Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
His brother did as well, their boots crunching over the little rocks in the soil, the leaves that had dried and withered on the ground, the small ice crystals that were crushed under the tread of their shoes.
“Please…wait.” Their father’s pleas didn’t have an echo, because they were so quiet, so disingenuous. His terror couldn’t replace his defeat, knowing in his heart that this was inevitable, and no cabin in the woods would ever hide him from his sins. “I’ve regretted—”
The younger brother shoved his boot into his back with a kick, sending him forward onto the earth. His boot was pressed into the back of the older man’s shoulder, keeping him pinned to the mud that covered half of his face as it became submerged.
“Magnus—”
“Don’t speak my name.” He increased the weight on his foot, submerging him farther.
Fender took a knee over him, hunching down with the knife drawn.
Their father bucked his body hard to be free of the ties that bound his wrists, but like quicksand, the more he flailed, the more he sank into the mud, covering most of his face so he struggled to breathe.
With a look of indifference, Fender jabbed the knife down into his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down. “Mother.” He did it again, piercing the lung.
His father gave a gnarled gasp, a short draw of air that couldn’t inflate his lungs fully.
The knife sank deep over and over, Fender speaking the names of the family that was stolen from them both. “Marie…Remy.” He let the knife stay embedded in his flesh this time, pierced through the heart, and the body went limp. Whether he died from drowning in the mud, from internal bleeding, or the accumulation of all those things, didn’t matter. The blood that oozed immediately mixed with the mud, creating a beautiful crimson hue, an earthy tone that almost looked natural.
Fender left the knife where it lay before he straightened once more. He shifted his dark eyes to Magnus.
Magnus stared back.
A quiet moment passed between them, a simple stare, an entire lifetime of silent worlds. It was an empty accomplishment, killing a man who was so haunted by his past that he lived in a state of ruin instead of having the strength to do what they just did for him. But it was done.
Justice had been done.
One
The Boss
Melanie
The darkness of the cabin was pierced by the glow coming through the windows, the distant torches casting flickers of light that created translucent wisps of smoke on the floorboards. The girls were silent in their beds, exhausted from the hard work that day…and the day before that…and the day before that.
It never ended.
Perpetually sore, perpetually hungry, we were in a constant state of survival. There was little energy to devote to much else than getting through the next day…and not being selected for the Red Snow.
That was what life had become—a meaningless existence.
And it was entirely my fault.
My eyes welled with hot tears as I sat up in bed, my arms wrapped around my knees, looking into the darkness and staring at the opposite wall. Flashbacks of that night in Paris returned to me. Stupidly, I was lured by men who gave me attention, who promised a fun night that I could gloat about to my friends back home. Raven warned me, the smartest person I knew, Little Miss Perfect, but I was too resentful to listen.
It was exhausting being second best all the time.
Raised by my sister, I was nagged about everything, from doing the dishes incorrectly to not understanding how credit with the banks worked, for being inferior to her in every way imaginable. I was grateful to have her as a big sister, but her superiority made me hate myself more, and then I hated her for making me hate myself.
That was no excuse for the decision I made that night.
That decision that made us wind up here…in hell.
The tears bubbled into drops then slid down my cheeks simultaneously, warm against my skin while the air of the cabin was frigid from the winter outside. My bottom lip trembled, but I forced a cold breath into my lungs and tightened my arms around my knees to make it stop.
Raven wouldn’t cry.
I had to accept the consequences of my actions, to carry the burden of this regret for the rest of my life, to beg for forgiveness when I knew wholeheartedly that I didn’t deserve it. I had to live with myself every single day, live in self-loathing, to wish I’d let Raven go when she fled to Paris just to get away from me…even though it hurt.
My nose permanently stung from the cold. When my breath escaped my nostrils, it would rise and coat the dry skin with a steam of moisture, but it was short-lived, and in the seconds between breaths, my skin immediately began to dry and wither.