Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 34

34

Nellie

T he yelling is loud overhead, and names I never want to hear again as long as I live vibrate through the very walls like hexes.

Johanna. Currer Bell.

Names I did everything I could to banish. Names that should never have returned to us.

The trap opens suddenly and loudly, dispatching the Beadle onto the bakehouse floor, and I scream. The bastard isn’t even dead, his beseeching eyes rolling as he flails his arms at me.

I snatch a mallet from the table and run at him, bringing it down on his temple. It caves in, fragile as porcelain, brains smooshing into the tool as I swing it again and again.

“Fucking die and burn , you meddling cunt!” I drop the mallet, exhausted, sweat pouring down my back. “What have you done?”

“Are you asking me or him?”

I see Sweeney standing there, lit in dancing shades of red and orange, blade in hand.

He’s drenched in blood from head to toe, not an inch of him clean, and I watch as he crosses the floor to the back door, locking it before pocketing the key.

Before I can run, he’s coming at me, closing me down.

This is it.

The Beadle must have told him something, something that could not be unheard, and the mistrustful thoughts he locked behind the doors of his mind are now kicking them off the hinges.

His arm lashes like a whip, snatching my throat, and he walks me backward. My feet skitter on the stone as I thump into the wall hard enough to make it rain brick dust.

His hands are always so fast, too fast to resist. It was not that long ago that he walked back into my life and did precisely this right before he took my virginity.

It feels all too different now—rage instead of lust—but his fingers still caress me, even as he speaks harshly into the shell of my ear.

“I know the baby Johanna didn’t die in a fire. She went to the priest, Sommers, but something else happened to her, something terrible.”

“ What happened to her, Sweeney?” I ask, my voice barely audible over the roar of the oven. “Where is she?”

“I am going to the parsonage to find out once and for all.” He tightens his grip, his body pinning me. “You wrote the letter, didn’t you? Tell me the truth.”

I swore to myself I wouldn’t lie if he asked outright. This moment—this one, right now—was inevitable.

My Mr. T is going to Johanna, wherever she may be, and no matter the outcome, I have lost him.

The man I love is leaving me. The light is going out of my life. What does it matter whether I survive it? To be dead or alive in a world without Sweeney will feel much the same.

“I did,” I whisper. “I’m sorry, my love. Please believe me.”

He growls deep in his chest, his breath rasping against my cheek. His free hand rises, and for a brief moment, I wonder if he’ll strike me. Instead, his fingers close above the other hand, wrapping me in a double chokehold.

He’s holding back—I know he is—but his grip is firm, and I can feel the weight of his indecision in the trembling of his arms.

“I believe you’re sorry,” he says. “And when I think about it, I should have expected no less from you, my pet. Practical and appropriate, as always.”

His tone is calm, too calm, and it terrifies me. Even as his fingers tense slightly, I’m not sure if this is the end or another game.

“I did it because I love you,” I say, my voice straining as his hands press harder against my windpipe. “You know I do. It was always you, forever, before you ever walked into my shop. How could you chase ghosts when I’ve always been devoted to you, just as you are?”

His face grows blurry, and the pain behind my eyes forces them shut. In a detached way, I recall Beatrix’s bloodshot look immediately after I throttled her, and I realize the sensation is that of my capillaries bursting.

“You’re a clever girl, treacle.” Sweeney’s voice comes to me from miles away, soothing, easing the way. “I’m no match for you.”

A final thought, strangled at the edge of my consciousness, makes a break for my lips.

“I’m your only match, Sweeney.” I force my eyes open a fraction so I can see him one more time before the darkness takes me. “The perfect one.”

A white-hot burst of agony powers through my chest, and the room floods with light.

Where am I going ? Surely not to heaven unless God intends to give me the bollocking I deserve before He sends me down.

Goodbye, my love. It was all worth it .

Then I feel Sweeney’s mouth, and he releases his grip. I’m as alive as I could want, color and sound assailing my senses as oxygen scourges my burning lungs.

The room snaps back into focus as his lips press against mine, his hands releasing my throat as he pulls me to him. He’s holding me close, his arms supporting my limp body as I drag heaving breaths through my damaged trachea.

“I can’t.”

He cradles me to his chest. “I can’t fucking kill you, Nellie, not when I know you tried all along to save me from myself. But you have reached the end of the line. Nothing you do will prevent this, do you understand?”

I nod, meekly, like a scolded child. My entire body hurts, but the only thing I can focus on is how much more I love him at this moment than ever before.

This man, this instrument of bloody vengeance who kills without regard or conscience, could not—would not—take my life.

With provocation unmatched and deceit beyond forgiveness, he could not watch the light go out in my eyes.

I allow the unfettered words to flow from me.

“Stay with me, Sweeney. Please. Don’t go to her. I’ve said it all along: you and I can have it all. Johanna is dead to you no matter what, and you and I are alive, so alive!”

He cradles my cheek in his palm and kisses me deeply.

There was never a love like ours before in all of time and space. We were meant to live in the dark corners of the world, but we were meant to be there together .

God may not claim us, but he does not reach down and smite us. What transpires now belongs only to my man and me.

“I’m going,” he whispers.

The world tilts violently, and panic claws at my chest.

I fight him, kicking and punching, but it’s useless.

He puts me aside and strides for the steps to the trapdoor. I hurl myself at his ankle, sinking my teeth into it, and he shakes me away. I tumble onto the flags, tasting blood on my tongue.

Sweeney examines his broken skin and smiles.

“I love you too,” he says.

His voice is as calm as it was before, but there’s something colder, more final, in his eyes now.

“I’ve never held back before, not in the heat of the moment and certainly not in the face of betrayal. How you have bewitched my heart, Nellie. I’m as lost in you as you are in me.”

I shudder at his words. How twisted we are, how deliciously unique.

This love is too far gone, far deeper than anyone could understand.

What other man could whisper sweet nothings mere minutes after trying to kill me? Why would I so much as try to move on and meet someone else after experiencing such depraved intimacy?

“Sweeney?” I say gently.

“Yes, my pet?”

“Change your shirt. And take the cart in case you need to run.”

He nods. “Nellie?”

“Yes?”

“Stay here. I love you.”

The trap slams behind him, followed by the greasy squeal as he slides the bolt home.

And that’s it.

The bastard has locked me in.