On The Bound

025. Nothing I can do / A total eclipse of the heart

"You talk about survival like it's. . . second nature. But, it isn't. This place—this coffin of a cabin—didn't kill you. It's living in all of us." Her lips crinkle in scorn. "Have you ever thought about what Taissa would say about you in front of normal people because fucking survival wasn't enough?"

Normalcy. That's the knife that lands in Van's throat. Van gets to her feet, fast yet solemn, as if rising from the sun.

"Hey!" Natalie rushes over to the commotion, shielding Sade and Travis. "Van. . . go. Just. . . don't make things any worse."

She leaves reluctantly at Nat's command. The others only watch. Travis turns back to the frost cradling the window, voice low, a thread of something unsteady beneath it. "This place is. . . evil."

Sade doesn't answer him. Not directly. Instead, she looks at the fire in the hearth, at the way the flames flicker and dance. A thought blooms. Cleansing. A few slow moments later, Shauna emerges from the cold.

From her seat on the floor, Sade could see the blood soaking the wooden tray, covering the thick chunks of human meat. Javi's organs were presented, almost as if Shauna had tried to arrange him again—like a child puzzled by a broken doll, placing limbs where limbs once were, hoping that this mimicry could summon life back into the hollow.

In the center of the tray, gleaming like a forbidden jewel, was Javi's heart. Still wet. Still warm. It pulsed, faintly. Or maybe that was just the firelight. The room became something else then—no longer a cabin, but a kitchen. The girls grew hungrier. Meaner. Licking the air in tongues of saffron and sin. Casting halos on their skin. Shauna bent forward, taking Javi's heart into her trembling hands.

"Travis." She calls.

Travis turns to Sade.

She can read him. Come with me. I can't do this alone. Eyes closing shut, her feet rises too. On guard, Sade stands behind and watches as her friend aches from his seat. Shauna gifts him the heart and waits. They all wait for his next action. Travis takes his thumbs, ripping Javi's heart in two. Blood is falling through his fingers. He offers it to Sade. A hymn in red.

"No." She shakes her head. "It's yours."

A prayer that had to be swallowed on your own. Travis refuses that idea.

"He would want you to."

An indigo wave of nausea fills her throat. She shoves it down, crimson dribbling down her chin as the heart gripped her teeth. Rubbery. The blood was thick as ink, clinging to her lips like a psalm written in reverse. Natalie lowers her head.

Travis wept silently beside her in the bite. He then tosses Javi's raw heart into the frying pan and leaves. He can't watch. The remaining girls bolted from their seats, tossing their bites of meat to cook. With heated fingers, Sade retrieves the organ quickly. They can't have his heart. It belongs to her.

She closes her eyes and imagines Javi walking again, held together not by flesh, but by the memory of hands trying. The meat was salted with childhood sorrow, not pathetic pine trees or frozen berries. Every bite bloomed a tiny God behind her teeth. Chewing. Because love, she thought, is not always soft. Sometimes, it is raw. Sometimes, it is meat.

𓂀

Sade silently climbs into the attic, finding Misty at Lottie's side, persuading her to eat.

"I didn't want it to happen. I'm sorry." While she doesn't look up, Lottie apologizes at Sade's entrance. The Thorne girl doesn't accept nor deny it. Her silence is its own language, carved from bone.