Read The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) Online

Authors: D H Sidebottom

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The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) (5 page)

BOOK: The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3)
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Suddenly I was released and the sounds my chest created made me wince as I tried to refill my lungs with much needed oxygen. However, he fisted my hair and dragged me up, the pull on my neck restricting the available passage from my mouth to my lungs, his cruelty once again limiting my supply of air.

“You – ever – strike – me – again!” he hissed, his incense making his pale face turn puce. “And I will end your life! But don’t think I will do it swiftly. I will make it as agonising as I possibly can!”

I didn’t doubt him for one second. I tried to nod but his hold on my head made it difficult.

“You belong to the Phantoms now, Shadow. You do as you are told, you follow orders, and you do them without deliberation…”

“And without disagreement,” I finished in my head.

He dropped me as abruptly as he had seized me. I fell back into the mud on my side, my sobs drenching the already wet ground. I heard his footsteps and then the car door banged. I lay there, in front of the fire, in front of the ashes that were now the only thing left of my sister, as Isaac started the engine and drove off, leaving me alone with only my sanity for company.

I WAS SURPRISED
to see her still laid out exactly where she had fallen the previous night. I was disappointed, and the small growl that left me told me my soul was too. She had broken already, after a mere few hours. I sighed loudly. She would never have survived my father’s cruelty and I supposed it was a good thing she had already given in. A speedy bullet to her head would be the easiest route to give her the peace she craved, yet the gloom inside me irritated me. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was about the feisty, mouthy little girl that got to me.

Stepping from the car, the dying heat from the fire prickled against the chill in the early morning winter air, and I zipped up my jacket. Pulling the gun from my waistband I stood over her still form. She really was quite pretty for a stubborn brat, and it was a shame she hadn’t proved to be as hard as I originally thought. I’d awoken from a dream in the night, one where she had finally reached the age of consent and I’d given her the best birthday present – my hard cock and the fucking of her life.

Pursing my lips and heaving out another sigh, I clicked off the safety and crouched beside her. Pushing the muzzle into her temple, a sensation in my gut pained me. Why was this so damn hard? I’d executed dozens but I realised I’d never ended the life of a child. Yet, something told me it wasn’t that reason that ached me.

My finger pressed against the trigger as a sadness overwhelmed me. Her bright blue eyes were seized by the tiny flames of the fire, unfocussed and unseeing as her fractured mind gave her solace in the depths of insanity. Her lips were tinted a light blue, evidence of hyperthermia rattling her bones and torturing her lungs. The mascara she’d worn for her party left tracks down her face, proof of her tears and the burden of her coherence.

As I hesitated, her eyes slowly and gradually moved to me. “Do it,” she croaked.

I blinked, astounded by her lucidity. My head cocked as my eyes narrowed on her. “You still with me, pretty girl?”

She didn’t answer but a glint in her eyes showed me enough. I clicked off the safety, stashed the gun back into the waistband of my jeans, and stood up. Her eyes followed me but she made no attempt to move as I walked over to the well and pumped it hard, filling the bucket with ice and the small amount of water that hadn’t frozen over with last night’s low temperatures.

She shrieked when I poured every single drop over her head. “Get up!”

She cried out, moving quickly to escape another downpour when I hovered the bucket over her. Her head shook manically as her arms instinctively wrapped around her trembling body in attempt to warm herself up. “If you don’t get yourself moving you’ll freeze to death.”

Her eyes widened but the shock of the water rebutted her effort to talk, her teeth chattering so hard she couldn’t configure words.

“Run!” I whispered coldly, a wicked smile tilting my lips as I pulled out my blade and flicked it playfully between my fingers.

She swallowed, her feet shuffling backwards as her gawp on the knife showed me her fear.

Lifting it, I aimed it at her then winked. “Run!”

She suddenly moved, her frozen legs struggling with the pace, but I silently admired her strength when she took off like a bullet from a gun, her slight frame moving across the grounds at a speed that surprised me. I gave her a start, needing her to get up a pace that would make her heartbeat increase and pump the frozen blood around her body enough to keep her alive. Then I charged after her.

