Stones of Power- Hellstone & Maelstrom

by Jenna Grey

  He pounded into her, a relentless, constant jackhammer, slamming into her over and over again. His thrusts were so savage now that she began to hurt down there, throbbing and swollen, but the pain built to a glorious crescendo as she came close to orgasm. Then everything else was forced from her mind; there was just the sound of flesh pounding on flesh and the desperate sounds coming from Finn as he came close to orgasm himself. He started to lose his rhythm, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his teeth clenched, soft keening noises forced from his throat as he got closer to the edge. Polly felt a white heat building between her legs as he smashed into her, his movements growing more and more frenzied, until he finally came at the same moment she did.

  She spilt over the top, letting out just the smallest cry and she felt the throbbing pulse as Finn orgasmed. He gave a strangled scream as he came, his legs giving way. He collapsed on top of Polly and just lay on top of her for a few moments, exhausted, before rolling off her and flopping down beside her. He was drenched in sweat. He just lay for a few moments, then he began to laugh, choked giggles that he couldn’t control. He peeled off the condom and threw it over the side of the bed.

  Then Polly tuned in on his aura.

  It was a deep purple-black.

  Polly pushed Liam off with more strength than she imagined she possessed.

  “You animal!” She screamed, a violent scream of rage, snarling at him. She gathered up the duvet to wrap around her and stumbled to the door. She had no idea where she was going, what she was doing, only knowing that she had to get away from him.

  “Polly, I didn’t... it was—” Liam got out of bed and scrambled for his jeans, but didn’t seem to know where he’d left them, searching around frantically for them. “Please, you need to listen to me.”

  “Fuck you!” she yelled over her shoulder at him. She was already out of the door, half running and half falling down the stairs to the living room.

  Bert was still sitting on the battered old sofa reading.

  “Good Lord, what on earth has happened?” he asked, staring at Polly in horror.

  “Where’s Finn?” she demanded. “Where is he?”

  “I have no idea, Polly, what’s happened?” Bert repeated, standing and moving towards her. Polly stopped him with a raised hand, and he halted in his tracks. She just stood there, clutching the duvet around her, trying to stop herself from giving way to hysteria.

  “Liam just raped me!” Then she collapsed to her knees, a sobbing mess.

  Bert knelt beside her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her. She let him take it because she needed something, anything to take away the misery she was feeling.

  “Oh my dear girl, I don’t know what to say, I’m so, so sorry. I never imagined he would do something like that.”

  Polly pulled away from him, furious.

  “I don’t want your sorry. I just want to know where Finn is!”

  Finn came downstairs then, looking genuinely bewildered. He looked as if he’d got dressed in a hurry, his jeans were unfastened, and his tee shirt was on inside out.

  “What’s going on, what’s happened?”

  Polly just glowered at him. Bert answered for her.

  “Liam raped Polly.”

  “When?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Just now. I thought it was you – he let me think he was you,” she sobbed. Finn clung onto her and let her hiccup against his chest.

  He looked across at Bert, a look of something like real fear on his face. The look Bert gave him back was even more troubled.

  “I’m, so sorry. I’m so sorry. How could he do this?” Finn asked, his rage spilling out, with every word. “Bastard.”

  “Come and sit down, sweetheart. We’ll sort this out somehow,” Bert said.

  “How, how will you sort it out?” Polly demanded. “Can you arrange it for him to unrape me?”

  “I had no idea he was capable of anything like this,” Finn said. “I am so, so sorry.”

  Polly found a new avenue for her anger, now the initial shock had worn off.

  “Where were you? Why did you leave me alone? You were supposed to be protecting me, but you left me alone!”

  Finn looked distraught. “I... I’m sorry, I...”

  Polly was too exhausted to be angry any more – she just wanted to get away from here, go anywhere, just get away.

  “It’s too late for apologies and explanations,” she said. “I know that I can’t stay here, not if he’s here. I’ll go and book into a bed and breakfast or something. I can’t stay under the same roof as that man. I won’t go to the police over this, for your sakes, but I’m not staying here.”

  Bert gave Finn a hard look.

  “You have to tell her, Finn. You have no choice now,” he said.

  “No!” Finn snapped back. “Not now, it’s too much.”

