Emperor of Rage: Chapter 35

The fire crackles and pops, dancing in the dying wind.

The moon breaks through the last remnants of the clouds, turning everything silver—from the dark ocean that churns beyond the shore to the scattered rocks that dot the coastline. The air is still charged from the storm with an electricity that lingers between us, even as the winds have died down.

With the storm passed, I could easily get the Jeep out by driving over the sand and around the huge tree branch. But our clothes—at least, the few we even found after the wind died down—are soaked, and who wants to drive two hours in wet clothes?

I sit a few feet from Freya, tending the small campfire I built with scraps of driftwood collected from the beach. The fire crackles softly, sending a warm glow over her face as she wraps her arms around her knees, her naked body curled into a ball as she stares into the flames.

The quiet between us is comfortable, layered with a silence deeper than words. I poke at the fire, stirring the embers, trying to focus on something other than the way my heart is pounding from the way Freya looks in the soft light of the flames. Her hair is still damp, dark strands sticking to her face, and her pale skin has taken on a flushed warmth from being so close to the fire. I can’t take my eyes off her.

She glances over at me, her eyes catching the firelight, and there’s a softness in her gaze that makes my chest tighten. I’ve been trying to keep things with her in a box—neatly compartmentalized, like everything in my life—but every time I’m around her, that box gets harder and harder to close.

“That was insane,” she says quietly.

I grunt in agreement, throwing another piece of wood onto the fire. “Should’ve listened to me when I said to head in.”

She smiles faintly, a flicker of mischief crossing her face. “Yeah, you should know by now that I never listen.”

“No shit,” I growl, smirking.

The truth is, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I like her defiance, her stubbornness. That fire in her is what drew me in that very first night at the office where I found her.

She’s not afraid of me like most people are. And that, paradoxically, scares the hell out of me, because I don’t know how to protect her from the darkness inside me.

All I know is that something about her makes me want to let go—of all the control, all the walls, all the shit I’ve built up around myself for years.

She shifts a little closer to the fire, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on top of them again.

“You were pretty great out there, you know,” I say quietly.

She grins, her eyes raising to mine.

“Yeah?”

I nod.

“That why you brought me out here? To pump me up?”

I shake my head. “I wanted to show you something you’d never seen or done before.”

Her lips twitch into a smile, and she looks out toward the ocean. “Well, mission definitely accomplished.”

We sit in silence again, the fire crackling between us. I can feel her eyes on me, expectant. I know I should stay quiet, keep everything locked inside like I always do.

But I don’t want to. Not anymore.

I take a deep breath, feeling the words clawing up my throat, finally escaping. “I was beaten, tortured, and molested for three years after my family died.”

The words hang in the air between us, heavy and suffocating. I’ve never said them out loud before, not in a way that meant anything. But now, saying them here, to Freya, feels different. Like ripping open an old wound that never quite healed.

Freya doesn’t say anything. But when I glance over, I see her staring at me with haunted sadness in her eyes. It’s like she wants to comfort me, but also knows me well enough to know that’s not what I want. I don’t know how she does it, but there’s no judgment in her gaze, or pity. Just…sadness.

Her lips quivers, her throat bobbing as her fingers twist together.

“After…”

Freya’s face caves a little as she looks away.

After Freya’s family murdered mine is the part left unsaid. But I don’t look at her and see that now. That was her father and his violence and hatred.

Not her.

“My grandfather Kasper took me in. He was a fiend of a man.”

I run a hand through my hair, staring into the fire as the horrendous memories start flooding back.

“Kasper was brutal, a Nazi. I mean a literal Nazi. He’d been a teenager when the Germans marched into Norway, and he happily swallowed their poison. Sixty years later, he was still waiting for a fucking Fourth Reich to rise up. He was a bastard, and he was obsessed with molding us into something that fit with his warped vision of the world.”

She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her watching me, her eyes boring into the side of my face.

“Us?” she finally says softly, her voice shaking.

“There were two other boys there with me—two other orphans that he’d taken in,” I say quietly. “Jonas and Filip. We were all just kids, but Kasper wanted to turn us into something else. Something dark.”

I take a deep breath, the weight of those days pressing down on me.

“All three of us took it differently. I just tried to survive. But Jonas… He became a true believer, just like Kasper. He was the favorite because he was as twisted and hateful as my grandfather was. Maybe he was just the best at pretending to be, so he’d be spared. But I doubt that was it. I think he had the same hate as Kasper.”

