Page 251 of Safe Word

Her gaze darkened, but not with fear – something closer to resolve.

‘“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction’,” I added.

She cocked a brow at me.

‘Picasso,’ I divulged.

She stared at the device for a while, then looked up at me.

And pressed the button.

Fire burst through the windows like a scream held too long, glass shattering into a rain of light. She yelped, but kept her gaze on it, the shock melting off quickly, giving way to something hard.

The scaffolding collapsed with the shockwave, a howl of metal and memory.

Smoke rose – black, thick, climbing into the quiet sky, carrying the horrors away with it.

And the past went up in flames, making space for something new to breathe.

One week later…

The image of him striking her still burned behind my eyelids. The blood. The split lip.

The colour had bloomed like stigmata across her skin. Almost sacred in its divinity. Awe had gripped me by the throat and held.

I believed pain was a sacrament, the anointing of sinners like us. She was being absolved, thoroughly and beautifully, and I had to let him do it. I’d watched as his belt snapped down, again and again, carving sanctity into her flesh.

And she’d taken it like a goddess.

Not a word. No begging. No screams.

She had understood – a cleansing was inevitable.

Like breathing.

Like death.

But when he’d undone the denim—

A red curtain bled across my vision.

I’d surged forward from the dark alcove where I had observed the unfolding of this holy rite.

Too late – D’Angelo had crashed through the space. Sinner upon sinner. Rot answering rot.

I would’ve spat a curse if my jaw hadn’t locked up with rage.

What in the hell was he doing there?

How had he known to find this place?

Grinding my molars, knowing full well I could only attribute it to my volatile acolyte, I slithered back into the shadows.

Her kin had followed, too.

Parasites drawn to light. I couldn’t have even shattered anything, no matter how much my fists begged for it – just to alleviate the tension. They would have found me in an instant.

I should’ve never brought that halfwit into this. I should’ve never handed her over to him even though he did what he was supposed to do – at first: fray her mind. Even if the plan had always been for him to be the scapegoat.