Wicked Hunger

by DelSheree Gladden

Chapter Twenty: Fragments of Agony

  (Zander)

  Given that I get to see Ivy more often now, sneaking into her room at night shouldn’t be something I still do. Since meeting her, I find myself doing all kinds of things I shouldn’t. A quiet step over the window sill brings me into her room. She’s sound asleep. My mouth turns up as I see that she’s facing me this time. It’s better if she’s not, but I love seeing her beautiful face too much to really care. Slipping into the chair next to her bed brings me within a few feet of her. I take in the scent of her body, soap, sweat, and lotion. The blend is something I would recognize anywhere.

  I don’t come to her house every night. If I see her during the day, I force myself to be happy with that. When I don’t see her, it’s impossible for me to resist. Sundays are the hardest because she never calls me to talk, doesn’t text me, and can’t hang out. After a week of getting tastes of her, it feels like coming off an addiction so intense I know I’ll never make it if I don’t get another fix.

  I saw her every day this week at least for a few minutes, so this is the first time I’ve been to her room since last Sunday. Being with her at school and after my games is an equally enslaving mixture of torture and desire. It kills me to be with her, but I want the pain more than anything.

  I know I’m seriously messed up, heading down the path that led Oscar to his current living arrangements, but sitting beside her at night helps me keep things balanced. On nights like this, I can be near her without rousing my hunger too much. It gives me the only semi-peaceful time I ever have with her, and it’s something I can carry in the back of my mind to keep myself stable when we’re face to face, clearly alive and awake.

  Ivy’s late night hours make not falling asleep here difficult, though. It was one-thirty before I could risk climbing through her window. Sparring with Van this afternoon isn’t helping me stay awake. Soundlessly, I move the chair closer to her bed. My hand reaches out to hover over her for a brief moment. I want to touch her, but I would feel the warmth of her body, and tricking my hunger into thinking she’s dead will become so much harder. Her eyes flutter—making my heart stop—then close again. I let out a breath and retract my hand.

  I think I am safe now, but the sudden blaring of a car alarm snaps Ivy’s eyes open. I’m fast, but I’m not that fast. Her bleary eyes seem to catch sight of something, widening and activating a warning siren in her mind, though devoid of recognition just yet. My mind is frozen. I watch, immovable, as her hand whips under her pillow. She pulls her hand back out and her body follows the path, ending in a kneeling position with the knife glinting in the moonlight. Her eyes finally see me.

  “Zander?”

  Speaking and thinking are not likely functions for me, at the moment. She has a knife at my neck, but there are only two thoughts completely unrelated to the blade running through my mind right now. The first one is that her tight fitting tank top and petite pajama shorts show off her toned body perfectly. The muscles of her abdomen are tight and quivering under her skin. I want to run my fingers over them.

  The second coherent thought stops me from doing just that. Pain doesn’t always accompany fear, but the precursor tastes like a gourmet appetizer to my hunger. Fear makes the pain more delectable the higher it climbs. Her racing heart, rapid breathing, and warm body have set my hunger ablaze. Like a twig snapping, it takes over completely. My refusal to listen to its desire is shoved away, and I watch in horror as my hands spring forward to grab her.

  Ivy scrambles off the bed, knocking over a lamp in her panicked hurry. It crashes to the floor. The stained glass shade shatters. The movement and sound pauses me for a precious moment, but then the tang of blood hits me. I don’t run or lurch forward. I’m not Van. Ivy’s eyes widen as my legs carry me forward in a stalking, unstoppable gait. Each step is quicker than the last, more determined to bring me close enough to shatter her into fragments of agony.

  Her eyes close, her arms drop to her side with the blade dangling uselessly from her fingers. She knows there’s no point in trying to stop me. The pain of my heart ripping apart doesn’t keep me from wrapping my fingers around her neck. I can hear the blade clatter to the ground, feel her hands grasping mine in an effort to tear them away. None of it matters.

  “Ivy,” someone calls through the door. “Ivy, are you okay?”

  Not even fear of discovery overpowers my hunger. My fingers cinch even more tightly around her throat. I can hear her gasping breaths, see the blue tinge to her skin. Only the shock of a sharp bite from small canine teeth into my calf is capable of forcing my hands away from Ivy. She gasps in a painful breath and reaches for the door knob.

