Page 10 of Devil's Sinner

“D-daddy?” I don’t know if I actually said the words, or if it was just an audible hallucination, but I justknewhe was gone.

Suddenly, I was no longer bound by the ropes. I was standing in the room. Family and friends were all around me.

“Help!” I ran to Rhys, my brother, and grabbed his arm.

“Violet!” He turned to me and smiled. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s…” I looked towards the casket. “I have to be here. I loved…”

“Yourself?” Rhys laughed. “Of course you would show up to your own funeral.”

“What?” I took a step back, and every face in the room was staring at me.

They started laughing. Loud, maniacal laughter like they were savages savoring my demise.

I pushed my way through the laughing crowd. There were two people standing in front of the casket. My father… And Devlin. I ran to them and saw tears in their eyes. They were the only ones that weren’t laughing. The horrific echo behind me sounded like madness, but they looked to be in actual mourning.

“I really did love her, you know.” Devlin looked at my father.

“I know.” My father nodded. “We all did.”

“She was such a good fuck.” Devlin’s lips spread into a cartoonish grin and my father’s did the same, then they started laughing like all of the others.

I grabbed my ears to try and silence the madness. The people in the room walked closer, like they were trying to cocoon me in their devastation. I looked up into the eyes of my father, but I didn’t see the kind stare of Hugo Cabot. I saw bright red coals where his eyes should have been. His face began to decay. I screamed, jerked, thrashed, and then the images began to fade.

I thrashed and screamed until all I saw was darkness. I was never at my funeral. I was still in the musty room where I had been since I first woke up in Connor’s version of hell. It was just a hallucination, or a nightmare.

I wasn’t even sure which one it was.

A noise snapped me back as close to reality as I could get. The door was opening. Light appeared at the edge of my blindfold and then heavy footsteps echoed in my ears. I knew it was Connor. Nobody else had any idea I was there. He was the one who decided if I lived or died.

My path to freedom was clear, but I had already chosen eternal damnation. My mind had obviously accepted that. It gave me a glimpse that would soon be all too real.

“I have a present for you, dear Violet.” Connor touched my lips and I felt him smearing something on them. “Have a taste…”

I hesitated, but I was so hungry. So thirsty. I forced my dry tongue across my cracked lips and tasted something that was both sweet and metallic. Even in my current state, I was able to ascertain that it was blood.

“What the hell?” I sputtered to try and force it out of my mouth, but I didn’t have enough saliva. It lingered on my tongue.

“That’s Devlin’s blood, dear Violet. Since you refuse to sign your name on my contract, I thought you would like to be closer to the man who still owns you.” A laugh echoed, almost as sinister as the ones from my nightmare.

“Did you…” I struggled with my words. “Kill him?”

“No.” I heard Connor’s feet shuffling. “Not yet, anyway. We just had a talk.”

I didn’t know if Connor was telling me the truth. For all I knew, he could have actually killed Devlin. If he was capable of kidnapping me and holding me prisoner, then he was certainly capable of a lot more than I ever realized.

Tasting Devlin’s blood brought some focus and clarity to my thoughts, even if it sickened me to have it on my lips. I needed answers. I didn’t want to die without knowing the truth, or at least having something to think about other than the chaos in my head.

“Did Devlin really have my father arrested?” I choked on my words, but I had to keep talking. I had to get as much information as he would give me before he left. “Was he responsible?”

“Honestly, dear Violet?” Connor took a step towards me. “I have no fucking idea.”

“But Georgia said…” It was so hard to speak. It was taking everything I had to make thoughts form words.

“Georgia was just following the script I wrote for her, and I may have let her believe it was true.” Connor’s words snapped in the air like a violent symphony. “She’s quite convincing when she’s doing what I tell her to do, right? It’s too bad it took her so long to learn how to be so fucking obedient. Maybe I would have learned to love her if she didn’t have so muchCabotin her.”

“You…” There were so many things I wanted to call him, but I couldn’t make my lips form the words.