She looked over her shoulder at me, the terror on her face making me chuckle as she upped her speed and tore off towards the stream that ran adjacent to the three acres of secluded woodland belonging to the Phantoms for both training and executions. Unfortunately, for her, I knew the area well, much of my own training here giving me a blind knowledge of every square inch. She headed towards the stream, and if she didn’t brave it and dive in, pushing her aching body through the depths of the freezing water, then she had the choice of facing me instead.

I watched with amusement when her legs slammed to a halt in front of the stream, wondering which option she would choose.

I was slightly awed when she pulled her shoulders back then spun around to face me. She whipped up a long, thick stick from the floor and held it in front of her defensively. Her first lesson was complete and I couldn’t help but grin. She would rather brave the worst of the evils, therefore teaching her mind that lighting speed decisions were what would keep her alive.

“Don’t come near me!” she hissed, her eyes fixed on the knife in my hand. I was impressed when her concentration never wavered.

“I don’t need to,” I whispered as I flicked the knife, and she cried out when it embedded into the soft flesh under her right collarbone.

She gasped, one of her hands lifting to the puncture site. “You…”

I laughed. “Don’t tell me you expected me to go easy on you?” I tutted as I approached her slowly. “Where would that get you if I make your training easy? You need to see what’s to come, Shadow,” I murmured as I reached out slowly and took the stick from her, my arms moving quickly to catch her when her legs finally gave in and she fell like a lead weight. I scooped her up and carried her up to the house.

“You know.” I sighed as I kicked open the front door and took her into the empty, gloomy room. “I’d have thought you’d have at least attempted to fill the fireplace in here.”

She stared at me, her stunned eyes wide from where her face nestled against my chest. “I thought…”

I shook my head disappointedly. “You have a lot to learn.” I blinked down at her, hating the sympathy I felt. “You do what is needed to stay alive.”

Placing her down on the floor, I went back to the car and grabbed the stash of medical items I had brought with me. She blinked when I threw them down beside her. “Repair the wound.”

Her mouth fell open, her eyes briskly moving from me to where my knife still remained rooted in her shoulder. “What?”

I shrugged. “You either sew yourself up or you will die from the loss of blood.”

She flinched when I dipped down, grabbed my knife and pulled it out quickly. She cried out in pain with my brutal extraction, her hand pressing against the wound as she struggled to stem the flow of blood. Her pale face exposed her pain and as I wiped her blood from my blade onto my jeans, I looked at her. “Use that pain and turn it into adrenaline, Shadow. Do what is needed to stay alive.”

Then I tossed her the bottle of water I had brought her and left. I wanted to look back, and for some strange reason, it was the hardest thing not to. I never looked back. I never,
ever
, looked back. Yet, before I closed the door behind me, I took a final glance of her. I knew she’d be dead when I returned the next day. She was a tough one, but sadly, she wasn’t tough enough to withstand what I had in store for her. And that thought disappointed me and pained my stomach when I slid back into my car and drove away.

I SENSED HIS
shock when he walked into the room and found me eating the berries I’d found growing near the stream that morning. The deep wound in my shoulder was stitched and dressed as a fire roared in the cover of the small fireplace in the room. Fair enough, it had taken me several attempts to fix the gaping slice in my shoulder, and I’ll admit, for the first time I appreciated Miss Greer’s insistence that I learned sewing at school. The exhilaration that had burst through me when I’d tied off the last of the thread had snapped something inside of me. I can’t explain what happened to me in the depths of the dark, cold night. A fever had ravaged my body as I’d sobbed and screamed through every stitch. But when I finally pulled through that last one, and I couldn’t help but laugh and cheer myself, it was as though my soul shifted from inside me, an emptiness growing inside me and tearing my heart from my chest in an unbelievable agony that I knew I would never feel again throughout my life. I’d stared at the mess I had made of myself and fell to the floor, weeping, my spirit begging me to end it all as I considered exactly why I had fixed a part of me when I knew death was around the corner anyway. Then I heard her, Mae’s soft voice begging me to keep going. I knew it had been my imagination, but it was the slap I’d needed. I was doing this for her, to save her from the hands of these monsters. My death would only negotiate hers. And that was something I was unwilling to spend eternity paying for.

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