Iniquitous (The Marked #3)
Bianca Scardoni
For there to be light,
you must first suffer the darkness.
PREFACE
The end came at me jagged and skewed like puzzle pieces to a game I didn’t know I was playing. There was a distinct method to the madness, every move propagated to force my hand, to lure me out of hiding with the sweet promise of finality. I took solace in knowing that something better waited for me on the other side, something as pure and deep as the ocean itself.
Unbeknownst to me, the battlefield had shifted from the underworld to the trenches of my heart—bending me in ways my body was not built to withstand. My enemies faces had not changed, only the masks with which they played their roles. Every step was designed to move me—to lull me towards my final hour.
But there was no end in sight.
No peace to be found.
The end was only the beginning.
1. DEAD GIRLS DON’T CRY
The light from the torch flickered around my cell like prison guards mocking me with the freedom I no longer had. It had been days since I’d seen the outside world. Days since I’d spoken to another soul. My stomach rumbled from hunger pangs and my throat burned from dryness, from desiccation. It was the kind of thirst that split my vision in two and made things appear before my tired eyes. Things that weren’t really there, like hope and sunlight.
And Trace.
His beautiful face constantly flashed through my mind like tiny snapshots on a broken movie reel. I could see his iridescent eyes looking back at me through the darkness, see those dimples winking at me in perfect unison. Sometimes, if I listened close enough, I could even hear his loving whispers in my ears, telling me everything was going to be okay, even though I knew that it wasn’t. It wasn’t because I was trapped in some underground dungeon, being held against my will by a murderous Revenant who held the only key to my freedom.
And nobody knew it but me.
I’d paced the small cell for hours, for days, counting and recounting my steps as I waited for someone to come for me. To talk to me. To feed me. But no one did. As the days went on, the hours began to fade into each other, painful and crushing at first, and eventually numbing and hollow, until the days and nights disappeared altogether. It was as though I had been sucked into some big, black hole where time no longer existed. It was just me and my own living hell and it was being played back to me on an infinite loop. Each rotation pulling me further and further away from myself—further and further away from the fragile grasp I had on my sanity.
I imagined the waiting was just part of their game. A way to break me down before the real torture began. Unfortunately for them, they were too late. I was already broken. Already tortured. Tortured by thoughts of the boy I loved and everyone else I’d left behind in Hollow Hills. The suffocating darkness had already descended on me and was infesting every inch of my soul as I feared never seeing him again. Nothing they could do to me would be worse than that, worse than the crippling ache that was already in my heart, killing me from the inside out.
And so, I waited.
Always waiting.
My skin was still slick with sweat and dirt and dried blood from that awful night in the woods. No matter how hard I rubbed my palms against it, I couldn’t get the tragic reminder off my skin. The truth was, I still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to me; who attacked me in the woods that night or how exactly I came back from it. I had a dozen different theories running through my head, but none of them had amounted to anything concrete.
With my back pressed against the steel-enforced wooden door, I picked up the ruby red stone and zip-lined it across the chain that was still lassoed around my neck. The Amulet was supposed to be a protective hedge. It was supposed to keep its wearer from peril, and I’d watched it do just that that night at the church with Trace and Dominic, but it was becoming painfully obvious that it wasn’t working anymore. It was broken. That, or there was something wrong with me that was preventing it from doing what it was supposed to do.
But then how did I come back? How was I still alive? My neck had been slit from ear to ear—bleeding me out far past the point of unconsciousness. Yet I didn’t die. I woke up.
And now here I was.
My eyes roamed the concrete room, still unsure of where here actually was. There were no windows or telling signs. No markings or trap doors to escape into. Just a dirty, blood-stained mattress against the stone wall, and a grimy makeshift toilet in the back corner. And I didn’t dare touch either one.
The air was thick and damp, like being in some old, dilapidated basement on a rainy day, and there was a putrid smell stinging the inside of my nose. It smelled a lot like mildew and death, and something else. Something metallic and ominous. Dirt and decay covered the floor beneath me and dripping water fell from the ceiling like rain—pouring down on me and my tomb from an angry, vengeful heaven.
Welcome to your final resting place, I thought to myself dryly and then slammed my lids shut to chase away the terrifying thought.
“You’re not going to die here, Jemma.” Trace’s deep baritone voice surrounded me like a warm, protective blanket. “You’re stronger than you think. Don't give up.”
I shook my head and covered my ears, searching my mind for better days, better moments in time—searching it for him. A sob crept up the back of my throat, searing my insides with the unbearable agony and loss.