by Liza James
“Not a person. Not a fucking person, who was it?” I say angrily, my fingers digging even tighter against Hawk’s hair and my blade pushing into his neck and drawing fresh blood.
“A girl, it was a girl.” His voice is frantic, but he doesn’t sound upset by the fact. It’s just another induction ceremony to him. Just another honored life given to the Omega.
“How old was she, Hawk? Say it, I need to fucking hear it again.” My voice shakes with sobs while Ruby sits up even higher and onto her knees. She wants to come forward, I can see it in the way her hands slowly lift, and she moves even closer to Hawk.
“Aura, this is the way it has to be. You know this, it has nothing to do with age. The Omega takes who he needs and—”
“How old was she!” I scream, the words tearing from my throat like a limb being ripped from my body. It’s painful, excruciatingly so and I can’t hardly bare it as the truth lingers just under surface.
“Six. She was six,” he finally breathes the words out and my knees buckle beneath me. But I maintain my hold on Hawk and refuse to drop the knife. No, he doesn’t get out of this like that. He doesn’t get to take everything from me through lies and manipulations and think he can do it again.
“She was six,” I choke on my own cries as I fight to meet Ruby’s eyes again. She’s crying as well, her mascara staining her cheeks as her shoulders shake while she watches me. She must hate me. I’ve almost done everything to her that Hawk has done to me.
I’ve lied by avoiding the truth. Betraying her by the refusing to open up.
“I didn’t want to. I tried to stop it, fuck I really tried. But they kept pushing me, and everything started changing so quickly that I couldn’t keep up. I was high, seeing things that weren’t there that terrified me. And god, when I pulled the trigger and it hit her? She screamed, falling to the ground while chaos ensued. Everyone was screaming at me to shoot her again, to finish it so that she would ascend and wasn’t in pain anymore.” I’m sobbing, struggling to breathe through every tortured word that falls from my cracked lips. I hate recalling these moments, the darkness inside of me being put on display. I wanted to forget this.
I can’t though. I never will. She’s in every thought through every day, in every small happy face I photograph with a smile. I may not be able to take back what I’ve done, but I can make up for what I took from her in the only way I can imagine. “I couldn’t Ruby, I couldn’t even find the trigger to pull it again while the gun melted in my hands. Everything changed. I couldn’t see or understand what was happening. Finally, Malin finished the ceremony for me and shot her in the head.”
Silence. I’m spewing toxic words into the empty room and letting it poison us. It’s ruining everything, every shred of hope or ounce of love I think Ruby once had for me. I’m turning into a monster in light of this revelation and there’s no use in stopping it.
I am a monster.
More sobs break through my throat as I live through every moment of that night again and again and again. But suddenly the shrill sound of Hawk’s laugh breaches the tension and shifts the energy into something so much worse than sad and destructive. No, this is dangerous, this is vile.
“You were weak. Just that fragile little wildflower everyone believes you to be. You never completed the fucking ceremony and now everyone is at war trying to bring you back. It’s pathetic, their obsession over you. You are nothing, Aura. You’ve always been nothing.” Hawk’s voice is thick with disgust, his eyes wide as he watches Ruby and smiles through his words.
I snap my head up as a new wave of strength crashes. through me. Suddenly, I’m reminded of why that ceremony even took place. Because of people like Hawk, people who are sick and twisted enough to fall prey to a belief system that corrupts and poisons the mind. I may hate myself for what I did, but I know who placed me there—Malin, Zale, my own mother.
“You’re right,” I say quietly as I tilt my head and take a moment to look at him. Really, fucking look at him.
His skin is ashen, with beads of sweat pooling at his temples. His breath is erratically slipping out of his pale cracked lips but it’s his hands that really catch my attention.
Because they’re moving, very slowly, but steadily lifting upwards until I assume he can reach my wrist and yank me away. And I already know what he’ll do to us if he gets free.
My eyes are still lingering on him when Ruby suddenly rushes forward and wraps her hands around his thick forearms. She pushes them back down, coming close to him until her chest is flush against his.
