Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Huxley

I’M STUCK IN a strange sort of slumber. I can feel something behind my head, a bony knee slamming into the back of it, jarring me awake. But opening my eyes is hard, and unconsciousness pushes blackness around the edges of my vision.

I hear a groan and it’s familiar.

Am I in bed with Ambrose?

That can’t be right…

When did I fall asleep?

Where? How?

“Huxley?” I hear my name faintly, and I’m sure the voice belongs to Ambrose. “Huxley,” he says more urgently, and I feel him move around me.

I blink, trying to open my eyes, but the lids are fucking heavy. Everything in my body tells me to relax, to let go, to fall back into sleep. But my mind is awake inside my shell of a body, and it’s insistent that something’s wrong, that I need to snap out of this and wake the fuck up.

I feel his palms on my cheeks and a prickle of electricity from his touch ripples through me. His hands fall to my shoulders, and he shakes me. I try to blink again, fighting against this sleep that wants to win. I feel him tug me over onto his lap and his warmth sinks through me.

His heat is harsh against the chill I feel in my bones—it’s so fucking cold in here. There’s a wintry breeze blowing across my face, which contrasts the heat of his legs beneath my shoulders.

“Huxley!” He shakes me again. “Wake the fuck up! Glory and Maura are gone.”

Fuck.

I fight to open my eyes, blinking until they stay open for longer than a half a second. “What?” I manage to mumble.

He tugs at me, lifting me upright, and the movement sends energy rushing through me. He wraps his arms around me, hugging me close. My arms slowly prickle back to life and wrap around him, though my grip is weak.

His fingers dig into my hair at the back of my head, cradling me against his strong chest, and I hear the rapid beating of his heart. “Fuck, Huxley. You’re okay. You’re okay.” The tremor in his tone hints at his relief—as if he really didn’t know whether I was okay before.

My grip around him tightens, my muscles twitching to life at once with urgent need to comfort him. But then I recall our circumstances and what led to me passing out on the floor.

Glory.

I pull back with a jerk, gripping his shoulders and looking squarely into his dark eyes. “Where’s Glory?”

“I don’t fucking know, but she and Maura are gone.”

He glances over my shoulder behind me, and I turn my head to follow his gaze. The front door of the cabin is wide open, and a heavy snowfall dots white falling speckles against the dark backdrop of the forest.

“Shit.” I shove to my feet as my heartbeat quickens, but immediately, I sway and stumble, dropping back down to my knees. “What happened to us?” I ask, bringing the heel of my palm to press against my throbbing forehead.

“Maura. Maura fucking happened to us. I think it was the candy.”

“What?”

“I think she put something in it.”

“Why the fuck would she—” I start, but I cut myself off. At this point, everything is believable. “It doesn’t matter.” I plant one foot on the ground and wait for the swirl in my head to steady before slowly pushing to my feet again. “We have to find Glory.”

I pause when I’m on my feet, breathing carefully through the whirling nausea that threatens to bring me to my knees again. I glance over to see Ambrose standing, but bent forward over the back of the couch, gripping it to steady himself.

My soul feels ripped in two. One half pulls me toward him, urges me to help him to bed and force him to rest while I take care of him. The other more insistently begs me to get control and run as fast as I can out into that forest until I find Glory. Both parts of me need to save both of them, but I’m so fucking sick I can hardly keep myself upright.

“We have to go,” Ambrose says, then takes an audibly deep breath before shoving himself upright. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he half walks, half stumbles across the room. He unlocks a standing cabinet nestled in the back corner of the kitchen and pulls out two things.

A shotgun and an axe.

Holding them shakily, one in each hand, he makes his way toward me, holding out the axe. I glance down at it and feel a rumble of rage vibrate through my chest.

My mother wants me dead.

She drugged me and Ambrose with her fucking maple candy. And now she’s out there in the forest with Glory, and I don’t know whether she’s okay—but I know my mother wants her dead, too, and that woman is a fighter.

