The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) (4 page)

“I love you so much, Mae,” I whispered, tears making my vision blur. “Live life and fall in love. Grant yourself the family you dream of and never,
ever
, give up.” I leaned into her, a teardrop falling onto her lips causing her tongue to involuntarily lick it off as I placed my own lips to her forehead. The door opened behind me but I didn’t turn. I inhaled her, closing my eyes to etch the smell and feel of her to memory.

A sob choked me and I reined it back. “I give you my strength, sister. I give you my soul and my heart.” I stared at her as I stood up, my crying becoming uncontrollable as he stood quietly waiting for me. “But most of all,” I whispered. “I give you my life.”

I turned and looked at him. His expression was as hard as he was, but sensing my devastation, he lifted his hand to me. I had a feeling it would be the last and only time he would give me any sensitivity. “Time to go, Shadow.”

I slipped my hand into his as I picked up my bag with the other and nodded. He led me out but not before allowing me one last look back.

As we silently journeyed farther out of the city and more into the moorlands, minutes turning into hours, my terror and apprehension grew until the rampant, horrific thoughts in my head caused me to turn and look at the dark silhouette of my captor. His cheekbones were defined against the backfill of the moon that bled light through his side of the car. His nose wasn’t large as such but, for want of another word to describe it, strong. His lips were thin, the stubble across his chin highlighted in the vague light. He wasn’t drop dead gorgeous but there was something handsome and unique about his features. I knew from his accent that he was foreign, maybe Russian or Romanian, yet his English was so good I knew he’d spent more time in Britain than his home country.

Sensing my inspection of him, he turned to glance at me. He didn’t speak but his eyes settled on mine as if warning me somehow. I swallowed, and trying to hide my nerves from him, I tipped my head and narrowed my eyes. “I don’t even know your name.” My voice was quiet and I hated that, but I was amazed I’d been bold enough to ask him.

He turned back to look at the road before answering me. “Isaac Marinov.”

The widening of my eyes showed him my surprise that he’d answered. A slow, smug grin stirred his usually stern mouth. “You thought I wouldn’t tell you?” I nodded. “It doesn’t matter, Shadow. You won’t get the chance to tell anyone your abductor’s name.”

His smart declaration angered me but I wisely held back the need to tell him that. Instead, I ventured on with my rambling. “Why do you keep calling me Shadow? My name is Connie.”

“Not any more, love.”

My mouth dried when a sinister smile accompanied his response yet I chose to ignore it. I was scared to death already and if I took note of all his severe expressions and his unkind words then I knew I’d have a heart attack before we reached our destination.

Shifting around in my seat, I blinked at him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Something else?” he mocked, pursing his lips in amusement. Then he sighed and glanced at me again, his stern face even colder than before. “Let me tell you, this will be the single and only time you will ever ask me anything again. You’re a Phantom soldier now, Shadow, and I am a Phantom commandant. You do not ask, you follow orders and do them without deliberation, and without disagreement.”

I stared at him, my eyes wide. My heart raced at his words. Who the hell was he, and who were these Phantoms he kept talking about? They sounded like an army, or at the very least a clan. I had a feeling I should have allowed him to kill me when he first came for me because I was sure what was to come would be worse than death.

“Speak, Shadow!” he barked, making me jump.

I couldn’t form the words when my mouth dried and my throat started to close in. I was going into panic, his cruelness making my stomach heave.

“This is your last chance to ask your question!” he spat. “Don’t disrespect my leniency because you won’t receive anymore.”

I blinked back my tears and jutted my chin out defiantly. “Who wants to kill me, and why?”

He quirked an eyebrow then laughed. “I did wonder when you would ask me that.”

I gritted my teeth, his ridicule making me furious as my emotions shifted gear briskly. I was surprised I’d held it together for so long. “Stop laughing at me!”

I cried out when his fist connected with the side of my face, knocking my head into the window. Amazingly, the car never veered off course, his skill keeping the wheels straight. My hand automatically came up to my sore cheek when pain shot out in all directions from where he’d fractured my cheekbone in one precise blow. My ears hummed and my temple throbbed from where it had thudded against the glass.

“Do – not – ever – talk – to – me – like – that – again!” he stated firmly and slowly through clenched teeth, as if I was too stupid to understand. “The next time you do I will cut out your rancorous tongue and feed it down your throat with my fucking knife!”

I huddled my body into the door, crushing my face into the window and hiding from him and his rage as the tears that had threatened for the past two hours finally came with a torrent of grief and misery. I knew he meant every single word and I contemplated taking him up on his offer just to stop the agony inside my chest from tearing me up slowly and painfully. His way would be a much quicker method of death than the slow death happening inside me.