“Hawkie, you’re so smart,” she whispers as she leans forward, trailing her lips against the base of his throat underneath the knife. “We’re so weak.”
“And fragile,” I whisper, letting my own lips fall back to his ear as I suck him into my mouth.
“Meek, powerless women,” Ruby responds quietly, letting the tiniest moan slip from her lips while she trails her tongue through his blood. I can’t help it, but my own heart rate spikes at the sight of her tasting him. Something about this dark moment is awakening a new power inside of me. Hawk’s breaths pick up and his hands fall out of Ruby’s hold as he drops them to her waist.
“Incapable of taking anything for ourselves,” I say again, adjusting the knife so subtly that he barely feels the blade shift to the right.
“That’s right, wildflower, at least you’re beginning to understand your place.” His words are drunk on the lust he’s already slipping into against Ruby and me. Even through his anger, he’s losing the battle against us. He just doesn’t realize it yet.
“Don’t call her wildflower,” Ruby says quietly as she pulls back from him and drags her thumb across her lower lip, swiping his blood away from her mouth and smiling.
His eyes pinch in confusion as he watches her, consumed by the vision she’s giving him while listening to her words.
“That’s her given name by The Nation, appointed by the Omega and the Prophet,” he demands, resuming his tense lace of authority while he thinks he’s in charge.
Remember those butterflies? They’ve expanded in my chest. They’re stronger, larger, more than just a simple beauty with wings. They’ve evolved into a tornado of trashing gusts, whipping through every ounce of my body while I let it devour me.
The power, the strength, the freedom. All of it working to release a part of me that I’ve never experienced before.
But Ruby simply laughs, sitting back on her heels while she tilts her head to the side and speaks confidently, “No, that’s not her name.” Her voice drops to a barely audible whisper as she leans forward again, stealing his attention completely while he tries to make out what she’s saying. “But you can call her daddy.”
A lightning flash of courage rages through me and a smile pulls at my lips while I drag the blade against his flesh, digging the tip in until I can feel it ripping through his skin. Every bit of his corruption, his vile manipulation, every moment that he raped me and then made me believe that I owed it to him, when he beat me and every hit that he landed on Ruby seeps out of the fresh cut in crimson blood and coats his chest. All of his sins on display for forgiveness.
But he won’t get any of that here.
His breath is strangled, and his voice muffled as Ruby leans back and watches, I let go myself and step ahead of him, standing next to Ruby as I place my hand on her shoulder and he collapses in front of us.
He’s writhing on the ground, clutching at his throat in order to stop the bleeding but he can’t. Nothing can help him now.
Ruby’s hand lifts and tangles through my fingers as she pulls me down next to her. One moment we’re watching Hawk in silence as he slowly fades from life, and the next she’s pulling me into her arms and holding me while I break.
“You’re okay,” she whispers as Hawk’s body finally stills in the space next to us. The stage is pooling with his blood, the quiet wave of toxicity flowing slowly out around him.
Fuck, I have no idea how we’re going to fix this. But I
don’t regret it. Is that wrong? It is, I know it is. But I can’t help it in this moment, the fact that I’ve taken someone’s life—completely this time. I should feel remorse, I should be breaking over the idea of what I’ve done.
But I’m not. The only sobs falling from my mouth are the ones in response to my freedom. I’m fucking happy to be rid of him, ecstatic to never see his face or hear his lethal words or feel his vile touch again.
Ruby’s hands steadily trail over my hair, her fingers grazing against my neck while she pulls me even tighter against her. My hands are covered in blood, her legs are coated in the same. We’re covered in the evidence of our demise, our metamorphosis.
I’m electric, my blood still rushing under my skin as if I’m running. I can’t get settled, everything feels so much more potent, so much more enticing and captivating that the simple touch of her fingers against my skin as my legs writhing together in order to gain some sort of friction.