I wrap my palm around the handle of the axe and give him a nod. It falls heavily in my grip when he releases it, but the weight is grounding, affirming, steadying me through the remnants of nausea and dizziness.

He looks at me with painful intensity as his free hand reaches out for me, slipping along my cheek, fingers digging into my hair at the side of my head. He tugs me forward and leans his forehead against mine. My heart jumps at his touch, at his closeness, at the indignant vengeance that pulses from his soul and shakes through mine.

“No more games. We find Maura and we fucking end her.”

I nod against his head. “We end her and bring Glory home safe.”

His eyes flutter shut and at first, I think it’s because of the poison still running through his veins. But then he tilts his chin and presses a soft yet demanding kiss to my lips that makes my entire being ripple with his intensity.

“We all come home,” he whispers against my lips.

Reluctantly, we tear ourselves from each other and make our way through the front door. Our feet sink into the snow as more continues to fall fast and furious from the sky. It’s nearly blinding how it falls, painting bright white streaks down the dark tree trunks at the edge of the clearing. The cabin light from within allows us to see that far.

I’m relieved to see Ambrose’s truck still parked here—at least neither of them drove away. But that means they’re out in the forest somewhere, and there’s no telling how long they’ve been out there or how far they’ve gotten.

“This way,” Ambrose says, and I turn my head to follow his hand as he points down to some quickly fading footprints in the building snow.

If I could take off running, I would, but I still feel the sway as I move, the world around me constantly tilting and shifting with each step I take. I can see how it effects Ambrose in the way his upper body tilts with every other step. But we both fight through it because we have to. Neither of us will stop until we know Glory is safe and the woman who calls herself my mother is dead.

We follow the tracks to the tree line and Ambrose darts into the forest with familiarity. As soon as I step past the tree line to follow him, the world is shrouded in darkness. I can barely see a foot in front of me, and I blink, hoping my eyes will adjust quickly.

“Stay with me,” Ambrose says as he picks up his pace.

Though the dizzying sway is gradually wearing off, I feel even more disoriented by the dark, how I strain my eyes trying to see but can hardly make out a branch before it smacks me in the face. But Ambrose…he moves with ease and grace, as if nature is the antidote for the drug swirling within him, as if the trees speak to him and guide him on his path.

We rush through the forest for maybe ten minutes before we hear something snap—a loud crack echoing through the night as if someone stepped on a twig. We full stop and fall into the silence that follows.

For a few moments, the world is still and quiet. I can nearly hear the whoosh of the falling snow as flakes rush to the ground, hurrying to fill the spaces between the trees.

“Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a sound, Maura.” Glory’s voice whispers and echoes all around us. I turn my head, seeking the source, but I can’t find it. “I’m closing in on you now.”

Someone breaks off into a run—we can hear the footfalls padding heavily through the snow.

Ambrose grips my shirt at the center of my chest, tugging me close to him as he says, “That way.” He then shoves me to the right.

I don’t think, I just move, taking off on a run in that direction, chasing after my mother or Glory, I don’t really know. The footfalls I heard grow louder and more distinct as I run, dodging black tree trunks and clawing branches. I’m catching up to someone and I’m wary, not knowing if it’s my mother or Glory. I have to be careful not to hurt Glory by mistake.

But then I stop dead in my tracks when I hear my mother cry out, a pained and fearful scream echoing through the dark forest. It makes me pause, triggering my need to save, though I know now she wouldn’t extend the same courtesy to me. She had the chance, and she didn’t choose to save me.

The scream turns into echoing sobs as an eerie glow begins to peek up from the ground in the distance. Sunrise is nearing, and soon there will be light in the forest.

“Stop, please!” my mother shouts and I run toward the sound.

Soon I can see a silhouette moving across the trees, hobbling and struggling to get away, and I immediately know it’s my mother.

“Run, Maura. You can’t hide anymore…” Glory’s voice sounds far away and near all at once. “Run. Run. Run.”

Fuck.

Glory is gone. She’s lost to that bloody, violent rage again, and that makes me more fearful for her safety than if she were calm and acting like her usual self. She’s lost control, and without control, mistakes are made. She could hurt herself and keep going because the anger pushes her onward.

