Chapter 182: What He Took
Violet was trapped in her own mind.
She had stopped thrashing in the grips of darkness.
Ezelreth.
She felt tricked. Deceived. This isn’t what she thought he meant by asking for her body in exchange for power.
She was mad at herself for not being specific enough, not asking more questions. Being so compliant and naïve.
But she had been blinded and still is blinded by her desperate need for her daughter. She was being driven by a mother’s instinct to protect and preserve.
It was only natural she would be willing to sacrifice the world to protect the people she loved most.
When she made this deal, she didn’t realize she’d be a hostage in her own body. She didn’t appreciate the fallout of her choices.
He sat front seat as her body made its way around the city. Starting with the least well off, the people no one would notice gone. It was the same thing over and over. He’d use her gentle voice and womanly body to lure people into a false sense of security and ask a question anyone would say yes to, "Do you want to change your life?"
And with that simple, easy yes, he would take their mind, body, and soul.
Leaving monsters in his wake.
She could do nothing to stop him.
And how could she even judge him. She had done the very same thing. She had the very same plan once.
Having the time, being stuck inside her own head she was pulled away from the heavy feelings that have been clouding her mind. The longer she was here, the more she was able to separate herself from these feelings that had been dictating her actions.
That’s when she realized he’d been there. Since the moment she lost her daughter. He’d been there, in the shadows of her mind. Hiding. Waiting.
Waiting for just the right time to show himself.
It was him tainting her. Twisting her pain, feeding on her.
And Violet, she had been completely unaware. Letting the grief and misery carry her through the endless nights and sleepless days. She lived on it. survived on it. She had to turn all the sadness and all heartbreak into something, and that was anger. His darkness had twisted her, twisted her into something she wasn’t, turned her into someone she couldn’t recognize. And she had opened the door for him. Held his hand as he walked through the entryway.
It was all her fault.
She remembered, what she did to those wolves.
Remembered how she felt when she did it. The hunger for blood and revenge, how it felt foreign and yet so right.
She hated herself. Hated what she did. Hated who she became. Hated how she saw herself.
Guilt started to chew her up on the inside. Ravaging her very soul.
She did that. She killed those wolves. The children.
Tears welled in her eyes.
She could hear the screams replaying over and over in her mind, like a broken record.
She couldn’t escape it. Their pleas and cries. The pungent smell of blood and death ripped at her senses. The memories unrelentingly haunted her.
How was she ever going to live with herself? With what she’s done.
Her brain and heart were caving in on her. The aching pieces of her were like jagged rocks and shattered glass, it clawed its way to the surface.
She felt defeated and hopeless.
"I see you are finally connecting the dots." Ezelreth broke the silence in their shared conscious space.
"Don’t beat yourself up too bad, cupcake, you didn’t have much say in those feelings. I fed off them and replaced them with my own." He looked menacing and entertained. "It was always me. You just gave me permission. My revenge was better than your heartache."
Seeing Violet look so distraught, her self-hatred tasted amazing. And him consoling her only made her feel worse, which made her pain taste all the sweeter.
She was a walking buffet of buried pain.
His father couldn’t have picked a better vessel for him.
It made things even better when he looked over and saw the love of his life in Violet. It was a cruel yet pleasing arrangement.
He craved the touch of a woman, craved Lilith most of all.
Seeing Violet was a mocking reminder of what he didn’t have.
He approached her, grabbed her by the chin. Violet tried to jerk her head away, but he gripped her tighter and stared into her eyes holding her gaze. Her glare set something inside him on fire, he licked the tears off her cheeks.
Violet was mortified. She shrunk further into the threads of darkness.
This only made him laugh.
"You look so much like her, yet you act nothing like her. Fate is so funny." He released her chin.
Violet frowned. Her eyes shot daggers at him.
"You won’t get away with this." Violet growled, trying to maintain an air of strength and confidence in her shaky voice.
But he didn’t notice, she was so insignificant to him, any attempt she made to display her strength and courage would be ignored and dismissed.
"Oh, but I will. This time, I won’t fail. I will burn this world and all it’s unworthy inhabitants and rebuild a new world in the image of my father Cerberus."
Chills ran down her back. His words were final; they left no room for doubt; he meant every word he said.
And that scared Violet. Fear clung to her like a wet paper towel.
Violet remembered something.
’This was what Artemis meant, the path I won’t return from.’
And then a second realization slapped her hard across the face.
He was the evil the goddess spoke of.
He was looking for the MoonChild.
He was looking for Odette.
And Violet had put him on the path that would lead him straight to her.
Violet felt such a rush of fear, it caused her physical body to react.
Forcing herself to wretch, bending over and holding her stomach she started dry heaving.
Ezelreth confused, brushed it off as an after effect of her body sharing two souls.
Violet had to do something; she needed a plan.