“What have we done?” I ask as I tilt my head up and my lips absently brush against her jaw. She turns her head to look at me, her breath grazing against my skin while she speaks.
“What needed to be done.”
“Do you hate me? For my past, for what happened?” I ask, those memories suddenly breaching forward again and reminding me of that nightmare. I wish I could take that back, more than anything, I wish I could change those moments. I hate myself for what happened.
“Never, Aura. You were a child, you couldn’t control it at that point,” she whispers, her own tears slipping down her cheeks while we both lose ourselves to this pain. I want to control it now, fight back against the process The Nation holds for its members. Destroy the belief system, the horrific commune of abuse they manipulate their people with. Fuck, I want them to pay for what they’ve done to myself and so many others.
“Malin, my mom, Zale, they all made me believe I wanted it. As if I wanted Malin to touch me when I was young, like I needed to be purified and that each member wanted to die in order to ascend. I was on drugs, I didn’t know who was in front of me. I swear, I didn’t fucking know,” I struggle to get the words out, choking on my own heaving breaths while I face this.
But even in the sadness, in the loss of what happened there is something else stirring inside of me. That newly awakened freedom and power, the realization that I can change things if I want to.
That I could make a difference.
“I know, Aura. I know,” she whispers over and over again while she lays back in the darkness of the club and pulls me on top of her. My head is resting against her chest while the emotions and energy shifts around us. God, everything is heightened, fucking everything.
I’m angry and sad, happy and relieved. So many warring thoughts fighting to take control when really, I just want to let go.
I want to fucking release all of it.
Ruby’s hands are hot against my cold skin, brushing along the length of my spine while I settle between her legs. “I killed him,” I whisper, letting my words get lost in the obscure abyss.
“We killed him,” she replies, her fingers tightening in my hair while her other hand falls to my waist.
“It was wrong,” I say, my head tilting up as my lips find the soft skin of her neck. “We shouldn’t have done it.”
“We’ve done a lot of assumedly wrong things, Vibe Girl.” Her lips brush against my own and I taste the metallic tinge of hers and Hawk’s blood against her skin. It hits me again, that rush of adrenaline while I reach up to claim her mouth with my own. Her words sink through my mind, reminding me of every moment we’ve spent together. Every idea we’ve crushed and littered with our own desires.
“I need to feel you,” I whisper, trailing my tongue along her flesh as her fist tightens in my hair. The sting and ache of my injuries flare again, rippling through me as I groan out in pain, but I don’t stop her, because I deserve it right now. The pain, the pleasure, the memories, the regrets, all of it. I want to experience all of it in this moment.
“Jesus, fuck. Aura,” her hand slips down to the waistband of my spandex and she yanks them off of my legs, leaving me naked and bare over her body while my lips fall down her neck. I bite, and suck, nibble and taste her skin while I move down, feeling the cold air of the room brush across my pussy while I spread my legs across her waist.
“I want you,” I say, repeating myself while my hand trails up to her breasts. I pull down her crop top, exposing her heavy tits so that I can taste them too. I swirl my tongue around her nipple, the metal of her piercing begging to be pulled and played with. So, I do. I bite down on the piece and pull back, hearing Ruby gasp and then moan while I suck her into my mouth. I flick along her skin before releasing, moving to the other side in order to the same. “I want to feel you inside of me, fucking me like you own me. Because you do, every part of me is yours. I want to you punish me for what I’ve done.”
“Get up here and sit on my fucking face,” Ruby bites out, her hard grip shifting to my hips as she pulls me up and over her. I have no choice but to move with her hands, her hold so hard and rough that I’m sure I’ll see prints of it tomorrow morning.
“Be quiet, we don’t anyone to find us. Not yet, not until we’ve cleaned this mess up.” Ruby sounds angry, her voice harsh and violent as she drags my pussy against her face. I immediately gasp and pull away, but her hand crashes against my ass as she pulls me back into place.
Her tongue slides out and through my pussy, slipping up and over my clit until she sucks me into her mouth. She slows down while I rock forward, grinding core against her while the flat of her tongue starts low again and grazes upward. She drops down, repeating the same, languid movement until she reaches my clit and flicks.