Light continues to grow, lifting from that line in the distance, and slowly reveals our scene. My mother comes into full view as she backs her way around the trunk of a wide tree in a small clearing.

The tree is familiar.

It’s a tree Ambrose brought me to once before.

Hugging the trunk, she peeks her head around it, looking for Glory with no idea that I’m standing right behind her.

Her hands are untied, though the rope still clings to one of her wrists, as though she was cut free. She’s still wearing that impractical pencil skirt and her feet are bare in the snow. There’s blood coating her left leg and all her weight is shifted onto her right.

She looks like shit.

Glory’s been toying with her.

I take a step forward and a branch snaps beneath my shoe.

I stop.

Maura stills.

Then, slowly, she turns. Standing at the base of the large maple tree—just above the graves of Ambrose’s parents—she looks at me with fearful eyes, a tremor running through her body.

“Hu-Huxley…” she stammers through blue-tinged, trembling lips.

And fuck, it tugs at my heart, at the string that activates my endless empathy and my fucking need to save people from themselves.

She wanted me dead.

The axe weighs me down, pulling through my arm and shoulder, reminding me that it’s there in my grip. I take another step forward as the light grows, as the sun continues to rise.

My heart races as my mother cries, black eyeliner streaking down her cheeks, her hair a tangled mess, as her bare feet walk forward, stepping on the graves of Ambrose’s parents.

Does she deserve to die like they did?

My conscience demands a re-evaluation and I’m forced to allow it. As her steps quicken toward me, my heart sinks, forcing unease to flow through me at the look of my mother. I step back, afraid we’ve made a mistake, afraid I’ll regret this forever.

And then her face switches from sadness to outright rage, and she screams at me across the small clearing atop their graves. “I wish you’d never been born!”

A single gunshot rings out and I jump, startled by the sound of it. I watch with wide eyes as a dark stain slowly spreads from my mother’s stomach, flowing out gradually, soaking through the fabric of her blouse.

She glances down at it with shock, then looks back up at me. And though she whispers the words, a breeze kicks up around them as they tumble from her lips, sweeping them through the bare branches and swirling them to echo all around me.

“I never loved you.”

I.

See.

Red.

A primal roar forms in my gut, gathers strength in my lungs, and bursts forth from me uncontrollably. My feet move without thought, charging after her at a run as the axe shifts in my grip, moving to be held by both hands, raising high above my head.

Maura falls to her knees as her hand comes up to touch her side, pulling it away to look at the blood that pools. As I close in on her, my mind kicks up a rhythmic chant, telling me to strike, strike, strike.

Just steps away, a blur rushes in from my side, a running blur with fake blonde hair and rage in her eyes. She’s quicker than me, fiercer than me, more determined than me.

Glory barrels into Maura, slamming her body to the ground before settling on top of her, straddling her waist, bringing her knife up high above her head in both of her tiny hands.

I stop and watch as Glory does what I wanted to do.

She brings down her knife, stabbing it into Maura’s chest. Her body jerks and her head falls to the side as she coughs blood, spilling crimson liquid over the bright white snow.

Glory pulls out her blade and strikes again.

Strike, strike, strike.

I’m stunned.

I’m frozen.

I watch as Glory stabs my mother repeatedly, grunting with each plunge of her blade as blood spatters her face.

Ambrose appears from the trees, walking slowly from the direction Glory came, sauntering toward her casually and without care, carrying the shotgun he used to incapacitate my mother in his hands.

Ambrose stops behind Glory and slowly turns his head in my direction. “Do you want me to stop her?” he asks as Glory unapologetically continues to stab her.

“No more. No more. No more,” she chants with each drive of her blade.

Before long, Maura stops coughing, stops rolling her head, stops moving entirely. Yet Glory continues her assault as angry tears stream down her face, glistening on her cheeks as they reflect the rising sunlight.

“No more…” It becomes a whisper as her speed and vigor slow, as the time between each stab extends.

