“How did Violet escape from you?” Ash interjects, and the question takes me somewhat by surprise, the name Violet still somehow not seeming to belong to Mum.
“I have no fucking idea. She had outside help. She drugged me, fucking bitch.” I don’t get time to step forward as Jax punches him in the chest, Adrian doubling over as much as his bindings will allow.
“Watch your mouth,” my Viking tells him, my chest swelling at his defence of my mum even though he never knew her. Coughing and spitting out more blood, Adrian continues.
“For years I fucking searched for her, without even a whiff. And then, almost seventeen years after she disappeared, a contact saw an article in a London newspaper of a girl who he said looked eerily similar to my Violet.” He stares right into my eyes, and though his own are mere slits as the skin around them is so puffy he can barely see, I feel the horrible truth sink in like a terminal disease.
A rushing noise like a fast-flowing river sounds in my ears as I’m transported to that fateful day, my mum clutching that very article that I tried to keep hidden, knowing that she’d be pissed. It all makes sense now, not being allowed any social media accounts, not even being allowed to be on anyone else’s. My mum was hiding from this vile monster, and I led him right to our door.
“Pretty Girl?” Loki’s voice penetrates the spiral that I’m tumbling down, dragging me back up and into the present again. “Talk to me, Lilly.”
His arms band tight round me, and I blink to see Kai has once again blocked my view of Adrian, my face once again cupped in his palms.
“Whatever it is, it’s not your fault, darling,” he tells me, his serious tone willing me to believe his words.
“B–but it was me in that article, Kai. Even though I knew Mum would be mad, I agreed to do it anyway as I was so damn proud to have won that stupid writing competition. I—” My voice cracks as tears stream down my face, tasting like despair.
“Kai’s right, baby,” Loki whispers in my ear, nuzzling the side of my face. “It wasn’t your fault this fucking freak couldn’t let go.”
I try to draw comfort from them, I really do. But I know that this sickening guilt will stay with me for many years to come.
“What happened next?” I ask as a thought occurs to me, not taking my eyes off Kai's comforting, amber ones, his thumbs brushing the tears from my face. “When you found Mum.”
Adrian laughs, and the sound chills me to the bone. I just know that something awful is about to leave his mouth, but like a train crash, I am powerless to stop it.
“I found her in the kitchen. She thought that I was you, and started to apologise for your argument earlier. That must hurt, knowing that your last words to your own mother were in anger.” I would stagger under the blow of his words if my two Knights weren’t holding me up. Another muffled grunt sounds out, followed by another sound of flesh hitting flesh.
“Let him finish, Jax,” I say, cold dread filling my body up until I’m numb. Kai holds my gaze, lending me what strength he can.
“She refused to tell me where the bonds were, told me that I’d never get my hands on them and that they belonged to you. I laughed at her. The pathetic, useless woman thought that she’d bested me. And then I took a kitchen knife and drove it into her body over and over again, watching the life drain out of her eyes.”
My knees give way, the room changing once more to my old kitchen, covered in my mum’s blood. A low keening noise sounds around me, and it takes me a moment to realise that it’s coming from my lips as Loki holds me in a crumpled heap in his lap, Kai stroking my hair.
A scream cuts through my mourning, and I look through bleary eyes to see Ash cutting off all the fingers on Adrian’s other hand, blood pumping from the severed digits. Jax blocks my view of the tortured man, the sound of ripping fabric loud over the broken, pained whimpers. Ash hands him the secateurs, and a second later a garbled animal shriek reverberates round the room, a lump of flesh hitting the floor at Jax’s feet.
I watch with a sense of numbness as Jax steps back, revealing a gaping wound in Adrian’s crotch. I should feel sick, but I feel nothing for this man, this monster who stole my mum’s life long before he killed her. Ash hands Jax a small blowtorch next, and Jax lights it just as Ash wakes Adrian up with smelling salts.
Adrian’s eyes widen, incoherent wails falling from his lips as Jax lowers the torch, the wails becoming more anguished as the sweet smell of cooking meat and burning fat fills the room. Bile rushes into my throat, threatening to spill over, but somehow I manage to hold onto the contents of my stomach, forcing myself to watch as justice is served.
What feels like an age later, Jax steps away, dropping the now unlit blowtorch and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a bloody trail. He glances over to me still on the floor, his piercing gaze pained, refusing to meet mine.
“Jax?” I question, his stare finally meeting mine, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t come closer. “Help me up?” He takes a deep inhale, his nose wrinkling at the smell as if he’s only just noticing it now. He still hesitates. “Please?”
Heaving a great sigh, he steps towards me, holding out a bloody hand for me to take once he reaches me. I grasp it, knowing that his hand is covered in the blood of my enemy. He added another black mark to his soul for me, and I love him for it, even as my soul hurts for him.
“Thank you, my love,” I whisper once he’s pulled me up to standing, and I place my other hand on his chest, his T-shirt damp with sweat and blood underneath my palm. Leaning in, I kiss him, worshipping my knight in tarnished, bloody armour with tongue and lips. My protector and saviour deserves nothing less.
“I would do all this and more for you, Baby Girl. I’d burn the whole motherfucking world to the ground if you asked me to,” he confesses against my tingling lips as we part, his free hand coming up to cup my face, the blood staining my skin.
“And I will always love you for it, no matter what you do,” I whisper back, pulling away slightly so that he can see the truth in my eyes. “You belong to me, Jax Griffiths, and I belong to you.”
The song changes andSerial Killerby Moncrieff & JUDGE breaks the heavy tension in the room.
“Fucking Loki,” Jax mumbles, his lips tilted in a half smile at his friend’s choice of music.
“What?” the man in question asks, bouncing up to us and throwing his arms round our shoulders. “It’s the perfect song!”
We laugh, Kai and Ash joining in, and some of the heady tension in the room easing.