Bound by Ruin Sneak Peek

Bound by Ruin Prologue

Ruin

I’ve never been inside of Celia’s boutique before. It’s an older building, the bricks on the front weathered with age and the original hardwood floors from when it was first built in the early 1900s. I’ve seen pictures of it online and walked past once or twice before I met Celia, but I rarely come to this side of town. When I do, it’s always at night when every shop on the street is dark and locked up tight.

Even now, her store should be closing for the evening. The Avenue has long since turned out its lights, most shops keeping to the early afternoon business hours that downtown shopping areas are known for. Stepping inside the storefront now, however, you wouldn’t know that it’s supposed to be empty. Soft music plays from the somewhere in the back, a jazz number with a saxophone melody. If what Celia says is correct, Sara should be wrapping up her shift. I’m probably going to scare her, but she’s the one who left the front door unlocked. It’ll be her fault if she has a heart attack for being careless.

But it’ll be my fault if she dies at our father’s hands.

I don’t usually care about strangers. People get hurt or die every day. Some, even, hurt themselves on purpose. I never understood why someone would do that. Rebel has tried to explain to me that sometimes, when people want to feel in control of their lives, they go to extreme measures to exert whatever control they can—even if that means cutting into their own skin. The pain is a rush, something that they can control when the rest of the world spins out of reach.

Although I’m not convinced that self-harm is therapeutic, I do understand the appeal of bleeding something dry.

If you cut deep enough, all the bad seeps out.

I used to tell myself that all of the times my father used to hurt me, that’s what he was trying to do. Take out the bad so that the only parts left were the ones he could love. But when he set fire to our family home during the summer I turned twelve, I learned the truth.

He wanted to get rid of me altogether.

Unlike my brothers, I don’t care what happens to our father. I don’t think about him in the middle of the night. I don’t dream about anything—but if I did, it wouldn’t be about him or what he’s done to us.

I’d dream out the sunrise.

My father, though, still torments my brothers. Not actively—it’s not like he’s been prowling the streets trying to ruin their lives—but deeper, locked inside their flesh and bone. My high school science teacher used to talk about genetics and how people are created as mirror images of their parents, and it makes sense.

By killing me, my father would be able to get rid of the parts of himself he couldn’t stand to see. I wonder if he would have watched me burn alive to make sure he’d succeeded.

My mother wasn’t awake when the fire started. I’m not sure that she ever felt the flames licking her skin and charring her flesh. I tried to drag her outside, but her body was too heavy, and mine was too weak. I collapsed in the smoke, and Rebel had to pull me out.

He went by a different name back then. We all did.

I wonder if Rage or Rebel will choose another one once they become fathers.

I think about that now—what the future will look like. I never used to consider it, too wrapped up in my targets to see anything past their flesh and sinew shredding in my hands. But now I think about Celia and what a baby could mean for us. Mostly, I turn her body over in my head, wondering if I’ll be able to catch the moment when she isn’t just one soul anymore, but two.

When my brothers slip between her thighs and fill her body with pieces of their own, do their souls intertwine with hers? Or, are souls destined to remain separate so that a new one can be stitched together inside of the mother?

I think that Celia will unlock the answer for me, but to do that, she needs to get pregnant first, and our father is standing in the way of me finding answers.

That’s why I go inside of Celia’s boutique. Not to find or save Sara. Not to get revenge for destroying my body. Not even to make Celia or my brothers happy.

I’m here for answers that only the future holds.

A future in which my father is nothing more than a memory from my past.

When I step into Celia’s office, something metal clicks over my head. Orange sparks rain down, singing my sleeves and floating to the ground below. A liquid on Celia’s desk swirls with color, and on the floor below, three red canisters lie on their sides, spilling even more liquid onto the floor. I can’t smell it, but I can hear it puddling beneath my boots and feel it stinging my eyes.

Ruin! Get the fuck out of here! Something’s not right!

By the time I hear my brother’s shout, it’s too late. The embers spark, engulfing the room in a blast of heat. I jump backwards out of the office, but I can already feel the flames dancing all around, roaring in my ears, laughing at me.

I can hear my father’s crackling laughter and feel his heavy boot on my spine, weighing me down like I’m twelve years old all over again. Helpless. Afraid. Burning.

I open my mouth to breathe, but all I taste is gasoline, and all I hear are a woman’s screams.

Not my mother’s, like I’ve imagined a thousand times in a thousand burning memories, but Celia’s.

I always wanted to hear her scream, but not like this.

Never like this.

Bound by Ruin Sneak Peek

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