Chapter 58

Ariadne splits for it, running up the stairs to the little room above the diner where she lives in.

She slams the door and locks it. Then she settles on her bed, too scared and sad and lonely to fall asleep.

But of course, when the world-weariness overtakes her mind, she eventually does.

Then the nightmares come.

Arthur is there, not the one that sticks Ariadne with knives to twist inside, nor the one who is always on fire but never burning.

A young unblooded Arthur is there to witness Ariadne’s loss and tragedy.

Her brother and her parents, hands bound, beaten to their knees, they speak only sorrows. And then it rains blood.

Arthur tries to look away, but the man, ugly with scars, forces him to look. They make Ariadne look too. How had she forgotten?

Arthur had been made that day, just the same as she was.

She’d been too busy sobbing over their warm, dead bodies to notice that she was not the only one who ha