Bloody Apples by Agent Aries (read an ebook week .txt) 📕

"Percy?Percy!Where's Iri?She's-"Aaron came from behind me, his eyes widening from the pain I was obviously enjoying inflicting on the man underneath my foot.

"He took her ,this piece of shit!"I howled, ready to shoot him again when Aaron restrained me, taking the gun from my hand.

"Whoa,whoa calm down Percy!Percy!"I struggled against Aaron's steel bands he called arms, red in my vision.

"NO!I will not calm down until Iri is home and that thing is DEAD! "I screamed and thrashed, despair threatening to break through my rage.

"PERCY!"I froze at the immovable tone in Aaron's voice.

I hiccupped before bone shaking sobs hit me and I cried hard in Aaron's chest.Finally when I quieted down I looked up at Aaron who looked just as murderous as I did a few moments ago.

"We have to go.We have to question him in a safe place and that is not here.Help me carry him to the house."I sniffed and nodded, stepping away from him and going to where Iri was caught and picked up her flower.

When I picked up her flower another kind of bloom caught my eye, making my lips curl in a ugly smile and wonder how I missed the tall flowers before.Asphodels, a flower I've only seen in books of greek mythology.The flower crown of Persephone.It's meaning in the flower language being 'My regrets follow you to the grave' . How appropriate.

I put both the asphodels and the white sweet pea in my hair and turned back to find Aaron holding Tom up by his neck, his eyes practically glowing with hate.The same kind of hate I felt when my father killed my sister.

"I suppose hate is unescapable now, much like sorrow and pain."I whispered to myself before returning to Aaron, laying a hand gently on his arm.

He looked at me, vengence and logic warring with each other in his face.I reached up and kissed his cheek.

"Aaron now is not the time to hurt him.We have to get him home.Then we can hurt him."I bit off with a hiss, glaring at Tom.

Aaron said nothing, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he struggled to control himself.Finally, just as Tom's face was turning purple, Aaron dropped the piece of shit on the ground.

I grabbed one of Tom's arms and slung it acrossed my shoulder, unable to hold back the urge to make it as painful as possible.After a moment Aaron took him from me, carrying him on his back,Tom barely in the waking world.

As we left for home I thought back to my previous life as a oblivious teenager with dreams of a bright and wonderful career as a doctor. Once we would have been horrorfied at the thought of torture.

Now we looked foreward to inflicting it.

When we got back with Tom in tow we taped him down to a chair and cleared out the shed for a new more sinister purpose.Once it was cleared I dragged in a plastic fold out table to lay our tools out.It hit me again when I walked out of the shed after dragging Tom in there, still dead to the world, well not literally.Yet.

I sank to my knees in front of the apple tree that Iri loved so much and I cried.Aaron came down beside me and held me, tears falling from his eyes aswel.We knew that nothing would be the same again after this.So not only were we mourning the loss of Iri and the pain of betrayal but also the loss of whatever shred of innocence we had left.This world was so ugly and it loved to teased us with happiness before ripping it away, like the wings of a newly reborn butterfly.It laughed at our pain and it smiled at our grief.I honestly couldn't tell anymore; who were the monsters now?The undead perversions of nature?Or the humans?

Aaron and I stayed there for a long time, even after all our tears and sobs were gone.We simply stayed in front of the apple tree, staring at the memorial at the base of it.My heart still grieved at the thought that we might have to put another memorial here soon.This time reading the daughter's name instead of the mother's.

Suddenly Aaron shifted and tugged me up.I thought that was a cue to start the 'interrogation' and made a move to go to the shed.Instead he grabbed my hand as I turned to leave and didn't let go until I turned back around, staring at him confused.Then he inhaled deeply before expelling it, like he was trying to build up his courage.I didn't understand what exactly he was doing until he knelt on one knee in front of me.My eyes widened, shocked.Was he really going to-

"Persephone?"I nodded in acknowledgment as he captured me, not for the first time, in his dark green eyes.

"Yes?"I said softly, my heart pounding in my chest, hardly able to process that this was really happening.

He inhaled and exhaled again and pulled out a simple gold band from his pocket.

