Embers: An Inferno Conclusion, page 7
As we walk down the side of the house, I can see the oubliette coming into view and I hesitate in my next steps.
“What’s wrong, kid? Think I’m gonna put you down there again?” he asks with a click of his tongue against his teeth. “You haven’t done anything to go back down there, have you? You hiding something from me, Darby?”
“No,” I say softly while the thought of Mom’s letter burns a whole through my chest. If he ever finds that, he’ll become so terribly angry that I didn’t immediately turn it over for confiscation. But it’s not his to take or read—it was meant for me, and it’s mine now. God knows how many years it spent down in that fucking hole waiting for me and had I not had the same instinct that Mom had to save my child, I never would have found it.
Thanks, Mom, I think in silent gratitude.
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Come on,” he says, giving my hand a gentle, but firm tug.
I nod and let him lead me to hell on Earth and try my best not to cry.
“Well, you already know how Jocelyn went, but did you know that I would bring you to visit her? She was my favorite girl for a long time, you know. That was until I tasted your sweet cherry for the first time. I got hooked on you after that. I know it sounds really shitty to say, but after you started loving me the way a daughter should love her father, I kind of forgot about her. I only ever really thought about her on the nights you were on your period and refusing to fuck, or when the kids got too close to the well. Other than that, I can’t say she’s ever crossed my mind,” he finishes with a shrug as we finally reach the oubliette.
I wait patiently as he leans down and begins to lift the wooden grate off when I do something incredibly brave. Something I never would have thought possible until I read Mom’s letter.
I shove him as hard as I can and because he’s taken off guard, he stumbles and falls. But not into the fucking oubliette like I intended him to. Thinking fast, I drop down on him using the weight of my body, which although not much, it’s sufficient enough to pin him in place for the moment. I have to move fast because when he gets angry, he’ll be able to overpower me easily.
I reach for the ladder and tie one of the rungs around his throat, then pull him up to his knees.
Dad is dazed, confused, and looks like he’ll kill me the moment he gets a chance, once the direness of his situation finally settles in. I use all the strength I can muster to lift half of his body over the oubliette and dig a knee into his gut, holding him in place.
“Where are my children?” I scream at him.
A sinister smile takes over his face as his eyes darken. He turns his head as much as he can and spits onto the grass before turning his eyes back to mine.
“I swear to God, I’ll throw you over the side and let you strangle to death, you piece of shit! Where are they?” I shout at him in a blind rage.
Dad tilts his head to the side and offers nothing. No words of anger, nothing that would give me hope in ever being with my kids again and I pull the rope tighter around his neck. His face is turning red as he coughs violently, but he maintains his steely silence and doesn’t break eye contact.
That’s the reason he’s able to knock me off guard. That’s the reason he’s able to get back to his feet, grab a fistful of my hair, and force me to my knees.
Daddy has always been much smarter than the rest of us, and because we’re from his body, he knows how to easily outsmart us.
I never saw his hands moving so slowly around me. I didn’t see the look of rage in his eyes turn cantankerous until it was too late. I didn’t pick up on a lot of the signals that he would get the upper hand, because I was too blinded by my own rage. Something he never taught me to control because it would always be an advantage over me.
Once Dad removes the rope from around his neck and tosses it to the ground, he picks me up to my feet by my hair. It hurts so much, but nothing compares to the pain of not knowing where your children are.
“The stupid one?” he breathes heavily, pulling me closer to his face, “I left that little shit with children’s services. Told them a family member dropped her off on my doorstep and that I wasn’t equipped to handle someone like her. She’s probably five families into the fucking system by now.”
Tears sting my eyes and when they roll down my face, he laughs as he continues, “And the other two? They’re still here. You’re just too stupid to fucking find them, Darby. But don’t you worry. I’ll take care of them like I did with you—like I did with your mother, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself, just like that stupid bitch that shot you out her worthless cunt.”
I raise a hand to try and strike him, but he easily swats it away and chuckles.
“You don’t know what love is, little girl. I tried so fucking hard with you and this is how you repay me? By stomping all over my fucking heart after I give it to you? You’re just like your worthless fucking mother. It only makes sense that you die like her too.”
“Dad—”
With a grunt, he shoves me violently down into the oubliette. I know that I’ve broke my leg on the way down. My head hurts from slamming into the wall when I landed. The world is impossibly bright in the darkness—stars exploding behind my tightly closed eyes. The air has been knocked out of my lungs, and while I know there’s no coming back from this, I have the slimmest of hopes that he’ll throw the ladder down. That maybe this was a mistake on his part.
I shift on the dirty ground, grimacing as tears sting my eyes from the pain my body is experiencing all at once.
How I didn’t manage to die or break something else is nothing short of a miracle, but I know if I don’t get help soon, my leg will become infected and I’ll die a painful death.
"Useless fucking kids,” he mutters as he closes the wooden gate on the oubliette, and sliding the lock into place.
