Chapter 9
Nicholas’s POV
I leaned close to her ear and whispered, “You were blind in the eyes and the heart. There’s no point in keeping those eyes around anymore.”
Almost instantly, a foul, warm puddle spread beneath her wheelchair. Her whole body started jerking violently, like someone had plugged her into a wall socket.
I heard later that one night, back at the Langford estate, the place echoed with gut–wrenching
screams.
When the house staff finally broke down her, door, what they saw made one of them throw up right there on the rug.
Kylie’s face was covered in blood. Her fingers had dug straight into her eye sockets. She tore them open like she was trying to claw something out from inside her skull.
She’d never see daylight again.
And me?
The doctors said my ‘persecutory delusions‘ had gotten worse. I was no longer fit for outpatient care. So the iron gates of the psychiatric hospital opened for me once again, this time for good.
They told me I’d never leave this place for the rest of my life.
And honestly, I didn’t mind.
Not once did my parents show up. No calls, no letters.
They were already gone–off living some clean, quiet life while I stayed buried in this shadowed corner of the world.
Outside my window, sunlight slanted through the bars, leaving faint streaks across the floor. I counted them, the same way I’d counted every one of those ten wasted years. Days bled into each other, but the weight in my chest never let up.
The truth was, before I ever set out for revenge, I’d already arranged everything for my parents- new names, a new city, even new faces.
A cosmetic surgeon in the city did their work so skillfully that even I couldn’t recognize them in the photos. The kindly, smiling middle–aged couple they’d become weren’t my parents anymore. Now, they lived by the sea, in some sunlit town, with my brother’s urn. They probably went by a different name.
.
They had a life that had nothing to do with me, which was how it should be.
And honestly, that was how it should be.
1 curled up in the corner of the hospital bed, picking at a frayed yellow thread in the sheet with the edge of my fingernail to keep my hands busy.
Revenge is dirty. And I didn’t want my parents‘ lives stained with that filth.
Not after everything.
Ten years had passed.
9:22 pm G DDD
The asylum’s iron windows were rusted. Brown–red flakes of rust, like dried blood, often fell onto the windowsill.
The smell of rot was everywhere.
The screams of Kylie and Trevor had long since faded into the past. They didn’t last long. Their bodies couldn’t take the daily torture they endured.
And with the Langford family’s complete financial ruin, there wasn’t even any money left for their
treatment.
They died in a pile of garbage, torn apart by their suffering.
After the trial, I was deemed mentally unfit and exempted from the death penalty.
Day after day, I sat still, like a doll with its soul drained out. Even the doctors praised me as their ‘most well–behaved patient.’
But only I knew: it wasn’t obedience.
My soul had already vanished with the completion of my revenge.
Until that day.
“Hey, big bro!”
A voice pierced the silence. A small face, about six or seven years old, squeezed between the bars of my cell.
Her nose was red from pressing against the cold metal.
I slowly turned my eyes and saw a little girl, about six or seven years old. Her pigtails were uneven, decorated with cherry blossom petals.
Standing on tiptoe, she tried to push a fruit candy into my mouth.
The sweet, syrupy orange flavor burst on my tongue like a jolt to my senses.
“All the peach blossoms outside are blooming!” she said, her eyes sparkling like stars.
Her fingers still had golden glitter from the candy wrapper.
“Mama said you used to love these when you were little… Is it sweet?”
I let the candy roll around in my mouth.
For the first time in ten years, I tasted something sweet. My numbed taste buds trembled, almost like they’d been scorched.
For a moment, it felt like time had stopped. I could almost see my little brother standing there again, past the bars, pulling a crumpled candy wrapper from his pocket, his smile as bright as
ever,
“Here, you can have one,” the little girl offered.
It had been the last candy he had given me before he died. It had the same orange flavor. It was almost like he was standing there, like he was never gone.
I slowly lifted my hand, my fingers shaking as I wiped the rust stain off her cheek.
A few pale peach blossoms had settled in her hair. It reminded me of how my brother used to smile–his grin as bright and full of life as those spring flowers.
The candy… it was so sweet that I almost wanted to cry.
Chanter
9:22 pm GDD
Outside, the spring breeze swirled through the cherry blossoms, sending petals drifting into the room, landing gently on the ends of her hair.
She giggled, clumsily trying to tuck one of the petals into my ashen hair. Sunlight filtere through the blossoms, casting a soft pink glow across her face.
Her dimples were just like his. I hadn’t noticed that before.
I reached out and gently brushed the petal away, my fingertips brushing against her warm skin That warmth startled me. It had been so long since I touched another living person.
But then, to my surprise, she grabbed my finger, her tiny hand soft against mine.
“Sweet,” I rasped, my voice rough, the first time I’d spoken in ten years.
The little girl’s eyes widened in surprise, and I tightened my grip on her hand.
Outside, the trees swayed in the breeze. Petals fluttered in waves, like ten years of silence and loss finally finding their way to an end.
For the first time, I felt something other than rage and emptiness. I thought, maybe, just maybe, had a reason to live again.
To protect her.
Until the spring winds grow old.
Until the very end of life.
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