by Kaia Bennett
“No.” Cai said. “A free run means you’re free to fuck and kill. Not to turn a witch into a pet and nurse her powers. You’ve created a monster. And your father wants the monster put down.”
I felt faint. The tremors and the nausea coursing through me reminded me of that first night in the woods. I’d known then something awful surrounded me, something bigger than me, waited beyond the glow of the fire. I’d tried to run and the shadows caught me.
Now I had nowhere to run. I’d graduated from the basement to the house, but when I tested the window, it was locked. My heart crashed against my ribs on the certainty that every exit was locked, and two vampires sat downstairs discussing my fate.
Someone strong enough to control all the vampires in North America wants me dead. Jesse’s father.
“Time to quit partying and come back into the fold.” Cai’s voice lured my attention back to the conversation. “Clean up your mess. Then come home. Those are our orders. But, I’m a nice guy. I’ll let you say goodbye and put her down your way.”
When I came out of my trance, I found myself halfway down the stairs. My body moved on autopilot. My right palm ran against the smooth railing. My healed nails dragged down the wood, then my hand dropped lower to smudge the glass.
I wonder who will clean me up? Who will wipe away my blood and fingerprints? Who was born to shove my body into a barrel and dissolve my remains?
Cai turned to look at me first. He stood with his hands in his suit pants pockets. Now clean, with my hair spread out wet and curling down my shoulders, I must have looked like a different person to him.
Again he didn’t gawk openly, but somehow, I still felt him assessing and devouring me. “I don’t blame you for latching onto an empath. Rookie mistake, but an understandable one.” Cai licked his lips. “Her kind are like heroin. Sweet poison in the blood.”
Jesse’s pause rang clearer than any protest he’d put up thus far. When he looked up at me every emotion I’d felt for him flickered across his once-impenetrable mask. Anger. Sadness. Desire. Betrayal. Disgust. His lips twisted, turned down in a barely-suppressed snarl.
“Leave, Cai.”
Cai shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have to play my part and witness the deed.”
“You came to make sure he kills me.”
I wish I could say strength or resolve buoyed my question, but my voice shook. My eyes swam with tears.
“Yes.”
Don’t thank me…
“If I had a choice, I’d turn and walk away, Evie.” Cai approached, confident and sleek as a jungle cat. I flinched when he touched my face. I swayed, the tendrils of his strange presence wriggling around in my brain. “Such an exquisite creature shouldn’t be put down. But you’re dangerous, witch, and we have a code.”
“Leave no one behind to tell the tale,” Jesse murmured.
If I had any hope of getting out of this, Jesse was the key. The stranger with the unsettling touch flaring against my temple seemed resolved to watch me die.
I approached Jesse and knelt by his knees. He avoided my gaze until he couldn’t anymore, until I compelled him with my touch on his knee to look at me.
“Please, Jesse.” I slid my fingers up his boots and under his jeans until I found bare skin. With my other hand, I caressed his forearm. The veins jumped under my fingertips. “Please.”
He closed his eyes and I could hear his moans echoing in my head.
I like the sound of you begging witch. Beg me again….
“You can feel it, can’t you?” Cai’s voice intruded, blurring the bond between Jesse and me. “Her thoughts are your thoughts. She’s in your blood now, Jesse. There’s only one way out of this. If you’ve got the balls.”
Jesse tensed, a subtle shift of focus. He still felt me and I still felt him, the twisted give and take that bonded me to my killer, my lover. He stared beyond this world and into the next. Into a future without me breathing.
He’d never had a plan. I knew that. He’d had something worse. He’d had hope there would be time to figure out what to do with me. To fuck and kill, and drive from one side of the country to the other. His witch begging to stay by his side.
He blinked and his eyes refocused.
He stood and stared down at me like a vengeful god.
“No.” I shook my head and backed away, falling to my ass.
“Make it quick. As painless as possible.” I swiveled my gaze to Cai’s solemn stare. “You’ll feel everything she feels until it’s over.”
