I rode back up the mountain pass at a much less intense pace than I had ridden down a few hours ago. There was no need for adrenaline to chase anything away this time. As a matter of fact, I needed this time, I needed the gentle brisk flow of air and the night's crisp kiss on my flushed cheeks that a slow ride had to offer, so that I could mull things over.
But I didn't get to do any mulling.
My thoughts had a mind of their own. They went into auto-pilot mode, in warp gear, running so fast through my head that most of them were running over one another for the first half of the trip home: Church was a very strange experience for me. Who the heck was this Ashmodai? Roman Gordon had a very potent aura. Could he be my Wizard Wise? I could never find a love again like the one I found in Dammon. How in the world did Izzy and Roman pop out of my dreams like they did? When would Sean be coming for me? What was he going to do once he found me? What was I going to do when he found me? And why? Why could I not shed the longing that aches inside me to be in Sean's presence? My need for Sean to be near me was like a thirst I could not quench. And I was getting thirstier as the days went by. Soon I was going to die of dehydration.
My thoughts went on and on.
Until they came to my father.
Then all thoughts slowed. Every part of my brain zoomed in on a random memory.
I was fast asleep, dreaming of Bane, when in my dream I was told to wake up. I opened my eyes just as my father snatch me up by the hair and pull me out of my warm bed. It was dark. I knew it was late, knew my mother was sleeping. And I also knew to be as quiet as a I could be. I knew what would happen to me if I were to make a sound.
And I knew, whatever was about to happen next, was going to hurt like hell. Because it always did.
Barron was conversing with the demon inside of him self, in a language I did not know, in a voice that had become all too familiar to me after time. It was a voice that was not his. He hurriedly led me down the dark hall, through the front door and out into the freezing cold night. Icy wind licked at my legs and whirled around the hem of my nightgown. The moon was bright. My heart was racing. Tears welled in my eyes, damning at the lids.
Barron took me to the trees, to the wooden cross he had spent that day making. From his jacket pockets he pulled out rope and nails.
And then, from the belt around his wide waist, he pulled out a hammer.
I dared not fight him, as he tied my wrists to the cross with my arms spread wide at my sides. I never dared to fight him, for he had demonstrated, numerous times, what would become of me if I had.
Barron pressed the point of the nail into the center of my palm, raised the hammer to its head and then, without hesitation, struck the head of the 16 penny nail once with the head of the hammer. The nail drove all the way through my hand and into the wood behind. Pain shot through my body. I screamed in agony.
And that's when I fought back.
There wasn't much I could do with my wrists tied to a cross, but it was like a blood-promise, sealing a vow that I would always fight back from that moment forward.
That was the night I had become untamable.
I quickly shook the memory from my mind, as I parked my Harley in the garage.
Addy's Mercedes was gone, which came to no surprise to me. There was no time in Addy's life for me. I had no idea why I had expected her and I's relationship to be any different just because she moved us to a new town, professing change and a new life. And I had no idea why this hurt. I thought I took care of that hurt when I fed it to the boogeymen who live in the darkness within me. But I was sorely mistaken. Maybe that kind of hurt was just too grotesque for the boogeymen to ingest. Or too big to swallow.
With a heavy, dragging-my-skin-sensation, I walked across the grassy lawn, finding the picnic table easily in the light of the moon. I sat down, suppressing a laugh, as I realized I had actually anticipated Addy and I working on our relationship.
I looked out over the lake. The moon sprinkled flakes of silver over the water. A faint, distorted reflection of trees and mountains rippled over her surface. The forest huddled closely behind her, shivering, as if afraid. Perhaps of the gooey, black shadow that had been watching me from there.
I was suddenly reminded of Izzy's parents. I had never experienced such a genuine, heartfelt welcome as the one Mr. And Mrs. Gordon shared with me when I met them after the church service. There was nothing fake about their warmth, their friendly smiles. They seemed to look past my wild and rebellious facade. Actually, it didn't seem to matter to them that I was tainted and unclean. Peace fizzed from them like invisible happy-hum bubbles. Mrs. Gordon didn't seem at all selfish when it came to sharing her maternal nature. It was this that made her seem as though she was constantly blossoming and blooming, and probably this that compelled me to give her that hug before I parted from the Gordon family in the church parking lot. Mr. Gordon, though strong and almost grumpy-looking, carried an air of pride for his family, a love that was almost palpable.
I envied Izzy. I had wished I was going home to a family like hers. I wished my mother blossomed and bloomed with motherly love. I wished I had a father who---
I dropped my chin in my hand and sighed. Something was sickeningly wrong with him. And part of that wrongness flowed through my veins, as well. He had done more than physically hurt me, more than mentally hurt me. Barron had genetically hurt me.
At the very thought of my father, I could feel the monster in me stirring. Its movement riled its ugly, hideous companions. And before I could shove them back down into their prison of darkness --the darkness Ashmodai said God could see through-- they sprang forth into undeniable existence, with unworldly agility and stealth.
Now, like numerous times before, the monsters within me reeked havoc on my mind. Pictures flashed before my eyes of various places in time, and I saw blood. Mine. It was spilling from my flesh. I felt pain and horror and incapacitating fear. The monsters dredged up random images that were brutal and gruesome, and, all at once, I felt the pains of my past all wadding-up together into one giant ball that began to vibrate within me and thrum through my entire being until it was all I knew.
Desperation to escape the skin that I was in drove me to my feet. As I stalked across the grass, across the sandy beach, I left a trail of leather and blue jeans, a shirt and some boots behind me. By the time I rushed into the water, I was totally sky-clad. I was only vaguely aware of the shock of the ice-like cold that was shooting through my body, but I didn't stop walking. I couldn't. For they were still there, the monsters. I walked until water swallowed me whole. And then I stopped, coffined by Snow Melt Lake. Soon, she would be my watery tomb. Soon, I would murder those monsters, once and for all, and I would finally be free of them.
But soon wasn't fast enough. The darkness, having also escaped its prison, was now swelling in my mind, expanding beyond their delusional limitation that was once my flesh, polluting the pure and crisp lake that was now drinking me in.
One quick gulp, one liquid breath was all I needed to be able to set myself free.
I parted my lips. Snow flavored water filled my mouth. Just as I was about to inhale, something squeezed my arm in a vice-like grip that I thought would crack my bones in two. Faster than my mind could comprehend, I was yanked upward and out of the water. Strong arms --oh, freak, were they Sean's?-- cradled me against a warm, hard body, and before I knew it, I was on the shore, enveloped by something so incredibly warm, so impenetrably dark that it sucked the chill right out of my body, like I was being fed from.
This is something worse than Sean, my semi-coherent mind warned. All that was dark and imprisoned inside me had escaped me and now it was attacking from the outside instead of from within. What had I done? What had I unleashed upon this earth?
Feathers. Warm, black feathers---
That was my last thought that entered my mind before everything went away, and the world turned itself off.
****
Chapter Thirty-Five
Luna