Chapter 2 DESCENT TO THE CORE

All of the screaming was about the bone in my ankle. Brandon instructed me repeatedly that the statistics they sought from Christian's coronary heart become especially associated with getting the hoop round my ankle via the bone. If I would prevent being so difficult and go to the heart, I'd discover the statistics, after which any chains located around me now, or inside the destiny, might be meaningless. in keeping with Brandon, I'd discover ways to escape from anywhere, even the citadel that surrounded me.

Apart from escaping their awful fort, I had no concept why they desired me to gain that capability. Brandon didn't give an explanation for something. He just sought to influence me to go to the heart.

"Go to his heart."

"Beat the door down."

"Burrow internal."

"Devour what's there."

"It's your heart now."

I felt unwell.

As I cited, I celebrated my twenty-2nd birthday by myself within the fort. At least, I guessed I'd had my birthday. I wasn't overly interested by what day it turned into anymore. Brandon didn't point out it and it didn't count lots.

Even without going to Christian's heart, I won piles of know-how from the purple woodland. Given that I found out my electricity over my frame, I modified some thing about it I didn't like. Moles disappeared, hair fell out or grew extra plentifully, as I desired. Muscle groups grew and fats disappeared. When I made changes, I discovered it was genuinely impossible to hit the nail at the head. I had been given perfect manipulate over my frame and I couldn't determine what became actually ideal when I appeared in the mirror. I fiddled with my appearance constantly, in particular my upper arms. What looked suitable after I seemed down at them become a lot one-of-a-kind than what looked appropriate once I checked out myself in a reflect.

Other than fiddling inside the purple wooded area, there wasn't much to do in the citadel. There was a bath with a skylight over it, so I often stuffed the bath with hot soapy water, turned off the lighting fixtures, and gazed into outer area.

Of all of the rooms I may want to get right of entry to inside the citadel without moving stone, the kitchen became the least thrilling. It wasn't because it wasn't lovely. It changed into. It became just that it have been stocked with food that did now not make absolutely everyone's mouth water. There was powdered milk, condensed milk in cans, rice, flour, and different canned food. The canned meals changed into as exciting as canned meals were given, which means I ate olives out of the bottle, mandarin oranges, and pie filling. I supposed I had the elements to make a pie. If I had recognized how to make a pie, that probably could had been the best component I should have made.

Besides, I didn't understand a way to make something with the substances they supplied with out a recipe books, so I watched the snow fall and ate pickled beets from the jar. I was very bored. I might have commenced writing on the walls in blood if the partitions hadn't been hewn out of rough stone. It wouldn't have had any effect on Brandon or Pricina anyway. Pricina could change something she desired.

That morning I had cream of wheat, made with water and I honestly hated it. I ended up opening a can of pears that I had been saving as it depressed me so much.

When I used to be finished, I tugged my chain, dragging it noisily across the polished marble, and got back into mattress. I wrapped the blankets round me cocoon-fashion and closed my eyes. I wasn't going to sleep. I was going to strive once more with my ankle in the purple woodland.

I went there every day without fail. I closed my eyes and disappeared into the location in the back of my eyelids. It changed into a place wherein the sky became brown. The timber grew with slick crimson bark and no leaves. I wore a black get dressed that fell over my shape as readily as a nightgown. It turned into the location I went for a cut up second earlier than I died, and due to the fact i was inclined to make sense of what I noticed, i used to be able to stop a bullet from killing me-the pink forest.

On the spot wherein the hoop pierced my ankle, I sat at the chrome ring. I swung on it adore it became a circus swing and pounded my figurative fists towards the ivory wall that become my ankle bone adore it was a door that might now not open. I asked blood insects that floated by means of what they knew, however they best knew what I knew: bones had been no longer blood. Bones were blood factories.

That was the problem I have been considering when I went to sleep and dreamed of the dearest guy within the world, Christian, asking me to undress for him. The dream had not been inspiring. That turned into not the manner Christian ever handled me. My subconscious made him that manner because I had been trapped for goodbye.

What turned into Christian like again? Could I remember? Sometimes he felt like some thing I had imagined because the whole thing inside the actual global sucked.

When I attempted to ask the Christian in my memory what he would do about Brandon, he didn't say a phrase. He only looked at me levelly with that appearance in his eyes as though to invite me if there has been something he wouldn't do.

