A Touch Morbid

by Leah Clifford

She heard a faint pop, the sound of static. Even her own diseased brain reacted in fear. She’d only let him do it once. Too easily she remembered the slippery shivers, the dangerous thrill of opening her mind to him. Fallen or not, he had the same skills as Gabe when it came to fixing her brain. “No.” Panic rose in her throat. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Kristen, stop.” He gripped her chin, forced her to face him. She kept her eyes closed, her lips pressed tight.

  A giggle broke out. Kristen whimpered as she realized it came from neither of them. It grew into a laugh, echoing around in her head. What will he do when she loses her mind in his clutches? a small voice asked.

  A ricocheting cacophony burst through her skull. She would never Are you sure She wouldn’t dare But he has the same talents as This one crossed her, betrayed her, and she won’t make that mistake again Never let him in

  Never let him in.

  “I’m asking your permission.” Luke’s voice. Louder than the others. “Kristen, you can’t make me see you like this,” he snarled, and then his voice softened as he took her hands. “Open your eyes. Let me help you. No catch.”

  Her breath came in short gasps. Soon she’d be drowning in the madness. She’d never be able to hold out for Gabe.

  Luke’s lying He cares nothing for her It’s all a game If she gives in he wins

  “Shut up!” she screamed. She wanted to yank her hands over her ears, but Luke had her hands.

  Just this once. Letting him in even a little would give her time to reach Gabe—hell, she’d go through Az if she had to—and apologize a thousand times. She swallowed hard, her heart slamming in her chest. She only needed a little help, would let Luke in for a few seconds, no more.

  What if it’s a trick? She cleared her mind as best she could. Banished thoughts of Gabe, Eden, Az. And then she opened her eyes.

  “Do it quickly,” she choked out.

  His fingers wound gently around the back of her head, massaging into her hair, but she was barely aware, locked into the black pupils, the absence of light concentrated in the center of his eyes.

  She felt the connection take, the cool sizzle of him sliding into her skull. His breath hit her lips. The static dialed up, a scream of white noise, then again, louder. Get him out.

  She managed to lift her arms, pushing him away as her clarity came back. “Stop,” she murmured. “Stop.”

  Luke untangled from her hair when she started to resist, squeezed her shoulders. “I need to finish.”

  “STOP!” she screamed.

  He turned his head, and the noise snapped off. Everything dulled. Kristen blinked hard, sudden tears of relief and embarrassment caught in her lashes. Luke. She’d let Luke into her head. Again. Shame rolled over her.

  “I wasn’t done!”

  She jerked her shoulders out of his grasp, staggering to her feet. “Stay away from me.”

  “Kristen!” he called after her, louder as she made her way out of the park. “It won’t last!”

  Luke stayed where she’d left him on the bench. She quickened her steps anyway. Not to see if he’d chase, only to get her blood pumping again, to get warm. Nothing more.

  She pushed the thought of him from her mind, her scalp still tingling where his fingers had pressed tight.

  CHAPTER 6

  For half an hour, the demons had been trailing Gabe from subway car to subway car. They were there with him as he switched trains. He couldn’t shake them. They didn’t look mortal, not to him, their faces slowly melting downward, starting over at their foreheads like eternity pools. The humans passed by them, not one of them reacting. The demons were beyond the capabilities of human eyes. He would have thought, being Fallen, that the minions of Hell would be on his side.

  He was wrong. Perhaps it was because he resisted the dark urges.

  A sharp pain shot through his upper arm. Gabe didn’t look back, quickened his pace.

  The demons stood behind him as he waited on the platform, growing more brazen with every passing minute. He gritted his teeth, shifted his arm away, rubbing it through his coat. Fingers closed over his, clammy reptilian skin, brushing away his own hand. The same pinch on the back of his arm came again. This time he couldn’t stifle his cry. Behind him, the demons cackled in glee.

  “His suffers taste like sugar!” The demon girl’s voice crackled like glass through the freezing air. “Sweet sorrows,” she said, and Gabe heard the mocking pout in it.

