Ashes (The Boys of Chapel Crest, #2)

by K.G. Reuss

Your diagnosis of schizophrenia isn’t accurate. We both know that.”

“Do we?” I raised my brows at him. “We both know I hear voices. Maybe I’m just really good at paying fucking attention and don’t actually know things. Maybe I just get lucky sometimes.”

“Who do you think you’re speaking to?” I asked, studying him. It was in the subtle way his hands shook that told me he was losing control with talking to me. He was desperate to act, but he knew I’d react. Knew I was a ticking time bomb, and he needed me for whatever his nefarious plans were. I’d play. I loved to play. He’s sick. Sicker than you. He wants you. He wants to touch you. Taste you. Experience you. . . Us.

His screams will be worth all the pain. All the tears.

“You’re trying to break me too,” I said softly.

I leaned in, his powerful cologne burning my nose as I breathed him in, my lips brushing against his ear. “Trouble is, I’m already fucking broken. If you play with me, it’s only because I let you.”

“I’ll always protect you, Rinny. I always did. Nothing has changed. I’m here now, protecting you from the evil wizard.”

“No. Just Seth. I’m here. Come out of the darkness and join me in the fire, Rinny. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

“My princess locked in hell,” he whispered, his gentle fingers cradling my face. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

This world was so heavy. I liked the darkness despite the cold. No one could hurt me here. I couldn’t see the evil in the world. I was safe. No one could see me. They could beat my body, but they c...

“If you don’t come to me, I’ll go to you.” Warmth brushed my cheek. Trailed to my jaw. To my ear. “And then we’ll stay wrapped together forever in the darkness.” I shivered against him. “No one can get you in the darkness but me, Rinny. It’s because I was made from the darkness. It’s my kingdom. My empire. I want it to be ours. Didn’t I always promise forever to you? You promised it back. We remember.” I felt like I was falling slowly. My back hit the cushions, and he loomed over me. “Come back to me. Please, come back to us. I’m sorry you were hurt. I only wanted to save you. Now you’re trapped in this hell with me.” Warmth brushed against my cheek again. “I’ll give you a crown of daggers and slay anyone you want me to. Then I’ll make love to you over their remains. Whatever world my pirate princess wants, she will have. Just come out of hiding. I need you, Rinny. Fuck, I need you.” His voice cracked. He needed me. Seth needed me. It was Seth. H...

I was so scared. I missed Seth. My best friend.

“If we don’t play the game, they’ll hurt us. They will destroy you, Rinny. It’s how they’ll destroy me. Please, come back to me. I don’t want to break you, but I will. I swear I’ll shatter you into a million pieces before I repair what I’ve broken. Let me in. . .”

I breathed in and out evenly, falling deeper into the darkness.

“I’ll be buried so deeply in your body and mind, you’ll never escape me. You’ll become another part of me, and I’ll be a part of you. I embedded my hooks long ago into your soul. Nothing will tear me from you, Rinny. Nothing.”

Fear coursed through me as I retreated back into the darkness before I let the numbness take over to shield me.

“Fucking stay! Rinny! NO! Come back! Don’t fucking leave me. Please. Don’t leave me again.” He wept softly, shaking me roughly. “Please. . . I need you. We fucking need you. . .” All went silent. And I was safe once more.

I wanted out. I needed out. I was going to die here. Fucking die in this hell. Fuck.

For once in my life I felt like maybe I could make it. Like I could do this. Whatever this was. Was it life? Could I do life? I’d give it a hell of a shot if it felt like this. This high was definitely where it was at.

“How?” I was done. I was ready for these feelings to leave me. For this pain to go away. I just wanted to go home. I wanted my friends. My girl. I wanted to sleep. Fuck. I wanted to sleep forever.

But it was because I was carving at my skin with the knife in my hand, ridding myself of the demons.

Sitting up, I rubbed my palms against my pajama bottoms, my heart thudding hard. I was going to fucking lose it. Something had to give, and I really fucking hoped it wasn’t my willpower to not burn the house down. I needed help. I was smart enough to recognize that part. If I didn’t get it now, we’d have a real situation on our hands.

I crawled into bed beside him, my body shaking. I didn’t want to wake him. God, I didn’t. He needed to sleep. He needed the escape, but shit, I was spiraling. I couldn’t fucking breathe!

I was breathing too hard now. Everything I’d tried pushing away felt like it was tumbling down. It was crushing me.

The loss of Sirena. Stitches’s suicide attempt and him being locked up. Sin withdrawing and never being here. Church’s pain. My fears. The worry that something terrible was

happening to my heaven and my best friend under the thumb of Sully. Concern that Sin was drifting from us and fighting his thoughts alone. Fear that Church might lo...

“Fuck you, you can,” he said in a fierce growl. “You’re not going to fucking leave me too, Valentine. Get your shit together.” I sucked in breath after breath, desperate to not disappoint him. He was all I had right now.

