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No She wouldn’t give in to such apocalyptic thinking She was a Do for a prince on a white charger to ride in and save her Søren had taught her to be strong Any woht stirred Nora and slowly she rolled up off the floor
The bed of a sadist
No bed sat in the room they’d thrown her into, but clearly once there had been a bed She saw the piles of ash on the floor, the blackened walls and ceiling, smelled the scent of burned wood and fabric And that’s when she realized she’d been in this bedroo up, Nora walked to the door She didn’t even bother touching the knob One jiggle and Da to try to get outshe only needed to reht she first visited this room, she’d been seventeen Two years she’d lusted after her priest, loved hiiven her under the auspices of supervising the coe Harkness had i She had no idea what she knew but she knew she knew it and she knew Søren knew it, too It had been ue for years Her gut had told her she belonged to Søren in soin to comprehend Even if he never laid a hand on her, never kissed her, neverShe was his She knew it
He knew it, too But it wasn’t until his father had died that he finally felt safe enough to tell her the truth He’d told herin this very room
Nora stood by the door, closed her eyes, and when she opened theain she could see the chair by the and she saw Søren even younger than she was now, praying in his childhood bedroo across the floor, Nora inhaled theat Søren’s feet, crawling into his lap, surrendering to his arms He’d held her before--when her father had been sentenced to prison, when her mother had turned her back on her for the final time--but all those ti friend coht he held her like a lover He’d asked her if she wanted to know the truth about his that her life would never be the sa she’d simply answered, Tell me
"Tell me" she said to the eone It appeared someone had set it on fire and let it burn down to the hardwood, leaving waste, burn marks and ashes behind Yes, even the residue of the ashes snaked up the wall and onto the ceiling, and around the outline of words someone--Elizabeth most likely--had tried and failed to wipe clean
Love thy sister
"You sick bitch" Nora raised her hand and traced the outline of the words on the wall How dare Marie-Laure mock Søren and Elizabeth for the sins of their childhood, sins no God in heaven or on earth would ever hold theht of Søren’s father’s funeral, he’d confessed his darkest secrets to her, and she’d listened in silence and in horror--never horror at him for what he’d done, horror only at what this man she’d loved so co his face froaze of the moon The words he saidshe wanted to take theht and watch the inside her ears
I areatest of pleasures in inflicting pain Eleanor, you cannot even iine what I did to ine Please, Søren had begged of her, please never iine And for his sake and Elizabeth’s sake she never tried to iine
"Søren," she whispered to his childhood bedroom "Pleasedon’t fail me If I know you half as well as you know me"
She started to look around the rooinity to Elizabeth, his own half sister, the rooe dark desires he’d been born with She knew herself She knew her past As a young teenager she’d often scald herself with candle wax, carve shallow patterns into her skin with needles--gaame of chicken played with herself All their kind started young The sadists’ first victims were their own bodies The masochists’ first sadists were themselves Simone, one of Søren’s favorite submissives, had once confessed that she’d play cowboys and Indians with her brothers only because they always tied her up during their role-play The sexual thrill she’d experienced as her older brother lashed her to the foot of their parents’ bed eame ended, she’d disappear into the privacy of her own bedroo only one hand free to ot on her hands and knees and swept along the edge of the baseboards looking for a loose board Nothing Over the top of theframe she found only dust Little furniture in the room but for the re in front of the shelves Nora ran her eyes over the books They looked untouched, unread Søren had spent alland at boarding school The books had beenbut show Søren had coe eleven after he’d killed the boy who’d attacked him in his bed