  “Touch me again and I’ll have your hands,” he said without turning around. Pain shot up the back of his arm. He turned, his lips curling up, and hissed at them. They found this hysterical, practically falling all over themselves as they followed him through the station. Gabe glanced around at the mortals on the platform, but not one met his eyes. To them, he was only a ranting lunatic. It was only then that he saw the penknife in the demon boy’s hand, the thin blade bloodied. He wondered what the mortals would think when the blood soaked through his jacket.

  “Bound and broken, sins are spoken. Doesn’t make you one of us,” the demon boy said in singsong. He reached forward again and Gabe grabbed the hand, squeezing until he heard bones crack. The knife clattered to the ground, but the girl demon was on it before Gabe had a chance to dive for it. When Gabe released the boy, the demon shook out his hand. The broken bones rattled down into the skin of his fingers, filling them like balloons stuffed with rocks.

  The demon girl’s fingers shot forward, her nails gouging out a chunk of Gabe’s exposed skin near his wrist. “You’re dark as daylight, Failed One. We’ll have you piece by piece.”

  Gabe pressed forward, away from them. In front of him, a mortal boy stumbled in the yellow-painted caution area before the sunken tracks. He caught his footing, moved back from the edge, and shot Gabe a glare. Around him the crowd had grown uncomfortably silent. He could sense their fear of him, the way they leaned away like a receding tide. The platform was too crowded for them to move far.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabe mumbled, trying to give the teenager room.

  The girl demon cackled in his ear. “Apologizing to mortals when he should be slaughtering them?” The sharp laugh dropped to a guttural snarl. “You want the scent of his blood on your skin. The thought pleases you, does it not?”

  The crowd on the platform strained forward toward the tracks, restless.

  “Newly Fallen. No resisting the urge,” one demon laughed to the other. “The boy’s brains will butter our bread.”

  Gabe focused on the back of the boy’s jacket. He hated himself for the quaking in his arms, the muscles jerking as he fought not to raise them. He hated how much effort it took to not give in, his quickened breaths, spiking adrenaline. Push him, fetch agonies. The hot need overwhelmed everything. Newspapers stirred, swirling on currents. A train approached. So little to tip him forward.

  A whimper rose from Gabe’s throat, but he cut it short. The demons curled closer, sensing his weakness, oozing around him as if their bodies were part smoke. With every dark cell of his body, he willed the train to come. Push the boy in front of it.

  “No!” Gabe clenched his hands at his sides.

  Fetid breath skated across his cheek. “Why ache for slaughter? Don’t deny yourself!”

  What harm to kill only one?

  “How glorious to bathe in his blood.”

  Gabe barely registered the press of the penknife into his palm. His fingers curled around it unconsciously.

  “Slit him open. Ear to ear.”

  Breakable, so breakable. Mortals crawled through these tunnels like rats. A plague of decaying flesh, rotting cell by cell, day by day. His foot slid forward of its own volition. His gaze rose to the pale skin of the boy’s throat.

  “No.” Gabe tore his eyes away, staring down the hollow tunnel.

  “Wicked wants. They’re inside you. You can’t forsake the darkness.” A breath of words across his ear. “Kill him.”

  “Kill him,” the other cooed.

  Gabe trembled. No, the platfo
rm beneath him trembled. He sighed in relief. Thirty seconds and the train would be there. Twenty. Ten.

  The knife was jerked out of Gabe’s hand. He yelled as it stabbed into his own shoulder, biting deep. He yanked away from the blinding pain and slammed into the mortal. The train clattered; brakes screamed.

  Everything happened too fast to stop. The boy stumbled forward, sneaker laces caught under Gabe’s boot. The horn blaring. A wet smack. Fluid sprayed across Gabe’s face.

  Only the boy’s arm remained. It stood up straight, crushed in the gap between the platform and the now-stopped train. The fingers twitched, waving good-bye with the final death spasms.

  Around him, chaos broke out. The crowd panicked as they realized what had happened. Screams echoed through the train station.

  Gabe lunged up the stairs. It was an accident. He retched, dry heaving at the first trickle of regret. His body sought out the feeling, expelled it from him like a poison. A pair of police officers rushed down the stairs to the subway, walkie-talkies shouting codes.

