🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
"She’s not breathing please!" I yelled, as if they didn’t already know. I looked down at her pale bloodied face and her head that had caved in. "Mum, please stay with !" My voice was no longer my own. Ragged, hoarse with horror. My clothes were still wet with blood... her blood. The tallic stench tangling with the antiseptic burn of the hospital.
The stretcher wheeled down the white, sterile hallway like a bloodied coffin on wheels. I pushed along with the paradics, my heart thudding like a war drum in my chest.
"Please--please, keep your eyes open," My lips trembled as I touched her face. "I am begging you," I cried, tears flowing down my bloodied, swollen face. But I could not register the pain.
We reached the urgent care, the door flying open. They ripped her out of my hands, I caught sight of her crushed leg and I could hear the horrible screeching of the wheels of the car as it tried and failed to co to a stop, but it was too late.
I grabbed chunks of my hair, screaming where I sat in the hallway. I had just stood there, too stunned to move out of its path, too stupid to run, too filled with pain to save my own worthless life.
But my mum...
I squeezed my eyes shut, and I could still feel her hand on my back as she pushed . It all happened in a flash, too fast for to comprehend.
The sickening thud of the impact, crunch of breaking bones.
My sobs ca in waves as grief and guilt gripped hard enough for my spine to crack. It was choking, violent, and body-wracking.
I wrapped my arms around myself, having to physically hold myself together. The whole world spun along while mine had fractured. I was now left in the rubble.
It should have been ...
Especially after what I found this night right after I blew out the candles on my eighteenth birthday cake. The first cake they ever gave . I should have known...
There was a catch...
It ca with a price.
It was the truth about why they all seed to despise my existence. The reason I was the stain that refused to fade no matter how much they wanted to. A shadow beside their golden children. The one they looked upon like filth. I understood now and the... truth was more monstrous than anything I could have conjured up in my mind.
Searing pain exploded on my cheek, my head snapping so far to the side that I could have sworn I heard sothing crack.
The overpowering scent of perfu welcod to the reality that I had anticipated.
"You won!" Aunt Agnes screeched as her face ca into focus despite the tears that blurred my vision. Her face distorted with loathing so visceral I could sll it tangle with her overpowering perfu. "You finally achieved your evil mission, you fucking parasite! You took her from us!"
I looked up at her, eyes flared wide in a glare that pierced my soul.
"You failed the first ti, but you had to try again. I was right about you from the beginning. You are a curse, the bane of this family, a fucking disease."
My eyes were too swollen, tongue too heavy to argue as she rained the insults like she always did when she got the chance, but this ti with more venom.
My family had filled the hallway. So crying, others pale from worry, so pacing—but all having the sa expression as they looked at .
Disgust.
Like I was the rot in the room, the virus that had infected this night, this blood, this pain. No one asked if I was okay. No one checked the swelling in my face or the bruises blooming like violets on my arms.
Their grief wasn’t shared with —it was weaponized against .
"Yet, you dare to wonder..." Charlotte’s voice whipped like a lash to my bare back. "Why we fucking wish you would die!" Her olive skin flushed with a fury that I should have been used to.
I blinked at her, not saying a word. Mum was fighting for life, and I was not about to pretend that their words were not justified.
Charlotte grabbed the collar of my dress, yanking my face to hers. "Can’t you fucking talk?" she growled. "We finally throw a whining bitch like you a party even after everything." She shook , hard enough to make my bones rattle. Yet, I stared back blankly into hard amber eyes.
She was pulled back, probably because the nurse started giving us looks. Our beautifully dysfunctional ss of a family as they tore into the black sheep.
Charlotte tried to lunge for but my elder brother was able to pull her back. But I knew better than to think I was saved.
Ajax’s towering fra lood above as soon as Aunt Agnes had Charlotte in her arms.
I could feel the pulsing of anger as his eyes bore into , hot enough to pierce.
I didn’t say anything for a mont.
He did not need to.
I could read him. In the way his nose flared, veins pulsing in his neck, brows so low they might as well have kissed his lashes. I did not need to glance down to know his hands would be clenched into fists.
His body vibrated with barely reined anger, knowing he was seconds away from making a punching bag.
Again.
And I knew no one would be able to stop him. No one would. It was not like they ever did so in the past.
But this was a public place, so when the spit hit in the eye, I still was not surprised.
I didn’t even flinch.
Didn’t wipe it off.
Didn’t speak.
How dare I?
Mum was in this place because of .
I just sat there, blinking through the sting as spit and tears mixed on my face. The tallic scent of blood still clinging to like a second skin, the silence inside louder than the chaos around .
Then I laughed...
The foreign, wrong sound bubbled up my throat, spilling out like so cruel lody. I could not stop it, too wrung out, too shattered to be rational in my response to the situation. It wasn’t even hysteria, it was sothing far more ugly, more twisted.
Everyone went still, even a young nurse in the corner that had been pretending not to listen.
I slapped my hand over my mouth but the sound bounced off the sterile walls that seed to be closing in. The sounds kept coming, half sob, half laughter. My sanity splitting at the seams, unraveling like the yarn of an old, worn sweater.
"You know," I said, tilting my head like I was giving them a tip, "if you hated this much, you could’ve just left at the hospital the day I was born. Or better yet, tossed in a bin behind it. Save you the trouble of pretending I was ever part of the family."
A few of them froze.
I chuckled, bitter and breathless. "But no, you kept around like a family pet that bites. Then you act surprised every ti I shit on the carpet."
There was stunned silence before my brother’s snarl shattered the quiet. "So this was so type of sick revenge after all? Because we finally deed it ti to tell you the truth?" He took a nacing step towards . "You had to get back at the family who fed and clothed you?"
