Chapter 223 IS IT TOO LATE?
KAI’S POINT OF VIEW.
I didn't wait for the receptionist to find her phone or call for help. Everyone panicked around me, as I did, but mine was internal. The memory of what I endured in that shed, of her laughter, of her shoes dipped in blood every time she stepped out….it haunted me all over again.
My back muscles groaned with pain, but I knew there was no time to waste. I didn’t wait for the police to be informed, even though I heard the nurse and a bunch of janitors calling 911. The air in the hallway was already thickening with the invisible presence of the woman who had haunted my every waking breath since I’d been born.
"Everleigh, get back!" I yelled, but she was already a heap on the floor, gasping for air as the realization of her mistake, of our mistake, crushed her. It was our fault. We let her go in there….I should have trusted my intuition not to let her go, not to let her search for these memories. We had enough evidence to get Armando convicted with a life sentence without the option of parole.
However, I could not say no to her……I did not know how to, and now, she’s trapped with the monster that is my mother; her godmother is probably scared out of her mind.
I lunged without a second thought. I slammed my shoulder into the oak door, but it was like hitting a brick wall.
Marloise must have deadbolted it. I could hear the faint, rhythmic hiss-click of a machine inside. A sound I knew from the nights she used to hook me up to those glass jars.
Fuck! No!!
"AURORA!" I roared. My voice didn't even sound like mine; it was the sound of the beast she had created, finally breaking its chains.
I stepped back, drew my Glock 19, and fired four rounds into the lock assembly. The bang-bang-bang-bang shattered the clinical silence, sending the smell of sulfur and gunpowder into the air. Before the smoke could even settle, I delivered a side-kick with every ounce of my weight, my boot connecting with the splintered wood.
The frame groaned, the steel groaned louder, and then, finally, the door flew off its hinges, crashing into the room with a violent thud.
I burst through the threshold, weapon raised, my vision narrowed to a single point of lethal intent.
But the sight stopped my heart.
Aurora was strapped to the reclining chair, her head lolling to the side, her eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. A thick, wide-bore needle was buried in her arm, and a glass jar on the tray was already filling with the dark, rich crimson of her blood.
And there she was.
The wig lay on the floor like a dead animal. The woman standing over Aurora was a walking corpse, and nothing I recognized, bald, skeletal, her skin covered in self-inflicted red gashes that she scratched with yellowed nails. She turned her head at a sickening, unnatural angle, her shark-like fangs glinting as she gave a long, wet lick to Aurora’s pale cheek.
"Marloise," I rasped, my finger tightening on the trigger. I didn’t think. I pulled the trigger. The sound was like that of a thunder clap, the bullet pierced her shoulder bone, spilling pitch black blood to the floor. Marloise hissed at me like a snake, her body bent at an awkward, scary, weird angle.
“Kai….my little miracle. Care to join in on the fun?” She cackled, grabbing Aurora’s head like it was a toy, her bloodied, yellow, long nails grabbing her hair and twisting it lopsidedly. I did not wait to say a word to her….we’d said enough.
“Goodbye…mother.” With that, I pulled the trigger again; this time, I aimed for her neck, and the bullet pierced her jugular. She dropped to the floor, eyes wide open and lifeless at the ceiling, signalling one thing….
The end of my hell, and the beginning of hers.