That changed into the crux. Christian could do something. Cut off his hand? Reduce out his heart? He could do truly something. He had no limits.

If I was going to be like him, would I should supply away my limits too?

I often idea approximately escaping the fortress. It was probable viable... to a sure diploma. I could spoil my ankle to get the hoop off. Possibly breaking the chain the ring was related to was a higher way, however I had every motive to believe that if a link turned into broken, it would convey Pricina down on me. Breaking my ankle might probably work higher, however could I be able to heal it, get away the fort, and make it to protection before Pricina caught me? My possibilities were poor.

The terrain out of doors the fort become the most harsh on earth. A bullet to the head was one factor, however loads of miles of snow-capped mountains were something else. I couldn't open a window and the out of doors temperature became a mystery. It could be the sort of climate wherein human beings misplaced hands and ears.

Brandon and Pricina had orchestrated this state of affairs so that I had no other manner forward, like a mouse in a tunnel in place of a maze.

If I endured to resist going to Christian's coronary heart, what end would there be?

This was damnation. So long as i used to be within the fort, I was damned.

Once I looked at the remaining roads beforehand of me, I saw 3 paths. Christian might try to rescue me. Without the secrets and techniques he hid in his heart, there was no part of him that changed into as powerful as Pricina. If he had once had energy like that at his disposal, he wouldn't have wished me to help him retrieve Brandon's head from the compound. He

could have been capable of do this himself with out losing a hand. He wasn't sturdy enough to rescue me.

Secondly, Brandon may surrender on me and allow me cross. I snorted. He wasn't going to get worn-out. He wasn't going to think it wasn't really worth his effort to maintain operating on me. He become immortal. He had time to spare and he'd scouse borrow all of my time if I permit him preserve me locked up.

Thirdly, there was chaos. Something unexpected may set me loose.

When I notion that, I found out that I had reached the cease of opportunities, besides the one Brandon suggested.

I had to do what Brandon said without letting him know. I had to sneak into Christian's coronary heart and while i used to be loose, I'd chop off Brandon's head again. It became out that I favored him better without it. Rolling my eyes, I amended my notion. Maybe taking his whole head become overkill. I'd reduce his tongue out at least. I wasn't a barbarian.

I swung up and leaped off the ring. Gravity was like a dream inside the red woodland, and that i floated until I landed at the pads of my unchained ft on the bone bridge. Swinging my steps like a little girl who wasn't in a rush, I walked the long way through the red wooded area, all of the way from my ankle to Christian's coronary heart. The stroll, even though imaginary, did me precise. It gave me time to think.

When I arrived at the vicinity of Christian's coronary heart, the sky above became almost stormy. Clouds crafted from the new air in my lungs additionally made this part of me darker than the rest. The first thing I felt was a hot wind. The world inside me became a damp woodland in which i was the queen of everything. I noticed bugs, once in a while small animals scurrying on commercial enterprise of their own, a perpetual purple night time and not using a moon and no stars. The black flounces of my skirt flapped around my legs like flags within the wind. I stood at the outskirts of the purple forest, staring at into a clearing.

I stood outside Christian's coronary heart. Before I arrived, I imagined his coronary heart acting as a wooded area inside a wooded area, denser and darker. It became nothing of the sort. It became a building like a shrine or a temple. It had a sloped tile roof and no home windows.

In the front of me become a stone path of flat black stones. They regarded to be floating in a pool of blood surrounding the shrine. The blood stirred find it irresistible couldn't live nonetheless as it lived to shape little peaks at the floor of the pool.

I positioned my black ballerina slipper on the primary stone and progressed onto the stepping stones that made me cross blood.

As I were given closer, the wind came warmer and quicker. i was feeling my blood pump, now not a wind, however it felt hot as I breathed it. again, I was in a place I have to not had been. I had emerge as a person who lived completely in locations people did now not cross. A regular person is not allowed to appearance internal the coronary heart of their lover, as it's miles their center, and no region may be greater sacred or holy.

It had to be mine now.

As I stood there, I felt a fresh wash of hatred closer to Brandon. He was forcing something that by no means must have been pressured. If Christian intended me to have access to all of this, he in no way got the threat to inform me. I may were justifying myself, but I instructed myself that if Christian cherished me so much that he became inclined to surrender his coronary heart so that I ought to have lifestyles, I knew he changed into willing to give up even greater for my freedom. I had to placed aside the imperfection of the scenario and swallow or I'd be a prisoner forever. I knew, genuinely, that living in the fort was no longer what Christian desired for me.

