Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 14: Fading to Black

//trigger warning: abuse//

When I make it up to my room, tears are streaming down my cheeks. My leg burns in a tangled mass of pain so horrible that I want to amputate it. I cling to the wall, letting my limb hang limply by my side. My toe brushes the carpet and sends a jagged ray of agony all the way up to my spine.

I scrub at the tears angrily. Tears are for the weak. Tears are for the emotional and insipid.

Every part of my body is so tired. My jaw is sore from its collision with the door and my abdomen screams with every breath.

I wish that I were dead.

My throat is covered with an anxious, hot, miserable anger at everything. I wish that I could sit down. I wish that I could force myself to bring my bloody body to my bed and pass out.

I lift a shaking leg to take me to the bed, but it takes me a step further away.

Because my bed is spotlessly clean. The sheets are tucked military style, neat and white. I can't force myself to dirty it with my blood. This thought does bring a sob into the air.

Even now, in my rage and pain, he's still won. He's broken me in like a trick animal. I couldn't bare to sit down and see everything turn vile and filthy. I glare at my bed as the tears boil up again.

"Why can't I fix myself?" I gasp into the air, my voice croaky and pathetic.

I wish that I was someone the Prince deserved. I wish that I didn't have to be afraid of him. I wish that I didn't have to be afraid for him.

I really do wish that I were dead.

The sun is rising.

I read The Odessey, once. There was a line and I thought it was so beautiful, beautiful enough to be Greek. "Rosy-fingered Dawn appeared -"

Dawn, the child of morning. When rosy-fingered Dawn appears, it makes the sky look like a dying child, pinks fading into pastel blue. It's ugly and grey. Not very Homeric, I guess.

Despite the instinctual resistance in my mind, my legs eventually collapse under me. I press my aching head to the cool carpet and imagine a better version of myself. I don't fall asleep.

It has only been minutes, but it feels like hours. Dad walks into my room with a calm air. My heartbeat picks up in my ears. I try to pick myself up, so that I can at least look forward at him as he speaks, but I can barely crawl backwards as the door swings open.

"Now, tell me who you were with. If you think I can't smell the wolf on you, you are stupider than I raised you to be. "

The pain has decimated my resolve. I would tell him anything. I would tell him about my plan to take Lucy and Mom and Jonah away and watch him burn everything down. I would tell him about my mate and let him pull me any way he wants to.

He's won.

I open my mouth, but Dad's head tips to the side in anger before I can say anything.

"Are you crying, Ashlee?"

Tears have smeared my cheeks with moisture. I reach a shaky hand to my face and find that new, broken tears are beginning at the corner of my eyes.

"I - I -"

"After all of the work I have put into you," Dad spits with vehemence, "you have become the most disgusting creature of all. I couldn't beat the weakness out of your mother with the mate bond, but I thought I really had a chance with beating it out of you."

He comes closer and, without ceremony, crushes my hand beneath his boot.

I'm not strong enough to scream, but my body curls away from him.