  Gripping the stair rail, Gabe hauled himself up to the street. The image of the arm with its waggling fingers burned behind his eyelids with each blink, stained upon his retina. Find another thought. Anything.

  His brain sputtered through images of steaming intestines, rivulets of blood drying on concrete. He pushed past them, searching, his desperation growing as he grasped for anything that could calm him, soothe the need for fury and knuckles smearing against brick walls like cheese graters. Flayed flesh. Gabe fell to his knees.

  He’d lose it, lose control. Rampage. “No, please,” he cried.

  Pedestrians marched around him. Soon they’d be begging for their lives. And he’d ignore their pleas. Kill slowly.

  “No,” he moaned as the ice began to fill him, drag him down into another cold night of foggy memories made of half-forgotten nightmares. “I won’t give in. Not again.”

  And then he saw her face. Behind his closed eyes, Kristen’s face shimmered like a mirage. Gabe sucked a breath, focused. Something too much like affection overwhelmed him, and his stomach rolled uneasily. Kristen. He fed off her quiet strength, felt the ice inside him ease back a bit. He heard her whisper his name, the old name.

  You are not Gabriel anymore, he cursed himself. You’re a murderer. Dangerous. You killed Eden.

  “I’m sorry.” His whisper faltered, broke apart in the freezing air. The darkness smelled of snow to come.

  “I won’t kill again,” he spat, rising to his feet. And it was true. He’d gotten stronger.

  A little longer. A bit more control. One day without a blackout—only one—and he’d trust himself enough to track down Az. Az could help him. Help him get Home.

  “I belong Upstairs.” Gabe lurched as the word left his lips, hitting the concrete on his hands and knees. He puked until his stomach burned, the bile stained with strings of red.

  “I want to go Home,” he choked out defiantly.

  The retching started anew.

  CHAPTER 7

  Eden braced herself against the sink, her knuckles white. She caught her reflection in the mirror, tears smearing black streaks of mascara down her cheeks. She’d have to redo her makeup.

  “Are you coming or not?” Az yelled from the living room. “We gotta get going.”

  She sucked a breath, tried to keep her voice from wavering as she yelled, “I need a minute!”

  Pain racked through her. As it had earlier that morning, the pressure in her guts built. This time was so much worse. She doubled over with a moan. A strange gurgle rose out of her as the cramp finally broke off. Her mouth filled with a horrid taste.

  She slammed on the faucet, cupping a handful of water and swishing it around in her cheeks. When she spat, the water came out gray.

  Eden stared as it swirled down the drain. She startled at the rap on the bathroom door.

  “You get lost?” Az asked. Even through the wood, she could hear his boyish excitement.

  The change in him was unsettling. Mere hours ago, he’d been dangerously close to Falling, but with every mile they put between themselves and Madeline, he’d rallied. By the time they’d reached the apartment, he’d been his own self. She wondered what he’d stopped Madeline from saying, what other drama their hasty exit had spared him. He’d recovered so quickly, almost as if he hadn’t really been Falling. She shook away the thought.

  “I’m coming!” she called back, and then lowered her voice to a whisper, staring back at her reflection in the mirror. “You’ve gotta tell him about this,” she said quietly to herself. She stifled a gag and cupped another drink. This time the water left her mouth clear.

  Even before her mystery pain, she’d tried to back out of their date, reason with him, but he wouldn’t budge. She gave in when she realized how much their night together meant to him. Az needed this. But it didn’t keep her fears away. She knew he wanted to make the night special, a surprise, but that only raised her anxiety. Would they be in a crowd? Alone? What if something happened and Az lost it again? She glanced down at the swirl of residue left around the drain.

  What if something happened to her?

  Eden wet the washcloth hanging over the back of the faucet and used a bit of soap to clean under her eyes, doing her best to be gentle.

  She quickly stroked on a fresh layer of mascara. “Tonight’s going to be good,” she said, her voice shaking worse than her hands. “And tomorrow…”

  You stop pretending this is going to go away, she thought. But for now, she plastered a smile on her lips. With a deep breath, Eden turned from the mirror and swung the door open, raising a hand to the doorframe.