I stepped over the threshold into the primary chamber of his heart.

Black beams stretched throughout the ceiling. Heavy black posts held up the roof. The ground was carpeted with layer after layer of high priced pink carpets. Following the lengths of carpets, they led to a throne. Christian occupied it.

In my exhilaration, I known as his name, but immediately I found out he couldn't pay attention me. His eyes had been closed. He was dressed absolutely in dark purple: pink shoes, purple trousers, a crimson vest, and a barely open pink blouse. He wore a crown on his head, a unmarried circlet of pewter that contrasted this blond hair. It hung loosely, tipping closer to one eye.

I wanted to wake him and speak to him, however suddenly I felt it was higher to apprehend every room before I disturbed him. I held my peace and proceeded similarly into the shrine.

Within the second chamber, I was amazed to peer Christian again. This time he became mendacity on a slab of black stone. He wasn't dressed however had a very long piece of black silk draped over his groin that fell to the floor on both aspect. He had spherical black stones organized in patterns across his chest, hands, and face. Two stones rested on his eyes and some other over his mouth.

The room had a reflect on the wall. I looked at myself in it. I was thrilled with what I noticed. It wasn't the manner I noticed myself when I appeared into a replicate. those mirrors continually confirmed me what was wrong with me, what became incomplete. My mirrored image right here have to display the way Christian saw me. This replicate confirmed love. I swelled with emotion. The dream I had earlier turned into a distortion of the greatness of the person I cherished.

I persisted on.

Through the third room, I anticipated to peer a new edition of Christian there. He was hanging from a rope from the ceiling. Not by way of his neck, but by using his proper arm. The rope wasn't tied to him. He turned into not placing there due to the fact he changed into trapped. His arms had been knotted tightly across the rope like he wouldn't permit go irrespective of what came about next. He was tattooed everywhere with phrases. I couldn't study them and that i couldn't discover a part of his body that changed into not written on. I needed to circle him to locate his face. It became marred via masses of phrases tattooed in black ink. I could make out many of the letters, however I could not distinguish even one complete word. He wore trousers like a doctor's scrubs, with a white cotton undershirt marked within the occasional bloodstain.

A pool of water turned into under him. If he allow go of the rope, he might fall into the water. What became terrible approximately the water? I were given down on my knees and dipped my palms inside the dancing ripples. I understood much less than I had before as I shook off the water. How deep changed into it? There didn't seem to be a bottom. Thrusting my arm inside the water up to my shoulder, I couldn't locate the bottom. I thought of jumping in however refrained. This turned into a sacred location, no longer an area where you splashed round for fun or curiosity.

In the remaining chamber, there has been a pole in the center of the room. Christian was tied to it

. His palms were wrapped around the mast and his wrists have been closely tethered. His ankles were tied too. There has been a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes. He wore weathered denims and a white get dressed blouse that became barely completed up. With such a lot of cords wrapped around his wrists, it changed into tough to inform which ones were retaining him captive and which were a style announcement.

Not one of the versions of Christian moved. None of them fluttered an eyelash. I walked again through the chambers of his coronary heart and puzzled what each of the figures supposed. If I were guessing, i'd say that he needed to be strapped down, silenced, blindfolded, and subconscious in order for him to stay all the time. He informed me he had to overlook who he changed into with a purpose to bear the ache of immortality. Did these guys constitute lives he'd lived? Or some thing else absolutely?

As I contemplated at the trouble, i discovered myself inside the second chamber. I saw the model of Christian that lay at the altar with shining river rocks placed strategically over his eyes and down his body.

Suddenly, I notion that I must try to wake him.

"Christian," I said.

Nothing passed off.

I attempted his actual call, "Damon."

I used to be approximately to yell when I found out that if my presence and my voice didn't wake him, then my screaming really wouldn't.

He had rocks all over him. What if I took them off?

I reached forward and plucked one of the stones off his abdomen. It uncovered the prettiest patch of tan pores and skin and curved muscle below. I turned the rock over in my hand and saw there become a word etched in gold on the bottom. It resembled one of these pretty inspirational stones I'd seen in present shops that moms bought that had phrases like faith or love written on them. Christian's stone bore the phrase manipulate.

