries. Everything was swollen, slick with red, and his left eye was filling with blood from the second assault.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered again, wishing it could be enough.

  I laid him on the bed of curls against the cold tile and grabbed the scissors from beneath him. I shredded the bottom of my dress and tied the scraps around his head in flimsy tourniquets of black.

  I kissed his bloodstained lips and mourned the love I stole from him. For the majority of our pain, my pride was to blame.

  I startled at the sound of frantic feet running up the spiral stairs. Anya’s voice called to me.

  I looked up to see the door fall with a deafening crash to the floor as she stood on the threshold. “What the fuck,” she muttered, staring down at it before lifting her eyes to take in the misery.

  I scrambled, slipping on blood and hair, and ran to her. Her eyes widened as she took in the state of my hair, skin, and dress. She paled as she reached out.

  “Where are you hurt?” she stammered, frantically searching for the source of so much crimson.

  “Help us,” was all I could say, grabbing her wrist, leaving a bloody hand imprinted on her, and dragging her into the bathroom. “We have to get him out. We have to get him home.”

  There was no other conceivable way to protect him. I needed to defend him. I was desperate to heal him.

  Agony sparkled in her eyes as she stared at her fallen, beloved family. “Did he do this to himself?” she asked as her shoes slid on powdered mirror.

  I nodded, afraid to speak. She dug into her cleavage and pulled out her phone. “I’ll call Dimitri to come get us.”

  “You can drive, we’ll take Hugh’s car. It’ll be faster. We need to leave before Elizabeth comes looking for him. Please,” I begged again.

  Her eyes steeled at the mention of Elizabeth. “She drove him to this, dammit.”

  I shook my head in shame and guilt. “No, I did.”

  Anya was silent as she watched my sanity shred with Hugh’s. Determined, she pushed her hands beneath his slender frame. “Help me lift him.” I nodded, reprimanding myself. I could crumble when he was safe.

  Together we hoisted up him from under his arms. She held his chest to steady us as I bared his weight, my knees trying to buckle.

  His quiet groan stabled me, reminding me he was there and echoing the reason for our purpose. Anya positioned herself under his other side. Together we pulled, gentle.

  His head lolled onto mine as we dared the winding stairs. Each step was timid, twisting, and threatening as we descended.

  Anya huffed in frustration at our slow speed and grunted in determination. I siphoned strength and stubbornness from her until we prevailed.

  We stepped into the hall. An unconscious figure slumped against the wall. I glanced at Anya. She shrugged sheepishly. “At least he led me to you,” she defended.

  I wanted to spit on Beau as we shifted Hugh over him. “This way,” I nodded towards the garage.

  I helped lean Hugh against the wall before rushing into the open room. I ignored the voices of valet and the engines of late coming guests.

  It was strange to see the sun against the lavender streaked sky. It felt as though we were trapped for days. People remained unaware of the horror surrounding them as they voluntarily swept into the darkness of the mansion. I ran to the employee hook-board and fumbled for his keys.

  I found his set and hit the button to follow the sound of his alarm. I rushed back to Anya and helped support Hugh.

  The valets began to shout. I threw open the backseat of the car and slid in before Anya spilled Hugh across my lap.

  She jumped behind the wheel and turned over the engine. Two men raced to stand in front the car, but she wouldn’t be stopped. She revved towards them and they scrambled away, screaming obscenities as Anya grinned back at me.

 

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