His fist went up, and I smiled, closing my eyes, waiting for the impact—wondering which tooth I’d lose this ti around.
I never heard it land.
CRACK.
My eyes flew open just in ti to see Ajax’s arm wrenched mid-air, his fist frozen just inches from my face.
A hand—large, veined, and vice-like—had caught his wrist.
Caesar.
He’d co out of nowhere, like a shadow. One second it was just venom and violence in the hallway. The next, he was standing between and the blow ant to knock the life out of .
"You lay one more fucking hand on her..." Caesar’s voice was low, venomous, barely controlled, "...and I will break every bone in your arm. Then I’ll start on the other."
Ajax growled, trying to yank himself free—but Caesar didn’t budge. If anything, he twisted harder.
A sickening pop echoed as Ajax’s knees buckled with a cry.
"Let go of !"
"You first."
He flung Ajax’s arm to the side like it was trash. My brother stumbled back, clutching his shoulder in pain, but Caesar didn’t even look at him again.
His eyes, those familiar, infuriatingly green eyes were locked on now. "I am so sorry, I couldn’t make it, Lily," His warm hand ca down to cradle my jaw. He retrieved a little box, his eyes hopeful and regretful. "I got you your birthday present." He stroked my cheek, softly like I was the most fragile thing in the world.
"Cae...sar," I muttered, my voice cracking as the dam broke.
His expression softened more, worry etched in the features of the boy I loved. "What happened? You are hurt. What..."
"She murdered our mother!" Charlotte scread, her voice threatening to shatter glass.
"You need to leave this instant," a gruff, annoyed voice that belonged to the hospital security, cut her next words short.
"My mother---"
"Only one family mber is allowed to stay," he cut her off.
"We will be leaving," Caesar said, helping up.
But I shook my head. "Mum was in an accident. She is..."
Caesar stroked my back. "These people will not let you stay." His voice reeked of disdain. "I will take care of you. Your mum would understand." He assured.
I searched his face for the fear that seed to fill every corner of mine but found none.
"I can’t leave her," I rasped, my words scraping through my throat. "If she dies and I am not here..."
"She won’t." His hand tightened on mine. "You hear ? Iris is too damn strong. And you, you’re going to walk out of this hospital on your feet, not curled up like roadkill in front of those animals. We will sleepover in at the parking lot, in my car."
I swallowed hard, glancing back at the closed room where they were still trying to save Mum. But I knew I had to leave. We had already caused more than a scene.
Behind us, Charlotte and the rest of them kept hurling words like knives, but the nurse had finally stepped in to push her back.
We stepped out into the frigid night air, and headed towards the red car I knew was Caesar’s. My limbs were heavy, my body rattling with nerves as he guided .
I took a breather as I rested on the car, my head spinning, the odour of blood clinging to like chains. I looked back at the hospital as my family filed out as well. They all glowered at , I looked away. My eyes fell on the leaning figure.
My heart crashed against my ribs, my breath fracturing. Caesar was kneeling, the light from the hospital reflecting of the gem of the ring in the box he was holding out to . "Lilith Althea Brooks, will you..."
"Caesar..." I breathed his na. My mum was fighting for her life, I was not what I though I was and now my boyfriend of two years was...
"Be mine to protect," His voice quivered, waving like emotions were taking a hold of him.
I blinked at him, at this boy who had always made laugh after every birthday party that wasn’t celebrated, after every beating session by my brother, stopped the bullies when Charlotte spread a nasty rumors. The man who I gave my kidney yet it did not hold a candle to all he had done for . I loved him so much it hurt to breath.
Still all I think was...
Why here? Why now?
My vision blurred at the ring caught the light again, a tiny flare in all the gloom. My mother’s situation weighed down like an anvil in water. I could not think about...
"I know it’s insane," he muttered gently, those jade eyes arresting mine in the dim light of the parking lot. "I know you are overwheld and scared. But this is a promise ring... I made it for today. Partly because I am sure that they will kick you out as soon as they can." He didn’t have to glance behind to tell who he was talking about.
"You made...this," My voice cracked.
He smiled genuinely then. "Yeah, lted my grandma’s old pendant and she gave a gem for it."
My lips quivered, words too scarce to find as he went on.
"You want you to let protect you, I want you see the ring on your finger and know you are never alone."
I crumpled but before I could hit the pavent, he had his arms wrapped around . I leaned into him as he slipped on the ring.
"Happy birthday, Lily," he whispered, before planting a kiss on my forehead.
It was in an instant, I heard it a nanosecond before the object made impact with the back of my head. My hand snapped back and grabbed it just as it grazed my head. The muscle in my hand flexed in a spasm around the object, crushing it into dust.
The dust rained down over my shoulders.
A brick. Soone had thrown a brick at .
Caesar spun around with a growl, his arm snapping out as he searched the shadows, rage coiled in every taut muscle of his body. "WHO THE HELL—"
Charlotte stood there, her eyes the size of saucers, her eye brows disappearing into her hairline as she stared at . "How..." she croaked.
"Real mature," Caesar said snidely before taking my hand to exam the damage. I zoned out, the ringing in the ears intensifying as his words to soothe faded.
I heard a click and another and my eyes focused, eting jade once filled with... surprise.
His words tuned in and I could hear him again as the ringing subsided. "When did you get a tattoo?" He asked holding my wrists.
I looked down at what he was referring to. My eyes widened, heartrate kicking up again for the hundredth ti today. He was not joking. On my wrist was a marking; a crescent moon.
~~~
Hello, darlings💜
Welco to my latest book. I do hope you like it. I have a lot planned and promise you a journey that will leave you breathless. Nothing about this tale is predicatable (I hope).
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