Instantly, I felt that I should no longer have picked it up.

I attempted to put the stone returned, but it'd not move returned. there was an invisible pressure stopping me from returning it. I turned the rock in my hand and attempted to figure out what I should do with it. on the facet that have been clean new words seemed. The words study swallow me.

That simply appeared like the worst thing I ought to do or ought to do. I shouldn't swallow a rock.

I attempted to set the stone down in a exceptional location on Christian's skin, but each vicinity repelled the rock even harder. i was beginning to panic. I attempted to drop it on the ground, however it stuck to my palms like a magnet. It slipped throughout my pores and skin with out letting go.

I pulled at it with both arms and when that failed, I attempted to use my chin to push it loose and changed into straight away extra a success than my fingers were. Yet, not completely. It was coming free, but it hadn't permit go. In my frenzy to push it off, my mouth become a touch open and the stone brushed my lips. understanding my mistake, I dropped my fingers and licked my lips as a reflex, only to taste some thing I'd in no way tasted before.

impossible to describe, it become candy, however also savory. I probable would now not had been so interested by the taste of that stone if I had been given whatever higher to devour by way of Brandon and Pricina. They knew the trials I faced and that they fed me lackluster meals a good way to make me crave something delicious. The vacancy in my belly, which hadn't bothered me a good deal seeing that I got here to the castle, turned into unexpectedly insufferable.

I wouldn't devour it. It changed into a rock. It become not food. I ought to not have picked it up, but I couldn't put it back. I informed myself that the rock could drop off me if I attempted to leave the constructing with it in hand. I went to the door and flung it open. The rock went with me as I stepped onto the first stepping stone. dropping to my knees, I placed my hands within the pool of my very own blood to interrupt the bond the stone had with my pores and skin.

It didn't work.

I'd failed and the stone consumed my thoughts in order that I could not pay attention sufficient to leave the red wooded area and awaken in bed.

I went returned in the shrine.

What I felt became all wrong. I shouldn't want to devour it.

I don't realize how many hours passed as I sat on my own inside the second chamber of Christian's coronary heart earlier than I caved. I didn't want to, but I never felt so satisfied in my life as i used to be the moment I put that rock in my mouth and bit down on some thing soft and delicious. manipulate tasted better than anything else I'd ever tasted. I felt warmth slide down my throat and the instant it hit my belly, some thing unexpected occurred.

I knew how to flow bone.

I ran from the constructing and that i didn't forestall jogging until I made it to my ankle wherein I saw the chrome ring exactly in which I'd left it. Stepping up to the location in my bone, I took my finger and scored out the segment that needed to flow. when I completed I stepped again and snapped my fingers. The segment of bone fell apart like lego blocks. I ordered my tendons to push the hoop via just like the strings of a suspension bridge shifting in all the wrong methods.

Then I dropped to my knees and slowly, by hand, I rebuilt the bone bridge piece by means of piece. It turned into now not like the different parts of the frame that would bend and trade. As a bone, its feature turned into to stay nonetheless, no longer to move. I had been right. if you desired bone to transport, you had to break it, but now not the clumsy manner I had been contemplating going approximately it. You needed to do it carefully.

There had been bones that had to be rebuilt. It was now not the quick fix it have been whilst my father shot me inside the head. It was a cautious rebuild that took hours, maybe even days.

after I slid the closing piece of bone into region, I lower back to my senses in the fortress and determined the hoop that had saved me captive abandoned between the sheets of my bed.

I grabbed it triumphantly. Then I panicked. I shouldn't have taken it off. Brandon could recognise I'd made progress. He knew I couldn't determine it out on my own, and i hated to give him the pride.

I grabbed a scrunchie from my bedside table and twisted it across the ring. Then I slipped the loop of the scrunchie around my ankle. Then, at least, the chain would move with me till I ought to positioned the hoop again thru my ankle. If i was fortunate, Brandon wouldn't observe my progress.

I was so excited. Brandon wouldn't understand if I repaired the bullet hole in my cranium. understanding it become there had made me pretty uncomfortable. sadly, I couldn't do something simply then, i was too tired.

I fell asleep and as I slept there was a moon and stars inside the crimson woodland of my dreams.