I pick up a piece of driftwood and feed it to the flames.

“Filip… He was too good. Too innocent. He couldn’t handle it, and my grandfather fucking knew it. He enjoyed that Filip broke so easily, and took pleasure in going the hardest on him. Beatings, psychological manipulation, torturing him…”

I look away.

“Touching him.”

A choked sob rips from Freya’s throat. I just stare into the crackling flames, feeling my blood slow like thick oil.

“One day, Kasper took things too far. Filip had committed the heinous crime of spilling some coffee on the kitchen floor while bringing it to my grandfather. So my grandfather dragged him out to the barn, hung him naked by the wrists from the rafters with his feet off the ground, and beat him with a bullwhip.”

My jaw clenches as the memory claws and rips at me.

“I can still hear the wet sounds of bloodied leather on torn skin.”

Freya sobs, crying into her hands as she stares at me in horror.

“He killed him,” I say quietly. “He just kept going and going, making Jonas and I watch until…” I look away. “It was over.”

Freya’s breath catches, and her eyes widen slightly, but she still doesn’t interrupt.

“I snapped, after that,” I say, my voice rougher, my fists clenched at my sides now. “Filip was the only friend I had, and when I saw that monster kill him for nothing, just because he could, I fucking broke. I grabbed a hay fork, and I ran that motherfucker through, four times.”

There’s a long silence after I finish speaking, the only sound the crackling of the fire and the distant crash of the waves. I glance over at Freya, expecting her to look at me differently now. But if anything, her expression is even softer, more understanding.

“Mal…”

With a choked sob, she falls into me, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me half to death as she cries into my neck.

“I’m so fucking sorry…” she whispers hoarsely, her breath coming in huge, gulping sobs.

We sit like that for a while, just holding each other as the fire crackles and the waves crash. I feel her fingers playing across my skin and her throat bobbing against my shoulder.

I know her tells. She’s trying to figure out how to say something.

“Whatever it is,” I say quietly, “I want to hear it.”

She freezes.

“Tell me, Freya,” I murmur, turning to lift her chin, bringing her eyes to mine. I can see the sadness and fear in them. She’s worried. “You don’t have to hide from me,” I say quietly but insistently, watching her closely. “Not now.”

She glances up at me, looking lost and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen before. For a long moment, she just stares at me, like she’s trying to decide if she should trust me with whatever is weighing her down.

“I have Huntington’s disease,” she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s genetic. My father and my brother had it, and I have it too. It means I’m going to die young.”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, stunning me with their sheer weight and finality. I stare at her, my throat tight, a fury I don’t understand roaring in my veins as I try to process what she’s just told me.

“The neurons in my brain… They’ll start to break down and die at some point. Some people live until their fifties, but mine, like my father’s, is going to progress a lot faster than that. It’ll probably first hit me in a few years. And then, it will kill me.”

My throat closes off. My pulse claws through my veins like grit, slowing down until all I know is the sheer unfairness of it.

Something inside me breaks. My arms wrap tighter around her, holding her close against my chest as if I can protect her from the inevitable. She’s shaking, her breath coming in short, uneven gasps, and I can feel her tears soaking into my shirt.

“I didn’t want you to know I was going to die,” she blurts, her voice muffled against my chest. “I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me or pity me.”

There’s a long silence.

Then I shake my head, my thumb brushing gently across her cheek. “We’re all going to die,” I say quietly. My eyes and my fingers trail down her side, until my thumb brushes over the tattoo on her ribs.

“That’s why you got this, isn’t it?” I trace the pad of my thumb over her tattoo. “Remember that you must die.”

She nods, her lips quivering.

“Well, you told me yourself that there’s another half to that saying,” I say fiercely, my voice quiet but firm. “Memento Vivere. Remember to live.”

She looks up at me, her breath catching in her throat.

“Live, Freya,” I hiss darkly, holding her face tightly in my hands, our eyes locked. “We live for right fucking now. For today. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday. Just…now.”

Her arms wrap around me, pulling me closer as our lips crush together, the fire crackling beside us.

I’ve been fighting my whole life. I know I can’t fight death, or the inevitable.

But that sure as fuck isn’t going to stop me from trying.