I felt Jesse agree. He did so mournfully, but his defensive posture swelled to one of strength. He’d made up his mind.
I’m going to die.
“You can’t do this.”
Jesse grabbed me, lifted me off the floor and into the air, holding me to his side like he would a toddler having a tantrum.
“Don’t do this, please.”
I touched his face, smelled his hair and ran my fingers through the raven silk. I wrapped my arms around his neck and bit the bronze skin peeking through his hair until I drew blood. The patio door opened, muting the sound vibrating under my lips. Frigid air hit my bare back where my top rode up to my bra. Jesse’s fingers dipped into the dimples in my lower back, playing with the soft skin. Remembering the little moments with his fingertips.
He stalked with deliberate speed along a dark path that canted downward. Torches illuminated our way. Cai’s observant silhouette loomed above us.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I whispered. “I would never tell. Never.”
I could love you, my mind cooed. I could be yours. Quiet and good and yours.
“I know.”
The lake and darkness awaited. I turned away. I showed him my cousin Nora’s death. I showed him her lifeless body, her white eyes staring at me from beyond the grave, undeterred by time. I showed him how terrified I’d been of open water since then.
“Please, Jesse.”
One last time, I begged. One last time I bit him and drew his blood into my veins, replaying memories of pleasure, memories of the past and the future, if only he would change his mind. I made promises I didn’t know if I could keep and soon we stood at the edge of the lake. Above Jesse’s head, Cai watched with his hands in his pockets. An imposing outline and witness.
The crisp air dropped in temperature and when I turned, the quiet cold of the horizon wavered from pitch black to gray. Dew tickled my bare feet when Jesse set me on my own two legs. Immediately, I tried to run. His blood hummed in my veins, and my wild panic sent adrenaline speeding through me. I slipped out of Jesse’s arms but I’d never be fast enough to outrun him. He wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Help! Hel—”
He slapped his hand over my mouth and silenced me.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Jesse’s apology rocked me to my core. I stilled. He inhaled against my neck, drinking in my scent. Growled.
Acid razors sank into my throat. I shook and sputtered into his palm, eyes wide, body jerking, fingers reaching for air to grasp, begging for someone to hear me.
God, please help me. I’m sorry I was bad. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please make it stop!
I howled because the pain felt like nothing I’d ever felt. Lava burned through me at a glacial pace, my erratic heartbeat spreading liquid flames through my veins.
It hurts!
I know, baby. I know. It’ll be over soon.
I broke free—or he let me go. I stumbled, falling to my knees by the water’s edge. The world swam and my tongue swelled, thick and useless.
Flashes of Nora assailed me. My cousin’s body floated, face-up, lifeless in a flower print dress. I hovered over her, close enough to kiss. I would drown in jeans and a blood-stained top. My family would learn I’d died halfway across the country weeks or months from now.
Perhaps I’d always known I’d die this way. Perhaps the knowledge had kept me away from water more than Nora’s death ever could.
I slapped water against my neck trying to soothe the ache Jes
se’s bite left. I expected blood to run out of me like a faucet, but there wasn’t as much volume as usual. This must be a different kind of bite? A killing, venomous blow.
I floated away from the water, lifted into the air by Jesse, only for him to wade into the lake.
Icy ripples shocked my skin, but I barely felt the cold because acid churned in my veins.
“Jesse!” I managed to rasp. I started to convulse, my teeth chattering as the world went out of focus.
The last word I’d ever speak would be Jesse’s name? After everything he’d done, I still hoped my hold on him would sway this final act?
I didn’t want my last words to be pleas for pity. I knew Jesse, and the cruel world he belonged to, had none to spare.
“You motherfucker!” I roared as he dragged me farther into the water. The bone-numbing chill surrounded me to my waist. I could barely speak, barely fight, but I scored Jesse’s perfect face with my nails and my words held all the fire of my assailant’s bite.