  Panic overwhelms me. I have half a second to hide. No chance of making it out the window, so I roll to the side and flatten myself against the wall just before Ivy yanks her door open wide enough to poke her head out. I can see that the tip of the knife is sticking out under the door. The little Yorkie Ivy and her family just rescued earlier this week is yapping at my feet.

  Its diminutive size could never physically hold me back, but its glowering eyes and incessant noise work to distract me and give me a few moments to regain control. Ivy told me about the new dog several times, but I never even considered it might be sleeping in her room tonight. Silently, I thank the noisy little thing for stopping me. My eyes close. My fingers dig into the wall to steady myself. A worried male voice pins me to the wall even more.

  “Ivy, honey, what is going on in here? It sounded like a herd of elephants just ran through your room.”

  “Sorry, Dad. A car alarm went off outside and it scared me. I knocked my lamp off the nightstand and tripped over it when I got out of bed to shut the window.”

  I listen to every word in stunned silence. Why isn’t she telling her father that the guy she’s seeing just snuck into her room and tried to kill her? She’s lying, and I have no idea why.

  “Well, are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?” her dad asks.

  “No, no, Dad, I’m fine, just a little startled. Go back to bed. Sorry I woke you up.”

  “If you’re sure you’re okay…” I see Ivy’s head bob up and down. “All right, honey, get a good night’s sleep.”

  “You too,” she echoes.

  A second later, she closes the door quietly. Her hands linger on the white paneled wood door for a second. Then she drops down, retrieves the blade, and flicks it against my throat faster than I would have thought possible for her. My hunger surges again, but the memory of her bulging eyes and blue lips hold me back. I don’t move. I don’t speak, because there is nothing I can say to defend myself. I am a hunger-bound maniac with incredible strength and abilities, and I am at her mercy.

  The blade pinches against my skin. About to break through, Ivy holds and stares at me. Nothing is said. My heart and hunger wage war against each other, while Ivy stares at me wide-eyed. Behind her, I can the see curtains stir in the breeze, giving the only hint that this room isn’t a work of art frozen in time for future generations to muse and wonder at. Close up, with the moonlight hitting her from behind, I can see the cut on her arm where a piece of the broken lampshade must have nicked her. A thin trail of blood dribbles down her biceps. It’s such a small amount, but my hunger licks its lips eagerly.

  “What are you doing here?” Ivy hisses.

  “I…” My mind trips over itself trying to find an explanation that will work. It quickly realizes what an impossible trick that is. I just tried to kill her. There’s no explanation for that but the truth, and I’m not about to offer that up.

  The tip of the blade digs into my neck deeper. My hunger surges, almost forcing me back over the edge of my control. “Why are you in my room in the middle of the night?”

  I don’t even try to answer.

  “Tell me, Zander, or so help me I’ll scream and my dad will call the police. I’ll tell them you were here and… and that you… I’ll tell them you broke into my house.” Her hand is firm against my neck, but
her bottom lip is trembling slightly. Even still, I believe her. I have to give her something. I have to talk and distract myself before I tear her apart.

  “I wanted to see you… and it’s easier this way.”

  “Easier? What is that supposed to mean?” she demands.

  “When you’re asleep, it’s easier for me to be around you.”

  “Why?”

  I balk at answering her and she digs the blade in further. I can feel a bead of blood start making its way down my neck. The scent of it makes me whimper.

  “Why?” she asks again.

  My eyes close, and I know I am about to invite my own death in for tea. My hunger balks at the thought of dying and begs me to reconsider. “Because when you’re asleep, I can trick myself into thinking you’re dead.”

  “What?” she squeaks. “Why would you want to think I was dead?”

  “What you said about me and my brother. It wasn’t true. I am exactly like Oscar.”

  She blinks. Once. Twice. Three times. “You want to kill me?” she whispers.

  “Yes. I mean no.” My frustrated growl makes her jump back. “Part of me wants to hurt you very badly, Ivy, but the rest of me wants to protect you.”

  “I… don’t understand. Why do you want to hurt me?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, cradling my head as I slide down the wall. My hands can’t keep the battle raging inside my mind and body from spilling out. It tumbles out in a feral, mournful growl. “I don’t know what makes me want to hurt people. I’m sorry, Ivy. I’m so sorry.”

