✓ | Curse Breaker ⋆ Julian Blackthorn [1]

xxix. START A WAR

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CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: START A WAR

❛you're all i think about.❜

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Julian liked to think that there were two roads a person could take when things became too much: one could learn how to control their heart or allow their heart to control them.

Any reasonable human would have found a way to save themselves from the rush of pain and suffering, choosing to hold their heart in their hands and command it to become numb in moments when it wanted nothing more but to crumble under growing pressure. Any reasonable human would have spared themselves from the bitter ache and the wish to cry out from helplessness.

Julian chose not to take the easy road.

Despite all the disturbing alarms that emerged in the back of his brain, he found himself incapable of disregarding the painful throbs of his heart. He found himself filled with many emotions ー rage, pain, brokenness, disbelief ー and yet, somehow, the feeling of her made it all seem irrelevant.

His eyes were entirely captivated by the still frame of Zoya Caldwell, examining the way her gory lips parted ways and allowed slow, shallow exhales to escape her lungs. Her chest, bare and bloodied, rose in an uneven manner ー reminding Julian of the girl's recklessness. His palms, bruised and unsteady, embraced Zoya's right hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her skin lightly and praying to the Angel above that the consequences of her decision were only skin deep.

There was so much blood; scarlet and hot, it glided down Zoya's back and stained the ivory sheets of the bed Julian had laid her upon. It sought its way through the dense threads of his clothes, located the tiny cracks underneath their fingernails and penetrated their nostrils.

For the first time, Julian had truly understood why the Caldwell girl had been so terrified of it. Witnessing the sight of a loved one being wrapped in a veil of luminous ruby liquid sent one's heart and mind into an abyss of gruesome, spiraling doom. Or at least that was what it did to him.

Blood was a bitter remainder of Zoya's suffocated screams, a remnant to paint her foolish bravery. Her recklessness to save him, to save Mark, to save everyone but herself.

Blood was a vestige gifted to him as he carried the limp body of Zoya Caldwell through the Institute's door and into the infirmary room in dead silence, Mark tracing behind him with Emma in his arms.

Julian wished to unsee the crimson devil. He wished to possess the ability to turn back the clock and gather enough of his strength to push Zoya away from him and prevent her from drawing the sleep-now rune upon his skin. He wished that she just let him take the punishment he had volunteered for, instead of allowing her concern for him to guide her hand. If he only knew how to keep his mouth shut, if he only knew how to murder the screams that bubbled deep in his throat ー none of this would have happened.