  “I swear on all that is holy, you laugh and it’s your ass,” she said, knowing Az would hear the nerves behind her bravado and hoping he’d think it was only her being girly about her hair.

  Her bangs swept across her forehead, clipped back near her ear, but the rest of her hair she’d chopped off to nearly a pixie cut. The pink had been bleached away, and then she’d dyed the highlights a dark green.

  The silence stretched out. As stupid as it was, she realized she really did want him to like what she’d done. At least not hate it. “I figured if anyone was looking for us, they’d be saying I had pink hair.” Eden smiled uncomfortably. “Now I don’t.”

  The rumors circulating about her since she’d moved to Manhattan always mentioned her pink streaks. That’s how the Siders found her. If the Bound were doing the same, maybe the dye would throw them off. Even Luke wouldn’t recognize her from the back, especially in a crowd. It might be enough to buy them one good night together.

  Az rose off the couch slowly.

  “Bad idea?” Eden brought her hand up to the back of her neck, catching a few strands of her newly cut hair. He swallowed hard and shook his head. “What, then?” she asked, hoping he hadn’t heard her in the bathroom.

  “Hair’s fine, but in that dress, everyone’s going to be looking at you.”

  “Nice, Az.” She snorted, dropping her pose in the threshold, stooping to pull a strap of her high heel around her ankle and buckling it. Her dress was black, the white frill of the underlayer showing through tiny lacey eyelets. It was one of her favorite thrift store finds, but more importantly it went with her most comfortable heels. Ones she’d be able to run in.

  Everything inside her told her it was a stupid risk, going out like this so they could pretend they were a normal couple. But as she watched Az grab his suit coat off the back of the couch and slip into it, the danger didn’t seem so terrible. They’d be in public. They’d be together. She felt okay again.

  Eden watched as he buttoned the blazer closed, mesmerized. She’d never seen him dressed up, hadn’t prepared herself for the way the suit made him look—sophisticated and fashionable. The sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones belonged in the pages of a magazine. On a movie screen. He looked up suddenly, caught her ogling him. His grin widened as he walked to her. And that smile, Az happy, made all the risk worth it.
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br />   “You know,” she said, cocking her head. “I think we need to work more formal events into our schedule.”

  He smiled, adjusting his cuff links. “Yeah? You like me in a suit?”

  She laced her hands around his neck. “Actually, right now I’m a little caught up on the idea of getting you out of the suit.”

  He kissed the line of her jaw, slowly working his way lower on her neck. A soft sigh slipped out of her. He smelled so good, his normal crisp scent mixing with the musk of the cologne he wore. Her fingers tensed on his shoulders.

  “You’re not trying to blow off our date again, are you,” he whispered in her ear. She groaned, pulling back. Az caught her hand, lifted it until she moved closer again.

  “No, but for the record”—she slid her leg slowly between his, her voice low and sultry—“I’m taking a rain check.” She kissed his cheek, forcing herself to stop there, though every part of her wanted to keep going.

  “For the record, you keep that up you’re not going to need one,” he murmured back.

  She retreated to her room and grabbed the waist-length black coat she’d left on her bed, the silver gloves she knew she’d need in public. Out of Az’s sight, she gave herself a moment. Nothing hurt, the strange taste washed away. I’m fine, she promised herself. Everything’s fine.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Az nodded as he hooked her arm, leading the way out the door and into the hall. He locked up behind them.

  “So can we take the subway to our mystery location? We’re already cutting it close on rent,” she said as they walked down the stairs.

  “Love on the cheap means I’m going to have to amp up the romance.” He threw the downstairs door open with a dramatic sweeping gesture, catching the tips of her fingers as if she were a princess climbing from a coach. “Your stairs await, m’lady.”

  She laughed and stepped through. Someone let out a sharp exhale and the stairs came alive with motion, legs and arms tangling in the frantic rush to stand, a small chorus of pleas. Eden froze as the three Siders formed a semicircle around her.