Chapter 13 - Blood for BloodMy husband took out a small knife.
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“You don't understand.”
“I understand enough.”
He shook his head.
“Not yours.”
He cut his own palm.
Blood dripped onto the page.
Nothing happened.
Lena stared.
“You're trying to transfer the debt to yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You'll die.”
“I know.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“For the first time in my life, I'm making a choice without my family.”
His father appeared at the tunnel entrance.
“Stop.”
Everyone froze.
He stepped forward.
“You don't know what you're doing.”
My husband raised the knife.
“I know exactly what I'm doing.”
His father looked at me.
“You think he can save you?”
I said nothing.
“He can't.”
He opened his coat.
Around his neck hung a tiny metal key.
“The agreement isn't in this house.”
He smiled.
“It is under the wedding chapel.”
My mother looked horrified.
“No.”
He nodded.
“That is where we buried the first bride.”
I felt sick.
Lena whispered:
“She wasn't buried.”
“What?”
“She was sealed.”
My father-in-law smiled.
Then the walls shook.
A deep sound came from beneath us.
Like something enormous had awakened.
My wrist burned.
The mark reached my elbow.
My mother screamed:
“It's starting!”
My husband grabbed my hand.
“Chapel. Now.”
We ran.
But halfway down the corridor, we found the floor covered in photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Each photograph showed a bride.
Each bride had the same black mark.
And beneath every photograph was a date.
Most were decades old.
Then I saw one photograph dated twenty years ago.
It showed Lena.
And beneath it was today's date.
She stared at it.
Her face turned white.
“I was never the first bride.”
She looked at me.
May you like
“You are.”
Then the chapel bells began ringing.
