Chapter 76 – I Have a Pleasant Name, Don’t I, Big Brother?

NOAH.

While standing around my mother, I realized she was only thinking of revenge. And all for a dark past and for my grandparents’ mistake of forcing her to marry the one she never loved, my father.

He never hurt her. On the contrary, he always loved her. When he died, her life took a dangerous turn, and it seemed that even today she has not recovered. She met Edgar and her downfall began.

All I knew was what she told me, that Edgar hated werewolves so much that he even hunted them. When he discovered her origins, he went mad with grief. But in his madness, he thought he could somehow make things right, but he couldn’t be more wrong.

My mother’s condition had no cure. However, Edgar overcame some boundaries and instead of helping her, he experimented on her and turned her into a monster. Later on, when Edgar was gone, mother had Neveh, my half-sister.

After they expelled my mother, she left me so hurt and I heard nothing more about her. Now it was time to look for my little sister and save her from mother’s claws if there was something that could be saved.

When I spoke to my mother, she told me she kept my sister in her dungeons in Wales, guarding and even killing the girls she kidnapped for her own pleasure. As she told me, she was obedient and did exactly as she was told. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if she broke her word.

I hadn’t talked to her in so long, but I had promised myself that if she abused her, even though I was convinced that the place was not right for her, I would take her from there and release her.

With the risk of turning my mother against me. I didn’t care; she was my sister; my blood and her life were on the line.

I arrived in Wales quickly. The dungeons where my mother kept the girls, she abducted were the same ones where Neveh was held captive, and I shuddered at the realization. I never understood her thirst for revenge, but I didn’t try it either.

My mother remained complicated for me, but as long as I could keep her in control, everything was fine. I had seen her unleashed, and I hoped with all my heart that she would not have poured her bitterness on my poor sister.

I wandered through the endless stone corridors as if in a maze of a terribly scary game. From time to time the silence got disturbed by the screams of an unfortunate woman whom God knew what she was going through.

I would have released them all, but this fortress was so secretly built that the smell barely guided me to my sister, and that was because she was afraid. I could smell her fear. The smell led me to a small, frigid cell where a dim ray of light seeped through a tiny window. The cell was simply dug into the thick stone wall of the castle. My intuition told me that Neveh was in there.

“Neveh…?” I asked lightly, trying to hear even the smallest inhale in her fragile body.

Maybe she was afraid not knowing who I was. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Neveh ... little sis!” I called her name, and I knew I caught her attention.

For a second, her breathing stopped and then resumed in a jerky rhythm, accelerating her heartbeat. Then I heard how she slowly got up and tried to get closer to the bars that separated us.

I was furious when I saw where my poor sister was sitting. And when I think that my mother told me she was fine, that I have nothing to worry about.

A shadow approached, then that shadow became a slightly hunched figure that was squeaking, avoiding the light from the hallway. The figure took the form of a small, frail body, shattered by fate that looked at me with pity, and from her green sapphire orbs slowly flowed tears. She was the perfect copy of my mother.

Only the years spent here marked her in such a way that she was afraid of her own shadow. It was painful to look at the one who once smiled at me, and the sun from the sky bathed her hair in gold.

I had only seen her once when she was still a child and for me, time stood still from that day; in front of me was the same child from the past with the same fears. The woman, Neveh, did not exist anymore. My mother took care to bury her a long time ago.

My anger grew so great that I grabbed the bars with my bare hands, snatching them, catching her innocent but terrified gaze. She recognized me; I was sure even if she saw me in the past, but one look was enough to make a connection for a lifetime.

Later, I realized my eyes had become fiery, and my claws and fangs had come out menacingly. I quickly hid my face until they withdrew. I didn’t want to scare her.

“It’s okay, I will not hurt you, my sister.” I tried to bring her closer, staring sadly at her.

“Noah?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

There was a flickering, dull, low-intensity, lifeless voice. It broke my heart when I heard my name on her dry lips. I didn’t think too long, and I hurried to take her in my arms.

She did not shy away; she stayed and received me, nestling with her whole being. Her grip seemed desperate to me, as if it were the last hug before a death sentence.

Because this was what mother had done to her, she sentenced her to death without her being able to oppose. She couldn’t have done it. She was so fragile she couldn’t face her nor stand up to her.

She held me like that for a few minutes and when she detached herself; she gained enough confidence to look at me. I was hoping she would tell me what the hell happened to her.

Why was she like this? Dirty on her body and clothes, her curly hair, her eyes weeping and swollen, as if I were looking at a ghost, an image of what she had been in the past.

“What happened to you, Neveh?” I dared to open the subject even though I knew I would regret it bitterly and that I would weep with tears of blood, making vows of revenge.

“Neveh ... no one called me that in a long time ... I have a pleasant name, don’t I, big brother?”

Her question alarmed me, putting me on the defensive, trying to find in her eyes a small trace of normality.

“Yes, my sister, that is your name, Neveh! Glad you like it!” I entered her meaningless and crazy game but it seemed understandable to her.

Everything had sense here in this hell where she lived because she only knew this net as her home if it can be called a home. I pulled her lightly out of that cold cell and placed her on a makeshift stone bench in the hallway.

She sat slowly, as if avoiding the light and bringing her hand to her eyes from time to time for protection. It was a gruesome scene, and the sight of it made my heart ache as I tried to piece together what had happened in here.

Everything she lived here and what she went through made time non-existent for her, as if she was surviving one day at a time. I could see this without asking and going into details.

“Where am I?” she asked distractedly, looking around, trying to comprehend everything, but in her eyes, there was fear.

Fear that she might get caught coming out of the cell.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t let anyone hurt you anymore,” I said, looking at her in the same fearful eyes, trying to give her a little confidence.

It seemed to work. Her hand was no longer squeezing my forearm so hard, and she wasn’t so tense. She relaxed. Her muscles were no longer tensed and her staring changed. But her words still had no meaning.

“I don’t think you can stop this, Noah,” she told me with half-mouth but confidently. “I know exactly what will happen. Maybe you think you came to save me, or maybe you think you’ll save yourself. But you couldn’t be more wrong. No one escapes, neither you nor I. She trapped us here in her world and there is nowhere out, only in, never out. She will come when you least expect it and she won’t give you a chance to defend yourself. And if you still find a way out and you think you escaped at the last minute, you get caught, and the punishment is harsher than you can imagine. Maybe you can still save yourself if you leave now before she appears.”

Her description made me shiver, and although I knew exactly who she was talking about, I wanted to hear it from her mouth as she was accusing her. I needed a reason to take revenge on my own hands.

“Who’s going to show up, Neveh? Who are you so afraid of?”

“The demon Lettice!”