Ruin, The Turning Read Free Page A

rapidly until it looked brand new, not regrown like skin after burning, just healthy.
    Ruin wondered if she remembered. At having her knock him to the ground in a tight embrace and sobbing, he knew she had. But what?
    “What do you remember, what do you remember?” he gasped, holding her tight.
    “The Devil!” she screeched in his ear. “I remember the devil! I was burning!” she screamed. Her body trembled with a violence. “I was burning alive Ruin!”
    Fuck, fuck, no. “I got you, you’re okay, I got you.”
    “Are we dead?” she screamed, still clutching him tight.
    “No, we’re not dead.”
    “I don’t want to go to Hell! I don’t’ want to go to Hell, please don’t let me go to Hell, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything, I repent!” she gasped. “I repent, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
    Ruin clenched his eyes tight and held her, gritting his teeth at the traumatized tone. “I got you, Angel. You’re not going to Hell, I got you.”
    Ruin rocked her for many minutes until he couldn’t bear the pain inside him from what the Devil had done to him. He may have hidden Caliber’s assignment but he’d given him a shit load more. “I have to go, Angel.”
    She locked up in panic. “Don’t leave me!”
    “You’re coming with me, you’re not leaving my side, okay? We’re a team you and I. Right? I’m your husband, you’re my wife, we’re one flesh now, remember?” he cooed in her ear.
    “Yes,” she wailed. “Yes, I remember.” She nodded and pulled away wiping her face. “I remember,” she said in a barely audible squeak. “Y-your assignment, I forgot.” She regarded him for many seconds as he helped her stand. “W-what happened? Why were we taken down there, I don’t understand? I mean you’re doing everything right, can they do that? Are you in trouble?”
    “Yes, I’m doing everything right. I’m not in trouble, everything is fine.” Dread slowly slithered through him, cold and forewarning at realizing... for the first time in his existence… he lied.
    He waited for an emotion to go with the usually impossible deed but found nothing. Nothing but empty space. He was sure the empty was a worse indication than any sort of regret or shame that he might normally feel if he were a… normal man. But he wasn’t, now, was he. He was something else.
    He held Isadore tighter, feeling her body against his, drinking in the warmth and realness of her. He was something else for her. All for her.

Chapter Three
     
    Isadore had never experienced so much terror. Her worst memory had nothing on this. Her past was a fun circus compared to what she’d just went through. It touched the eternal parts of her, made her aware of them where she hadn’t been aware before. She never wanted to go through anything like it again. Ever. And Ruin was hiding something, she could feel it. Something wasn’t right. But what? And why would he hide it?
    She looked around at where the hell they were. Judging by the surroundings, they were out in the middle of a field. “I think that’s a farm,” she pointed off to the right and regarded Ruin. “Which way does your assignment say?”
    She watched his response closely and he turned away from her, looking around. “Uh.” He pointed north. “I think that way.”
    “You think?” Now she knew for sure something was wrong.
    He turned to her. “I think, yes. But in that direction for sure.”
    “ Are you sure?” She wished he’d just tell her what he was hiding.
    “I’m sure, yes.”
    She watched his backside as he took off walking, the niggling sensation that something was wrong, off, or different nagging at her as she slowly caught up to him. They walked through the field in awkward silence. She paused then, wondering where her truck was. “What was that thing?”
    He stopped and turned. “What thing?”
    “That thing that flew us out of the mouth of that…other thing? The thing that said your sins…