The Light of the World (17 page)

His eyes fill with tears. He whispers, "I'm
sorry," just as there is a rush of hands and darkness. I feel
instant pain and burning everywhere. I scream but it's cut
short.

xxxx

I wake to pain. Writhing pain, it's everywhere.
I scream. Tears instantly spring from my eyes. The air doesn’t
sparkle with the dead but I can feel them. They took me when I
slept.

I am in chains, hanging so my toes just touch
the ground. I'm stripped to the bandeau and granny panties I bought
in Warwick. My arms and shoulders are in pain, ridiculous amounts
of pain.

"HELP ME." I cry out, but by the echo and the
draft, I can tell I am somewhere old. The walls look like a
dungeon, an ancient dungeon. My wrists burn from the shackles.

I cry out again and again, but no one answers
me.

"Wyatt." I sob. My dark hair is matted around my
face and neck. The tears have been flowing long enough to soak my
neck. I can feel them trickling down my stomach and in between my
breasts.

Fear grips me as I realize what is happening.
His family wants me to be filled with the sin and evil. They want
me to take it to hell with me. They will keep me here until the
five devils come and fill me up. They know far more than they have
let on.

I hang and suffer and I don’t know how long it's
been. I see the light of the morning moving across the stone and
brick floor. It starts its journey back as it crests the house I'm
in and moves toward nightfall. My hands are burning and I'm certain
one of my shoulders has dislocated. The pain almost knocked me out,
but I managed to stay awake. Hanging from a dislocated shoulder is
excruciating.

I can feel craziness lurking behind my regular
thoughts. I hear a noise as the sun sets. A voice. A man maybe. I
try to keep my eyes open but the problem with sleeping with the
dead every night is simple. When I need to sleep, I sleep. No
matter what, I sleep. Like the dead. With the dead.

I wake to a stabbing pain in my stomach. My feet
lift and push me up. I think both shoulders are dislocated now. The
pain doesn’t register with me for a minute. When it does, a scream
tries to leave my throat but it's so dry there is nothing. Air
wheezes through the wind tunnel. My feet both touch the ground now.
I have stretched out my arms by sleeping with dislocated
shoulders.

My eyes clear and I see the face of the person
stabbing me. Pain and betrayal take everything away from me. Every
moment of love and kindness I have ever felt, are all replaced by
the agony being inflicted upon me.

"What are you doing?" I whisper harshly. My
cracked lips bleed when I stretch them by speaking.

She trembles and sobs as she pushes an old sword
in my stomach. "It's crazy the amount of pain you are capable of
living through. I should know this. Look at me. I went through it
all to be this. To be this perfect." She is sobbing and ranting.
She looks demented.

My cries come as wheezes and my eyes burn as
they attempt to cry. No moisture is left in me. My tears are dust
and my eyelid gets stuck on my eye. It stings.

"Why?" I croak.

She shakes the sword with her sobs. It wiggles
in the cut. "To be this. To be what I am. I'm a real girl. Not a
fake girl. When Mona guessed, I knew the doctor's hadn’t done a
good enough job. I went back. They couldn’t take any more of my
Adam's apple. There were other issues." She cries out at looks at
the ceiling, "I WAS NEVER GOING TO BE WHOLE RAYNE! NEVER! I WOULD
ALWAYS BE FRANKENBARBIE!" She collapses on the ground and sobs. She
stops crying and whispers, "A man came to me. He asked for simple
things. Your location, your cell phone, where you slept, things
like that. Simple things. He wasn’t going to hurt you." Tears
stream down her cheeks.

I sob, dusty tears and feel my body dying. I
don’t know if I can die early. I don’t know anything about
myself.

"I just wanted to be real."

I shake my head and feel my legs buckling, "You
were real. You were real to me."

She cries harder, "I wasn’t real. I was never
going to be real. I was always going to be half done. I couldn’t
have babies. It wasn’t fair to be born in a body that wasn’t mine.
It was never right."

She is a sobbing mess.

I close my eyes and smile, "You have no idea."
My voice cracks and breaks.

She drops the sword. It makes a loud clang when
it lands on the floor next to her. I can't help but think about the
way I acted when I saw her transformed. I wince. No wonder she
hates me. I just kept saying the wrong things. I never meant any of
it. It doesn’t matter now.