“You fucking coward!” He tilted me backward. I sliced his mind with the pain he inflicted, forcing the sensation into him like he used to impale me with his cock. I clutched his arms and shirt, shaking, teeth chattering, but strong enough to shove my face from underwater.
“I’ll be waiting for you in hell, Jesse. I’ll b-be waiting for y-you. You’ll never be f-free of me.”
Like a splinter that couldn’t be removed, I buried my pain, my pleasure, my memories and my hopes into Jesse’s mind.
Jesse’s eyes were human, I fancied, trapped by shifting shadows. As he lowered me again, a tear fell from his eye. Remorse? With everything I had, I amplified the feeling a thousand fold. Everything he’d stolen from me, just like I felt everything I’d stolen from my victims, would haunt him.
Or I’d damn well die trying.
“Catch you on the flip side, Evie.”
The water drowned out my roar, but my blood-boosted vision saw through the dark, churning surface. He looked away, staring at the horizon. He forced me lower, deep into the water. Self-preservation prolonged my agony. I kicked. I beat his stomach and jerked backwards. He held me fast by my throat. The last of my air rose in furious bubbles from my nose. The fire in my veins paled in comparison to the fire in my lungs, and my desperate need for breath.
I willed myself to hold on. More bubbles filtered from between my bared teeth, a furious whirlwind of water churned, surrounding me.
Jesse!
Water flooded my mouth, traveling like liquid fire down my throat and into my lungs. My body screamed for oxygen and forced me to swallow heaping gulps of water to relieve the ache.
No agony I’d experienced compared to this silent scream while a pitiless hand held me under. My body shuddered, as the frigid water forced the last drop of oxygen from my lungs. My will to fight dwindled, then whispered away. I fell while held aloft.
The part of me that soared above my body in the woods when Jesse, Vaughn and Liam attacked floated to the surface. My soul. The center of my being and the glue that tethered me to this world. Me. I soared above the dwindling spectacle, the water churning and then smoothing around Jesse’s torso like a lover’s silken dress. I watched him let me go and turn away, leaving me floating in the lake.
Up. Up. I spread on the air like a wisp, dissipating until nothing but the girl who used to be Evie remained.
Until Jesse was a mere speck, an ant crawling through a vast and manicured lawn. Until nothing but darkness remained.
23
Fuzzy awareness filtered in, like waking from the deepest sleep, like a lens zooming into focus one millisecond at a time.
Awareness. Then a tug, like separate wisps of smoke sucked back toward the mouth they’d escaped.
Floating. Then the twitch, the pulse of remembrance, of individuality.
Then sight.
From above I could see my dead body floating, face down.
Dead.
I heard a whisper reminiscent of my voice say the word. I heard my mind picking up on the hazy disconnect from my body.
I’m dead.
Something like the phantom beat of a heart sped within my ghostly chest.
I became a runaway train picking up speed. Me. My soul. Whatever I had become tumbled past clouds, the air sprinting past my formless-yet-descending presence. I heard my own last breath. The final gurgle of water.
My body became a magnet, every cell tingling back to life as the dead girl I’d become raced toward me. I traveled so far, days and nights had passed. None of the time mattered. I could feel my body waiting, tingling as the threads that had unspooled me from flesh and blood tightened, dragging me faster toward my human body.
The body could feel the threads tingling, too. Proximity began to breed a merging of sensation and feeling between me and the vessel that carried me.
I closed the eyes of my spirit right before I crashed back into her.
Into me.
And I became her again. I became, flexing my limbs, and twitching toes. My fingers became claws, slicing water and struggling towards my aching chest.
My human eyes opened, wide and frightened, as my body shook and I fought to rise from my watery grave. My stomach roiled, and before my eyes, while still under water, I vomited up the liquid death that had flooded my lungs. The propulsion pushed my body up.
When I broke the surface of the water, I gulped my first breath of life after death. The most painful thing I’d experienced in a recent past packed full of pain was that breath.