I’m biting my tongue, holding my moans and cries inside until I feel her slip two fingers inside of me, diving deep while I rock back against her hand and then grind forward against her face.
“Fuck my face, baby, let me taste how wet you are. Such a bad fucking girl,” she whispers, and I dive my hands into her hair while I hold her underneath me. She lets me take control and I roll forward again, using her to get off while her fingers and tongue pump inside of me.
She’s taking everything, fucking me in a way I could never get from anyone else—man or woman. Because it has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her. She’s my everything, my fucking demise and seduction. She’s my awakening, my flash of hope when I thought I had none.
The orgasm crashes through me before I can even stop it and I fall forward onto my hands and knees while she shifts out from underneath me. I’m still catching my own breath when I feel her hand on the back of my neck, slowly drifting down my spine and over my ass until she reaches my pussy again. She slips back inside me and I groan out, pushing against here fingers even after I’ve came because she feels so fucking good.
“You’re perfect,” Ruby whispers behind me as she continues fucking me slowly, working me back up into a frenzied mess that’s seeking her touch. But she flips me over again so that I’m on my back and she’s on top now. My eyes fall to her chest, her breasts sitting flawlessly on her chest and tempting me with her rosy, hard nipples. I lift my hands and brush my fingertips against them, feeling her slide one leg over my hip so that she can roll into me.
“I love when you do this,” I whisper, lifting my own hips to meet her slow, intentional thrusts.
“Do what?” she asks quietly, her eyes falling to our pussies as she watches us move against each other.
“Fuck me like this. When you make me yours.”
She smiles, and I can’t help but get lost in it. It’s the faintest light in this darkness, the reminder that there is something bright hidden amongst all of the evil. Her thumb falls to my clit while she works it, rubbing and pinching with each thrust forward.
“Things have changed in us,” she whispers as she leans to the side for a moment and comes back with something in her hand. I can’t tell what it is at first, but a quick gleam in the dark
ness has my heart quickening in anticipation of what she’s planning. “You’re not the same girl I met all those weeks ago.”
“No, I’m not,” I agree with her, I can feel the shift, the change in me as well.
Her hand drops in between us, and I feel the solid hilt brush through my wet pussy. The cold sensation eliciting a moan from my lips all on it’s own. I try to pull away, but her free hand slams down on my thigh as she holds me still and in front of her.
“I liked who you were then,” she whispers as she pushes the head against my opening just barely. Letting the tip slide in and then pulling back out. “But I love who you are now. The person you’ve become both behind closed doors and in front of everyone else. You’re powerful, Aura. Like you’ve finally embraced who you were always meant to be.”
She pushes it again, and when I look down to watch her, I see the blood dripping from her own hand and onto my pussy. She’s holding the knife, her fingers wrapped around the blade while she fucks me with the hilt.
“Holy fuck, Ruby,” I say breathlessly. I’m so fucking turned on by the sight of her own blood on my skin, the object that acted as a catalyst to my own power pumping in and out of me. She stretches me open around the shaft and I take it, my back arching off the ground as her thrusts go deeper.
“Nova,” she replies, her confident voice taking on a new quality as she finally gives me something I’ve been begging for. “My name is Nova.”
“Nova,” I repeat, letting the words frame lips and slip from my tongue on a needy whimper. My legs fall open even wider while she continues fucking me, the orgasm inside spiraling tighter and tighter until I know I’m close to snapping again. But I reach forward and grip her wrist, pulling the hilt from my core and throwing it to the side.
“You, I want you,” I say as I take her injured hand and place it on my throat, her blood coating my skin as my other hand grips her hips and drags her forward. I drag her pussy against my own while her breaths pick up as well. They fall out in rapid intervals, her moans staining the air in her captivating sounds. I fucking love them, and I want us to get off together, release all of this energy, these painful promises and pasts as one massive fucking surrender.