She turns and faces the stairs, "I CAN'T DO THIS
ANYMORE! I CAN'T!"

She looks at me and shakes her blonde head. Her
eyes are dead. She whispers, "My debt is paid." She walks to the
window where the cold stormy ocean air is coming in. She stands on
the ledge.

"Noooooo." I scream but it is barely louder than
a whisper.

She looks back at me. The wind blows her hair,
"Forgive me." A tear slides down her cheek.

I nod, "Anything. I forgive you. Please don’t
jump." I feel my throat tare. I taste my own blood. It wets my
throat.

She looks down and shakes, "He's going to kill
me. He wants you dead but he can't come here himself. He wants you
dead. It's you or me."

I look at the sword on the ground, where she was
crying. "Kill me then."

She sits on the ledge. I feel a small measure of
relief.

"Kill me. My wrists and shoulders are
dislocated. My body is completely dehydrated. I'm dying anyway.
Kill me. I think my arms are broken. I know my heart is."

She shakes her head, "I can't. I can't hurt you
anymore. I just didn’t want to die Rayne. I tried to kill myself
but I couldn’t." She trembles in a heap, "I couldn’t."

I hear voices.

"Hide. If they see you then they'll kill you.
They want the opposite of whoever is trying to kill me. They want
me alive."

She winces and climbs off the edge. She picks up
the sword and takes it out of the room. I don’t know where she is
hiding but the voices get closer. I hope she's safe. It's an ironic
feeling.

Wyatt's mom walks into the room. She is dressed
as a schoolteacher again. Homicidal schoolteacher maybe.

She looks at me and snarls.

A man is behind her. When he rounds the corner I
gasp. The man in the sweater.

His smile doesn’t reach his dull gray eyes.

He looks exhausted and unkempt.

She crosses her arms.

He walks to me and runs his fingers against my
arms. His touch rots my belly. I would squirm but I have nothing
left.

He looks down on me and smirks. He leans in and
kisses me. His kiss is stiff and I feel like it defiles me. He
parts my lips with his and before I'm ready, wind is forced down my
throat. I can't get my breath or exhale. He does it rough and
violently. He forces it on me. His fingers grip into my arms. I
feel them puncture my skin as they knead me. I suck him dry.
Instead of his life force, I take the evil. He gives me a nibble of
a kiss and steps back. He is shiny and clean and beautiful. His
clothes look amazing and his face is young and handsome.

He smiles at me and walks from the room. He says
nothing. Wyatt's mother watches me for a moment and turns and
leaves. I feel full. I feel gross and dirty and full, in a way that
makes me feel sick. Like I've swallowed a slug and I can't imagine
anything else in my belly with it. The evil sits in there. Rotting
me. I can feel it. I'm instantly sick. I would throw up but I'm
dehydrated and nothing is inside of me.

I don’t understand how I'm not dead yet.

The pain ripping through me is new. The rot of
the world is writhing inside of me. It's stretching my insides and
getting cozy. I gag and heave as it slithers around in there.

My legs buckle and a scream rips from my throat
when my shoulders stretch again.

'
Rayne…Rayne…Rayne…'

My eyes flutter but I can't get my feet to stand
and take the pressure and weight off my wrists and shoulders.

"Help me." I croak.

Mona runs into the room. Her eyes widen and she
looks back, "Up here. Hurry."

She runs to me. Her hands shake and tremble,
"Rayne. Oh my god what did they do? WYATT HELP!"

She is sobbing. Her glassy eyes are full of
horror and fear.

I can barely open my eyes. In the sliver of
light I can see him. Everything moves in slow motion. He lifts me
and shouts at Mona. She panics and starts shaking. She is sobbing
and panicking. He's yelling. My ears are full of the sounds, but my
brain doesn't comprehend them.

She ends up holding me up and he rips the
shackles from the wall. He looks savage and crazed again. When I
feel the weight leave my arms and his arms close around me like a
cocoon, I let myself close my eyes.

Everything is in flashes.

I feel the cold water and the dead weight of my
broken arms.

I see him spitting out the seawater and swimming
out into the black water.