  The shuffle of her feet on the carpet is almost soundless. The screaming inside my head quiets at the sound of her footsteps. “Stop moving,” I snap. The sound vanishes.

  “Can I talk?”

  “Yes, just don’t let me hear you move. I can barely stop myself from coming after you right now. Distract me, but don’t move a muscle. And cover up your cut.”

  “How can I distract you?” she asks quietly.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I… don’t think you want to hear it.”

  She’s right. I don’t want to hear it. “Then tell me why you keep a knife under your pillow.”

  “Um, okay,” she says quietly, a whisper that betrays her nerves. “Back in California, we lived in an apartment. It was nice, but during the summer before we moved, our neighbors were renovating their apartment. They moved out while the work was being done, but the construction crew had keys to get into the building. My parents were out one night, and I had gone to bed, when one of the crew came back. He broke into our apartment with a screwdriver and started in the living room with the electronics. I heard him when he dropped one of his tools on the glass coffee table.”

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “I grabbed a lacrosse stick and crept out of my room.”

  “Ivy, that wasn’t very smart.”

  Her huff of irritation makes me smile. Hearing her voice with all my other senses shut down begins to ease me back toward control.

  “Anyway,” Ivy continues, “I wasn’t trying to attack him. I’m not stupid. I had left my cell phone charging on the kitchen counter. I thought I could grab it, run back to my room, and call the police.”

  “I’m guessing your plan didn’t work very well.”

  She doesn’t answer right away. “He heard me, freaked out, and pulled a gun. I don’t think he meant to shoot it. He was as scared as I was, but the bullet almost hit me. He ran away and I called the police and my parents. They caught him, but I couldn’t sleep after that. Every noise I heard made me think someone was in the apartment. My mom didn’t want a gun in the house, but eventually she let me have the knife.”

  With her story ended, Ivy falls quiet. My yearning for blood and love slowly begins to ebb.

  “Go lay down. Get under the blankets and lie very still.”

  I struggle to keep my tenuous calm as I hear her move to the bed. She does it as quietly as possible, but the squeak of springs and rustle of blankets are still enough to tense every muscle in my body. I stay curled up at the base of the wall until the battle raging inside me calms back down. Only when I’m confident of my ability to control myself again do I move. My feet tread carefully over to the round black trashcan with lime green flowers on it, and I pull it over to the side of Ivy’s bed.

  “What are you doing?” Ivy whispers.

  “Cleaning up the broken lampshade. I don’t want you to get cut again. The smell… it isn’t good for me, and I don’t like for you to be hurt.”

  She doesn’t speak again, and the only sound in the room is the subdued plink of glass falling into the plastic bin. Luckily, most of it only broke into separate pieces rather than shattering. I get the mess cleaned up, though I take my time doing it. By the time I finish, Ivy is so quiet that I’m almost sure she’s asleep. I set the trashcan back in its place. A sound proves me wrong about Ivy being asleep.

  “Zander, are you okay?”

  I hang my head and sigh. “You’re the one that got attacked. Why are you asking me how I am?”

  “Because I’m worried about you,” she says quietly.

  “Why didn’t you tell your dad I was here?” I ask as I walk to the end of her bed and sit down on the floor with my back to her.

  Ivy doesn’t answer right away. I debate slipping back through her window and telling Van what I just did. She’d be more than happy to give me the thrashing I deserve for my stupidity. She wouldn’t hold back, either. I think she’s been chomping at the bit to finish what she started the day she punched me and tackled me to the floor.

  “I didn’t tell my dad because I know you’re not what you think you are. You aren’t a bad person, Zander. You’ve got some problems, but you’re not alone in that. We’ve all got problems.”

  “Yeah, but how many other people’s problems involve killing people?”

  “You’d probably be surprised,” Ivy says, almost too quiet for me to hear. Her comment pricks my curiosity, but she continues before I can ask her about it. “Zander, I’ve tried to put aside your issues because I don’t want you to run away from me, but I think after tonight I need some real answers.”

  Every cell in my body howls in agony. Not because they are trying to convince me not to tell her anything, but because they know I’ve already made my choice.