With a final jab into her chest, Glory stops, her hands still wrapped around the handle, her head bowing as she begins to sob. The axe drops from my grip and lands heavily in the snow. Ambrose sets down his shotgun and we both move for her at the same time.

I reach down for Glory, and she lifts her chin to look up at me. “I lost control again,” she whispers, pain wrinkling the features of her face.

She lifts her hands, reaching up for me like a lost child who needs comfort. I will always give her comfort. I grab beneath her arms and lift her off Maura, unconcerned with the blood that soaks Glory from head to toe as I draw her into my arms and drag her away from the body.

She wraps her arms around my neck and holds me close, crying into my shoulder. Ambrose joins us a second later, wrapping his arms around us both, offering me comfort in his embrace as I give everything I have to Glory. I can give endlessly to her now because he strengthens me; he replenishes me when I’ve given her all that I have to give. And more than anything in the world, that makes me feel whole. It makes me feel aligned with the universe. It makes me feel peaceful.

Despite the vileness of our lives and the bloodshed that brought us here, we’re together now. Our three broken souls stitched together forever as one with this final act of violence to end the person who meant to destroy us.

Except…my hands are still clean.

And that feels wrong.

It feels out of balance.

They’ve both bloodied their hands in this, and mine are clean. I don’t think I can move forward with that weighing on me.

I pull back from Glory, gripping her shoulders, dipping down to level my eyes with hers. I give her a small smile, the encouragement she so desperately needs. I tuck a strand of bloody hair behind her ear, then lift my eyes to meet Ambrose’s as I push her back against him. I step back and release her. Then, he grips her by the shoulders and spins her to face him, quickly enclosing her in his warm embrace.

I bend and pick up the axe, and it feels like I’m holding the weight of the world as I drag it along with me to my mother’s gory corpse. It should hurt me to see her like this, and though it does pull at my humanity, I’m reminded that this is what she wanted to have done to me. She wanted this to be me, sliced and lifeless. She wanted this to be Glory.

I draw in a deep breath of indignation, letting the righteousness fill my lungs as I move the axe to be held between both of my hands. I lift it above my head, drawing the monumental weight higher. My gaze falls to her blood-streaked neck and I hear her words from Ambrose’s recording echo in my mind.

“I want their skulls.”

She wanted my Glory dead.

She wanted my Glory’s skull.

And that reminder is enough to make the true image of her come to life before me. A monster lies here on the forest floor, dead atop the graves of the monsters who drove Ambrose to murder. And Glory’s monster is buried in this forest, too.

Ambrose and Glory were brave enough to slay their monsters, and though she’s already dead, I’ll do the same to mine just to be worthy of them.

The dark magic feeling of Sugar Wood Forest ripples through the branches, clawing at the frigid air, infecting it with sin that sinks inside me. It crawls up my arms, blackens my veins, and bursts through my fingertips with insistence to deliver the final blow.

With a whisper of encouragement from the tainted trees, from the forest that gave life to Tolliver’s Treats and the monsters who ran it, I let my arms fall.

Swinging down with a swift and heavy blow, I strike, slicing the axe blade cleanly through her neck.

“I want their skulls.”

She’ll never have Glory’s skull, but the forest can have hers.

I feel Ambrose wrap his hand around my wrist, tugging and encouraging me to let go of the axe. I loosen my grip, let go, and take a step back.

And Glory’s right there to take me away from the violence and into the peace of her arms, pulling me away and hugging me close.

I squeeze her, bringing my hand up to cradle the back of her head and hold her tightly in place. I rest my chin on the top of her head as the bright sun rises behind Ambrose. The sight of his darkness shadowed by light is the first moment I realize that the snowfall stopped, and I wonder how long ago it had. The falling snow lifted from the forest like the plague has lifted from our souls.

“It’s done,” Glory says, pressing a kiss to my chest. “It’s all done now. It’s over.”

The captor who changed everything smiles at us with the sunlight framing him like a fallen angel. “And the rest has only just begun.”