“Unfortunately, I do not know who gave the order for your death, Shadow,” he stated calmly, with a tender smile, as though nothing had happened. It was this coolness and relaxed composure he conveyed that made me aware just how dangerous and malicious he was. Going at lightning speed from violence to softness required an extraordinary control of emotions, and if someone could cause you so much pain then, in a flash, talk to you softly with a gentle smile, I knew they had no soul to give them a conscience. “You will soon learn that Phantom assassins are never given specifics about a mark. Only the basic information.”

I blinked, wincing when the action caused my cheek to ache. “Why would I learn that?” I tensed, expecting him to be angry with yet another question, but instead he looked at me with a frown, as though I had just asked the most knowledgeable question.

“Because you’ll learn all the guidelines about how you will kill someone.”

The nausea that had laid heavy in my gut throughout our journey finally turned into vomit and rushed up my throat at a speed I couldn’t hold back from. The few sandwiches I’d eaten at the party hit the dashboard when his meaning reached the part of my brain that understood exactly what he meant – what I was to become.

He tutted and blew out a bored sigh, his disregard to my redecoration of his car making me wonder how many girls had been in this situation. My blood chilled when he spoke again.

“Don’t worry, Shadow. Blood and carnage will soon be your drug, the very thing your soul needs to flourish. Your heart will only beat when you watch your prey’s stop. And your thirst will only be quenched by death.”

I shook my head, shock and horror making it difficult to breathe. “Never,” I choked out. “I will never kill anyone.”

He laughed. “Sure thing, love.”

I screwed up my face and turned back to the window, focussing on the darkness outside before I got myself another punch and retorted angrily to his declaration. I would never kill anyone. Never. I couldn’t do that.

Yet, it would only be four months later that I went against everything I swore and promised myself.

At the mere age of fourteen. I, Shadow, assassin for the notorious Phantoms performed my first execution. The first amongst many. The very first one that would split my soul into many pieces, each murder I committed taking away a piece of me until at the tender age of sixteen there was nothing left of Connie Swift but a single sliver of a heart that had always been a part of my sister. And nothing, not even a lifetime of massacre and slaughter would ever take that away.

WE EVENTUALLY PULLED
off the road and manoeuvred in between some trees. My eyes widened on a large house looming high and impressive in the background. It was lit by a huge fire on the gravelled area at the front of the house, splitting the darkness in two and giving the house a marbled effect as the heat rose and warped the oxygen in the air.

Isaac pulled to a stop and I remained pressed back against my seat, my heart beating so hard I swore we could both hear its rampant thud in the confines of the quiet car.

“This will be your home for the next three months,” he said quietly, his eyes regarding me for my reaction. I refused to give him one. Instead I gulped back the fear and slowly stepped out of the car.

Walking towards the house, I heard Isaac behind me, opening and closing the car doors as he retrieved my bag and followed me up the drive.

The fire was roaring, lighting the area as the house lingered darkly in the backdrop. “Why is there a bonfire?” I asked as I turned to Isaac when he strolled up behind me.

“It’s the only heat you’ll get. The house has no amenities so you either choose shelter and freeze inside, or take the option of sleeping under the stars with a fire to keep you warm.”

My whole body ached at that thought and I instinctively pulled my coat farther around me. Simple things like electricity and gas I had taken advantage of, and now the lack of either seemed daunting. Yet, I nodded, strangely knowing it was expected of me.

Isaac moved from my side and I stared silently at the fire, all the hopes I’d had of my days to come being bearable now turning to ash in the flames of the bonfire.

I frowned when he lifted his arm and threw something into the middle of the raging inferno. I blinked, squinting as I tried to make out what it was. When my brain registered it, I screamed and flung myself forward in attempt to retrieve the item.

Isaac lifted me off the ground with one arm around my body and pulled me back.

“NO!” I screamed as I watched with devastation as my bag rapidly disintegrated before my eyes. “No!” I wrenched free from him as I tried again to take hold of the only thing left of me.

“Shadow!” he roared as he grabbed hold of me again. “Connie Swift is dead! She is no more!”

“But!” I cried, my sobs making my pleas indecipherable, “The only pictures I have of Mae are in there!” I couldn’t breathe as I watched my past die. The only physical memories I had disintegrated as fast as my hopes and dreams. Tears flooded my face as I cried out with a whisper, “Mae. My beautiful Mae.”

I fell to my knees, the heat from the roaring fire scorching my skin as I watched everything turn to embers. Rage filled me, my spirit deciding she’d had enough as I bounced up and punched Isaac square in the face, my other hand slapping at him as I made him pay for what he had done.

I was down and under him in a single second. He straddled my back and punched me in the back of the head, pain coursing through my skull with an unbelievable agony. Then he squashed my face into the wet mud until my lungs squealed with the pressure. My eyes began to bulge as my brain throbbed. The world seemed to shift away from me, the hum in my ears disguising Isaac’s furious reprimand as the dirt started to seep into my lungs with each of my attempts to draw in air.