“Daddy! I’m sorry!” I scream up in terror.
But if he heard me, he doesn’t acknowledge it. I’ve betrayed his love and that’s the worse offense in his eyes.
“Daddy! Please,” I whimper as I slap the side of the well.
He won’t come back for me.
He’s much too stubborn to care now.
Especially since I’ve become nothing more than one of his useless fucking kids.
I’m sorry.
Ten Years Later
“Stop crying,” I tell her as I push deeper into her wet, warm core. “This is how things are now. It’s how Dad would have wanted it, remember?”
Skylar turns her face away from me as fresh tears spill down her face. I don’t think she’s crying because it feels bad, but because it feels good and we both know that it shouldn’t.
Dad died a few years after Mom. Old age finally caught up to him, and the man that I thought would live forever, was suddenly no more.
The night that he threw her down into the well and locked her in, he let us out of the cages he kept us in behind the house, and took me to my room to talk to me.
I remember the day he took Mom out there like it was yesterday. Because he kept us muzzled unless he was sneaking out to feed us, we couldn’t call out to her when they showed up in the clearing. I wanted nothing more than to have my mother save us, but we couldn’t even alert her to us being there. Dad threatened to kill her if we tried, and I knew he would.
When he sat me down, I remember being scared, tired, and angry that he treated us like animals for as long as he did, though it all ended up making sense when he explained things to me.
He told me about how to be a real man and how he wouldn’t be with us forever, but that he knew I’d make him proud by carrying on the Greene name. He told me that the only way to do that would be with Skylar and even though it didn’t make sense to me then, it does now.
To keep our family strong, we have to keep it going, and I promised him that when we were both able to, we would do our part.
“Skylar, stop crying,” I tell her again through grit teeth as I continue to piston my hips. I’m gentle with her because she deserves it, but I hate it when it makes her cry.
“We’ll be done soon,” I promise as I rest my forehead against her cheek. “You just have to help me a little bit and I’ll … finish … faster … ”
Don’t touch her until she starts bleeding.
Dad told me that before that it wouldn’t be worth the time. That if she hasn’t bled yet, we wouldn’t be able to carry on the family name.
Skylar takes a deep, shuddering breath as she turns her face back toward me, her lips brushing mine. I remember there were times that I heard Mom crying like this, but it stopped after a while, and I’m sure it’ll be the same way with my us eventually.
My breath comes out in a gasp as she digs her nails into my back. She whimpers slightly and I move my hips faster, going deeper into her than I ever have been before.
Her whimper turns into a moan as the sound of our labored breathing intermingles with the sound of flesh against flesh. She arches her back when I begin to fuck her even harder, then sit up, pulling her on top of me.
Skylar grabs the sides of my face as she begins to rotate her hips. I hold her close as the feeling of my balls tightening starts to take over me.
“I love you,” I whisper into her open mouth.
And I do love her.
Not the way Dad loved Mom, but the way a brother should love his sister. The way my father taught me how to love her.
She grunts, I groan.
She moves faster on top of me, I hold her closer.
I know I’ll never experience this with another woman, and since I have Skylar, I know that I’ll never want to.
She’s my own flesh and blood—what could possibly be more special than a bond like this?
I let out a loud moan as I spill my seed into her, hoping that maybe this time, it’ll stick. I want nothing more than to be a father since I saw what kind of man Dad became. He loved Mom unconditionally and I can’t wait to feel that for Skylar.
For now, she’s just my sister and my lover, but I want her to be so much more. I want her to be my wife, the mother of my children, the hope for the Greene family name.
When I kiss her chin and give her hip a gentle slap, she climbs off me and lays on the bed. I lie down next to her and she turns her back to me and I feel so goddamn unhappy. I don’t want her to feel like this when we’re together. I want her to feel as loved and as beautiful as she is, but I guess it’ll just take her time to get used to it.
That’s what Dad told me, anyway.
He said that at first, it’ll be hard for her, but eventually she’ll understand and appreciate what we’re doing.
It will just take time like all good things do. We’ll be happy here together and we’ll have a family of our very own.
And when my daughters are old enough, I’ll show them how to love their father like Dad showed me.
Original Series by Yolanda Olson
Inferno
Cinere
Sparks
Embers
Inferno World Novellas
Verboten by Abigail Davies
Malignus by Dani René
Iniquity by Emery LeeAnn
Burned by Jennifer Bene
Obloquy by Murphy Wallace
Yolanda Olson is an award winning and international bestselling author. Born and raised in Bridgeport, CT where she currently resides, she usually spends her time watching her favorite channel, Investigation Discovery. Occasionally, she takes a break to write books and test the limits of her mind. Also an avid horror movie fan, she likes to incorporate dark elements into the majority of her books.
You can keep in touch with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Olson, Yolanda, Embers: An Inferno Conclusion
