Page 146 of Decimation

And again.

And again.

I lose myself in it. The world narrows to the blade in my hand, the flesh beneath it, and the screams that fill the room like music. My father’s blood paints my arms, my dress, my face. His pleas become incoherent, then wordless, then nothing at all.

I am a rabid thing. I am every nightmare he ever gave me, given form. I am the monster he made, and by God, I am feasting.

Lazarus is beside me. I don’t know when he joined me, I only know that suddenly there are two blades instead of one, two sets of hands delivering justice, two hearts beating in the same rhythm of vengeance. His colours wrap around mine, that dark blue bleeding into my red until we are purple, until we are one thing, until I cannot tell where his rage ends and mine begins.

We work together.

We create together.

When it’s over, my father is barely recognisable. The thing hanging from the chains is meat. It is offal. It is everything he ever made me feel, externalised and made manifest and destroyed.

I am panting.

My hands are shaking.

The knife slips from my fingers and clatters against the stone floor, and the sound is like waking up from a dream.

Lazarus’s hand finds my cheek. He turns my face toward him, and his thumb wipes through the blood there with something like reverence.

“Good girl,” he murmurs. “My good, brave girl.”

I should feel horror, I should feel guilt. I should feel something other than this vast, echoing emptiness where my rage used to live.

I feel nothing, I feel everything.

I feel like some teeny tiny piece of who I was, who they destroyed has finally had a taste of justice.

And then a sound cuts through the silence, a wet, choked laugh from the other set of chains.

Astrid.

I turn to face her, and her lips curl back in a grotesque imitation of a smile. Blood drips from the corner of her mouth, and her eyes gleam with that same old malice.

“Leandra,” she spits. “You think this makes you strong? You think killing him makes you anything more than the whore you’ve always been?”

I step closer, my bloodied hands clenched at my sides. “Where’s Hector?”

Her laugh is bitter, grating. “Dead. Our father killed him when he found out he helped you and mother escape. He slit his throat and left him to bleed out in the olive groves. Your precious brother died a traitor’s death.”

I almost stumble back as though I’ve been hit. I can feel the malice in her voice, the joy in it too. Hector is dead because of me. Dead because he tried to save me. My knees buckle, but I force myself to stay upright, to keep my voice steady.

“You’re lying.”

Astrid’s smile widens. “Am I? You know what our father was like. He didn’t tolerate betrayal. Not from anyone, and especially not from his own family.”

I feel the weight of her words settle over me, crushing me. Hector is gone. The one person who might have been worth saving in all of this is gone. And Astrid, Astrid is still here, still sneering, still mocking me despite everything. Despite her being in chains, and me being the one wielding the blade.

Lazarus steps forward, his blade raised. “She’s a liability, Leandra. Finish her.”

I hold up a hand, stopping him. “No.”

He frowns, his colours flickering with confusion. “She’s a traitor. She deserves to die just as your father did.”

“She does,” I say, my voice cold and steady. “But not yet. Cass and I suffered for years. We lived in fear, endured all that disgusting abuse from Isaac and Ezekiel. I want Astrid to understand what that felt like. I want her to have a little taste of it.”