"Will you, no matter what happens from here on out, share your life with me?"I was shocked silent, tears I didn't know I had welling in my eyes.

"What happened with Iri....It made me realise how important this life is and how short it can be.I don't want to die with any regrets and if I didn't do this and something happened tomorrow....I don't think I'll ever be able to survive it.Not without you.I love you Persephone.It's selfish as hell because I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, I might even die...But will you make me as happy as I can be until then?"I couldn't speak as tears fell from my eyes and my heart swelled with a bitter sweet warmth.

"I love you too."I said nodding, a shakey smile on my lips.

He smiled a smile so gentle and warm that made my own stretch a bit wider and he slipped the simple ring on my finger, which fit perfectly.He stood up and swept me up bridal style taking me into the house up to my, no our, room.

"Where?"My voice was shakey with pent up emotion so I couldn't make a complete sentence but Aaron understood me, laying me down on the bed before kissing the ring on my finger.

"It was my mom's.She told me to give it to the person that I couldn't live without.And I did."He silenced whatever I might have said next with a soft kiss that quickly turned almost bruising.

I scratched at his shirt, suddenly desperate to touch his skin.I wanted, no I needed him.I needed to touch his hot skin, to feel the life that thrummed beneath his skin.I needed to know that if we didn't have tomorrow that we had today, this minute, this second.

I stripped him of his clothes almost as quickly as he divested me of mine and my heart hurt with the amount of love I felt.I needed him.I didn't need anything else.I could survive anything else.Anything else except him gone.My heart threatened to stop at the mere thought of his headstone.

This wasn't fair.It wasn't fair!How could he do this to me?Make me love him so much in such a short amount of time.Make it so I couldn't breath without him.I was going to make him suffer for this.Suffer like I do, by making him love me so much he couldn't stand it.Make his heart hurt with how full it would be.Make him insane for me.

"I love you.I love you.I love you."I couldn't tell who was saying what any more,I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.

This is the one I can't live without.

I have been staring at the wall of the shed in the backyard for a good twenty minutes, just thinking, rubbing the ring on my finger. I thought about how precious life is and how quickly things like trust and love can mean next to nothing to some people.Take my uncle for example.He came back into my life suddenly and I was fool enough to think that our familial bond meant something still.But it didn't.My trust, in shatters, my heart, in pieces.Now my baby was gone, a possible repeat of the agony of my sister's death.

Pain, death and change were and are the only constants in the world.Everything changes and everything dies.And if you life long enough to breathe, you've lived long enough to know pain.And pain demands to be not only felt but respected for what it was.A critical element of life.A way of differentiating the living from the dead, even if the dead walked around and the living were insane.

At least I had Aaron to help me with the maddness.

My head jerked at the faint sound of moaning coming from inside the shed.Tom must be awake.

"Aaron!"I called out to Aaron who was inside.

"What is it?"Aaron strided out, a tense predatory stride akin to a hunting wild cat, revealing his blood thirst.

I knew from the look in his eyes, like a mirror to his soul,that his spirit cried out for blood.He wanted to cause as much suffering as The Order did to us.He wanted to drink in their pain and smile at their begging faces.We suffered, and now they will suffer.

"I think he's awake."I said simply, getting up from my prone position.

"Good.Shall we, my lady?"He said, the words implying humor but his smile promising torture.

"Yes, good sir."I took his hand and walked into the dank shed with him.

Tom sat, duct taped to the lawn chair, his eyes fluttering.When his eyes finally widened enough to see they locked on to me.Aaron left briefly,kissing my cheek before leaving.

"Alexan-"I kicked his broken, taped down leg.

"Shut up.I told that's not my name.It's Persephone.The name that Iri gave to me."I hissed, glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

I studied the broken man in the chair, not as my uncle but as a stranger that kidnapped what seemed to be a good size of my heart.The part that empathized with pain and was generous with her kindness.Pity for him.

His eyes were haggard and dark purple rings underlined them.They were the same grey blue my father had, the same color as my right eye.His skin was a pale sickly hue from blood loss and his left pantleg was stiff and dark from the dried blood.Overall he looked like a assault victim but I didn't have any sympathy.I felt cold.

"Ya