I'm shivering and convulsing.

I feel close to death.

He kisses my cheek and swims.

His face lights up and he steels himself against
whatever he sees.

I turn my head to see the angry face of a
Nixie.

She is about to attack him when she sees me.

Her anger fades and crystals fall from her eyes
made of light. She cries the most beautiful tears. They hit the
water and make something like a phosphorescent.

She reaches a pale hand for me.

She cries out when she touches me.

Other lights come to the surface.

I can see them everywhere.

Seawater slips into my mouth.

I swallow and gag.

My eyes close and when I open them the ocean is
lit up by the lights of the Nixie. They are everywhere, bobbing in
the waves. Some are crying. Others look panicked.

The one with the red hair swims forward. She
looks at me and him and then lifts her face in the air.

I feel him shifting.

I see the bright glint of the steel in hands.
It’s the same small blade he used on the last one. He drives it
into her neck. She jerks and shakes and bleeds light into the
water. It spills everywhere. It's like phosphorescent dancing on
the water, but it's her blood. I see the whisper of something float
in the air. It's the purest light I've ever seen. He takes the
blade and lifts my hand to the surface of the water. He slices my
hand. I barely register the pain. My hands are black and bloated
anyway. The blood that seeps out is black and gross looking, like
tar.

He puts the dagger out into the light. It coats
the blade and sparkles with light and life. He stabs it into the
cut on my hand and I feel the scream rip from me again. I feel
everything shift. My shoulders pop back in and my wrists snap and
crackle. My ribs and stomach convulse again.

The next Nixie swims up. She bares her
throat.

I am helpless still. I scream and cry out but
they ignore me.

I beg them to stop. Everyone ignores me.

Tears well in Wyatt's eyes as he cuts the
essence out of each one.

It takes seven of them before my blood runs red
again.

They are now my sisters. I can feel them
watching me from the water.

I look in the backseat of the SUV at Michelle. I
reach for her hand. She watches me and ignores my touch.

I squeeze and smile, "I will forgive you
anything."

She looks broken, "You can't. You have to stop.
You need to be smarter than that. I am a terrible person."

Wyatt looks annoyed, "Lucifer is the king of
manipulation. He is a master. He made you weak. Apparently he does
it better than anyone." He isn’t defending what she did. No one
will.

He looks at me. I smile. He frowns, "I haven’t
ever met him but that’s what Fitz says."

The name is a razorblade on my skin. I shiver
and wince.

He looks at me and then down, "Sorry."

I shake my head to dismiss it, but I can't.
Physically, I cannot let it go. I can let go of Michelle's betrayal
because she was used. My own father used her pain and suffering
against her. Wyatt's uncle and mother tortured me on purpose. They
didn’t need to. I was no threat to them.

The drive to the old church is long and I'm
antsy. My legs twitch and I tap on everything I touch.

I glance at Wyatt under my lashes, "You saved
me."

He laughs, "It was an accident. I panicked."

I blush and smile. It's the first real smile
I've felt in ages. I laugh and it feels like I'm whole again for
the moment.

"So this priest knows about the light of the
world?"

I shrug, "Not sure about that but Willow says he
for sure knows how to kill the five devils. She's been researching
a ton since we left her place. They all have."

Wyatt sighs, "I spoke to my mom today."

I almost get whiplash from how fast my head
turns. My skin crawls and I feel every pain she inflicted upon my
flesh.

"She said to say she was sorry and it wasn’t
personal."

I watch his face for his reaction to the words.
He shoots a glance at me but then looks back at the road.

Mona leans into the front seat, "Are you
kidding?"

He shakes his head.

Mona looks at me and strokes my arm. I lean into
the affection.

I glance at Michelle. She is twisting up inside.
She looks ready to crack.

"She can say whatever she wants. I have no
intention of forgiving her."

Wyatt looks at me, "You are awfully choosy about
who you forgive." He hasn’t forgiven Michelle. To him his mother
was trained to do what she did. She had every reason. Not to
mention her son handfasted with a Sin Eater. To him Michelle chose
what she did to me for selfish reasons and she is the one who is
guilty. His mother was doing her chosen purpose in life. Her
job.