Quickly, he pulled a hoodie over my head as I tried to sit on my mattress. My body wasn’t having it though. I needed to go. I needed air. I felt like I was suffocating in this madness. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

Within minutes, I’d gathered more kindling to feed the flames, urging them higher into the night sky. This was the middle of nowhere, so we were safe. The heat from the fire warmed me, calming my heart and soul. I stared into the flames, my heaven flashing through my mind. Her soft lips. Her smile. The way it felt when she touched me. Stitches. His laughter. The way he smirked when he was teasing and happy. My family. The ones I fought for now.

We needed this. For the love of our sanity, we needed it.

“Yes. Gone. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Bells’s death was a must after Sin’s seven deadly lashes.” He let out a soft laugh at his fucked-up nursery rhyme. It was the fact he knew what had happened which made chills rush across my skin. There was no possible way. . . “How do you know. . . ?” Sin asked, his voice wavering. Asylum cocked his head to the other side. “How does a creature like me know anything? Must be the voices.” He let out another burst of laughter that echoed around us as he tapped his temple, his blue eyes sparkling with madness in the light from the lantern.

I snorted. Of course they were. I couldn’t shake the fact he’d known about Stitches trying to hang himself though. It was still weighing heavily on me.

I pulled my lighter out then opened and closed it five times before starting over. Everything was stressing me out lately.

“Yes.” “How did you know?” Church turned and glared at Asylum. “How did you know Stitches was going to hang himself? How do you know any of this shit?” “I don’t know. We know,” Asylum answered, gesturing widely around him. “Special little parlor trick. How am I doing so far?” “Are you even crazy or are the voices real?” I rasped, my mouth dry like I’d been sucking on a cotton ball. “Good question. Maybe a little of both, Valentine.” He nodded. His eyes unfocused in the lantern light as it became silent in the cold room.

“She doesn’t blame you, you know. Abigail. She loved you.” His voice adopted a girlish tone as he continued, “Asher, you’re so silly, but the flames are going to burn someone if you’re not careful. . .”

My heart froze in my chest as his gaze bore into me, examining my tainted soul. He’d repeated words Abby had said to me the day before she died. I’d never told anyone her words before. “Your parents,

even they miss you so...

“I don’t say things to hurt you,” Asylum called out softly. “Only to inform you. To offer you proof of my. . . knowledge. Rinny wouldn’t like it if I hurt you, even if she is upset with you.” How. How. HOW?

He was certifiably insane. I hated him, and I didn’t make it a point to hate people. Very few people made that list for me. “His mind isn’t in a good spot. It’s. . . foggy. I can’t fucking see...” Asylum let out a groan and tugged his hair more, words I couldn’t decipher spilling from his mouth. “Touch. Touch. Touch. He cries for his mama and cuts his sins from his face. He will. . . join us. Join us. Yes. He’ll join us soon. Rinny. . . Angel. . . Firefly. It’ll work. It will work. Fall in line. Fall in line.”

He snapped his head up, his blue eyes wild. “We won’t kill the wicked just yet. When Stitches walks free, he’ll be broken. It’s up to you to care for him. His angel will help.” He frowned. “Sirena. Only when he’s accepted himself and the situation will it be time to end it. He’ll make love to her on a Thursday, and on Friday, the world will burn. Ashes.” I swallowed thickly as he stared at me. “You’ll burn the world with Mirage at your side.”

This matters to me too despite who I am. What I am. Rinny, my firefly, is my entire world. She always has been. Since the day she waved to me while I stood in my attic window. Whatever is set to meet her will meet me too because I won’t leave her side while she’s in the hospital. Tonight, she rests peacefully. Alone. Her room is next to mine. I can hear her heartbeat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.” He pounded his chest in time. “It calls to me. She always calls to me. Fucking trust our process.”

He got a faraway look in his eyes. “They think I’m crazy. I am…I am crazy. They wonder why I don’t just leave with her. Why I don’t drag him out of the loony bin…They don’t know…No, they don’t know what’s at stake…I only take the lives of the unworthy, but this time. . . They need to understand.”

I’d incinerate anyone who hurt my heaven and Stitches. Without a doubt, I would.

I didn’t know where we were going or why, but I prayed it wasn’t to the place that had hurt me. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

“Might just want to kill yourself,” one of the wards said softly as we stopped outside a massive wooden door. “I tried,” I mumbled. “I’m immortal.”

She looked so beautiful as she rested. My perfect slice of heaven.

I could have her. Any way I wanted her. No one would tell me no. All mine.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t. . . I didn’t want to hurt her. To take from her. But if Seth already was. Or would be.

I just wanted her. Even like this, I wanted her. I wanted to be inside her. Deep inside her, showing her how much I loved her. Love? I love her.

I stared down at my angel, feeling so goddamn good I couldn’t think straight. The only thing I could focus on was wanting her. Making her want me too. Making her realize she could come back to me. To the watchers. Showing her we were better than Seth fucking Cain.