Not until I stopped vibrating, until the last cell of my body had merged with the last wisp of my soul, did I realize something had broken in me. I screamed, but I didn’t know why. I ached somewhere so deep inside I couldn’t pinpoint the source. Floating and detached within me like the chipped fragment of a bone, the truth rattled, disrupting the flow of life, the flow of memories.
I sank, then rose again, treading water in sloppy chops and kicks.
I’m alive.
My first cogent thought, and yet, I couldn’t figure out why those words were in my head.
I spied the flash of an arm stretching above the water, felt the ghostly pressure of being trapped in a watery grave.
I gasped and fell below the water before clawing my way to the surface again. Weakened and surrounded by water, I twisted and turned, trying to figure out which direction to swim.
My teeth chattered. A cold wind slapped my cheeks. Trying to figure out how I’d woken up waterlogged took a backseat to getting out of the water.
I swam to the shore. Drenched down to my soul, I climbed out of the water and collapsed onto the dead grass edging the lake.
Lake. Lake house.
Safe house.
I stared at the rising sun and wondered why it felt like I’d been asleep for years. I wondered why fear wracked me when I stared at the houses lining the water. They scared me. The things lurking within scared me.
But I was so tired.
I lay there a long time, tugging soft tufts of grass, while my teeth chattered, until finally sense won over fear.
Get up. Get away from here.
I knew enough to know I’d ended up somewhere far from home.
I curled up into a ball when a sharp vision of black eyes flashed behind my closed lids.
Get up. Get up, Evie.
Remembering my name became a strange and significant triumph. I had a sense of my identity, but no details.
I had a name. I crawled to my feet with all the grace of a horror film mummy, and when I rose, I knew my name was Evie and I had to get away from the lake house. I knew I’d lived through something I couldn’t bring myself to revisit.
I tiptoed between houses, afraid to knock on a door, afraid to do anything but walk as far away from the water as I could get. I stumbled barefoot down a driveway. Then down a residential road. The cold cradled me so close the horizon shuddered, because I couldn’t keep my head still.
Cars appeared. One at first. Then two. Then several zoomed pa
st.
I walked, head down, but aware unseen people stared. While I walked, the temperature seemed to drop, in spite of the climbing sun’s glowing heat. I walked, eyes pinned to the white line along the edge of the pavement, until I collapsed on the gravel-dusted shoulder across from a gas station. I stared at the convenience store and huddled in on myself.
Hi! I’m Kelsey!
Mmm. You smell delicious!
I looked away when people gathered in groups, pointing in my direction. Several men jogged across the street. I cowered, terrified because they towered over me, and bared my teeth.
“Hey! Are you all right?”
“Do you need help, miss?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Oh my God, Jay.” I looked up, strangely relieved to hear a woman’s voice. “Look at her.”
My faculties were slow, but I had the presence of mind to look down at myself. The only thing out of order, besides my bare, bleeding feet and my lack of a jacket to combat the cold, had to the dried blood buried deep in the fibers of my shirt.
My blood? Or someone else’s?
“Hey, I’m not gonna harm you, but you look like you might be hurt. We’re calling for help.”
I jerked my gaze to the stranger’s as he peeled off a leather jacket. His words faded behind the visceral impact of a man undressing. He held out his jacket with one hand, upturning the other palm, offering to help me stand.
Fencing surrounded a housing development behind me. I scrambled backward until I could grip one of the posts.
Everything felt wrong here, like I didn’t belong. The voices—drawls—were southern.
“Where…” I croaked despite my raw throat. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken aloud. I felt like death barely warmed up, and almost chuckled at the thought, though I didn’t know why.
The girl spoke into her cell phone. “She just collapsed. She’s looks terrified and has no shoes or coat. There’s blood all over her shirt.”
“Look, I understand if you don’t trust me. I do.” The man’s voice drew me back to his steady advancement. He wore a baseball cap, the rim low over his brow. He had kind eyes and dark skin that glowed in the sunlight. His black beard had hints of gray. I thought of my father. Still, I balled my hands into fists. If anyone tried to corner me… never again.