We can make plans when we wake.” Diel nodded numbly and allowed Noa to take them to his room and lay them down.
Diel held Noa tightly to his chest and closed his eyes. But when he did, he saw Cara in a veil, bowing low at Auguste’s unyielding command, a deep sense of fear in her heart.
Noa’s breathing evened out. But Diel stayed wide awake. All he could think of was Cara in a veil, under Auguste’s hand. He didn’t even know what his little sister looked like now she was older. His gut churned when he even dared to imagine what she might have been through at the hands of those motherfucking priests.
Noa turned in his arms, her face turning toward him on the pillow they shared. He stared at her peaceful expression. She was so beautiful. But then he imagined her veiled, let himself imagine her as a child under Auguste’s brutal torture techniques. She said they had been burned as witches, drowned, hanged. He felt his inner rage like a spark of fire in his soul. And it built and built until he couldn’t lie there. He softly drew back the covers and stepped out of the bed.
Diel felt like he was losing his grip on his anger again. Not the rising of his monster, just the pure rage that he felt when imagining those he loved under the Brethren’s totalitarian control.
Diel fled from his room and burst outside. The cold air slapped at his skin. And he ran. He ran and he ran, the cold air burning his lungs like flames. He pushed his muscles until they screamed at him to stop. But the anger just kept sweeping though him, an unstoppable force.
Diel’s hair dripped with sweat. Exhausted, he eventually stopped by Raphael’s rose garden. He slumped down on a stone bench covered by a wooden awning. He stared out at the manor’s vast grounds. Mist hovered over the grass and bit at his bare feet. But Diel didn’t even feel the cold. He felt numb. Numb, but with inner unease sparking like a live wire. He felt like crawling out of his skin.
He was fucking lost. He didn’t know how the fuck to get his sister back. He didn’t know how to defeat the Brethren. He fucking knew nothing.
Diel glanced up when he saw a flicker of movement beside him. Silently, Sela sat down next to him on the bench. His hair was wet too, feet and torso bare as if he had fled his bed too. As if he was unraveling too.
Sela stared out over the manicured lawn. The mist looked like ghosts waking from the dead to haunt the old grounds under the protective cover of darkness. Diel looked at his brother, his best friend, and saw Auguste’s unwanted shadow lurking around him. Without moving, Sela said, “I sometimes wish I could tear off my own face. Make a new one from all the people I kill.” Sela’s jaw clenched, the only indication that he was anything but calm inside. “Just so I don’t have to share any fucking features with him anymore.”
Diel felt immediate sorrow for his brother. He remembered how Finn Nolan had felt about his little sister, his only sibling. He’d adored her, wanted to protect her, wanted to get them both free from their mother and get them a better life. He couldn’t imagine hating her, wanting her dead. He couldn’t imagine having a sibling who was responsible for so many people’s grief and pain.
Diel didn’t say anything in response. He had no fucking clue what would help his brother right now.
Sela shifted on the seat. “Her name was Destiny.”
Diel froze. Sela’s eyes were downcast, and the high wind kept his long dark hair blown forward, hiding his face. But something in Sela’s voice sounded different. It carried an inflection of mourning. Of sorrow. Of longing …
“We were kids in the same group home,” Sela said. Diel stared at his brother in shock. Sela never spoke of life before Purgatory. None of his brothers really did. Those were the only memories they had the privilege of keeping to themselves. Kept just for them, when their entire lives had been held in someone else’s hands. Sela sighed, then looked at Diel. The sadness in his brown eyes cut Diel to the core. “Destiny had issues.” Sela sealed his mouth shut then, as if anything else he said would be a betrayal of the girl he’d obviously loved. He sighed, but