  “Tell me what?” Polly demanded, her anger bubbling to the surface again. “If you have something to tell me, you better spit it out fast.”

  “Dad, please, no, you can’t, not now,” Finn pleaded.

  Polly let fly, her rage exploding from her in a burst of white heat.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here, but one of you talk to me, and you talk to me now. What do I need to know?”

  Finn gave his father a reluctant nod, sitting down on the arm of the chair and looking as if the world were about to crumble around him.

  “Sit down, and I’ll tell you,” Bert said. “It’s about Liam and Finn.”

  Polly sat down on the sofa, the duvet still clutched around her.

  “I don’t want Liam anywhere near me – you keep him away from me,” she said.

  “He won’t be showing up, I promise,” Finn said.

  Bert came and sat on the squashy old armchair in front of them, sitting back in it and resting his head against the back. Polly thought that it might be all that was keeping him upright.

  “I told you earlier when we first met that Liam has a mental health problem,” he said. “Well, Finn suffers from the same affliction – although truthfully I don’t think you could class it as a mental health issue, more of a psychic dilemma or a cosmic joke.”

  Polly looked across at Finn, and the expression on his face was dreadful.

  “What kind of mental health problem?” Polly asked.

  “Have you ever heard of multiple personality disor––?”

  Finn interrupted.

  “Dissociative personality disorder, Dad, that’s what they call it now.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Bert said.

  “You mean split personality, where a person has two distinct identities, sharing a body?” Polly said. And she suddenly understood everything – it was a startling apocalypse, a revelation that made her feel as if a nova had exploded in her head. Her mouth suddenly became very dry.

  “Please, please don’t do this to me...” she whispered.

  “You have to know, Dad’s right. You understand what we’re saying to you, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I understand,” she said, “I should have guessed.” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. The fact I never saw you two together, so many lies. This is just insane.” She buried her face in her hands, unable to look at Finn, knowing that she would see Liam there every time she looked at him now.

  “You need time to get your head around this, I understand,” Finn said, moving over to sit on the sofa with her. He put his hand out for her to take it, but she ignored it.

  “Don’t you dare touch me. I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want you anywhere near me!” She pulled herself further along the sofa, away from him.

  Finn tried to move closer, but Polly brought her knee up to make a barrier between them.

  “I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you, so many times, but I just didn’t know how to break it to you.”

  Polly shrieked another laugh.

  “How hard did you try? I still don’t believe this is happening. Perhaps
if I say it enough times, I’ll believe it,” Polly said, her voice still bright with rage. “Finn and Liam are both the same person – nope; it’s no better.”

  Finn had tears coursing down his cheeks now, his face a mask of utter misery.

  “It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask for this. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “It’s your fault that you didn’t tell me before we slept together,” she bitched. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before I fell in love with you, you bastard!” she screamed at him. “What on earth made you think you could get away with not telling me?”

  Finn’s shoulders sagged.

  “I was hoping that I could find a way to work it out, I didn’t bank on Liam falling in love with you as well.”

  “Huh! Love – is that what you call it? He bloody well raped me!” And then Polly realised that she was still talking about Liam as if he were a separate being. “God, I don’t know what I’m saying any more.”

  Finn tried to take her hand again, and this time she let him. She didn’t have the strength to be angry any more.

  “So much was going on – all of the trouble with Winchard and your uncle, then finding out he had the Hellstone, going to Sigurd’s grave. I couldn’t find the right time to tell you. I was hoping that I could find a way to be with you and give you time to get settled again before I had to tell you.”

  Polly tried to take in what he was saying, but it was too much for anyone to cope with, wasn’t it?

  “I don’t know what I think or feel right now. You can’t just drop this on me and expect me to be able to accept it. I need time to think, to get my head around it. You need to explain things to me; help me to understand.”

  “Anything, just ask what you want,” Finn said, looking inordinately relieved that Polly was still even speaking to him.

  “Okay, so you’re suffering from DPD. I’ve heard of it, but I thought that it had been proved to be a fallacy, that there has never really been a case of anyone suffering from multiple personalities. I’ve read that it’s just some other kind of mental health problem manifesting itself.”

  “It’s not a fallacy, trust me,” Finn said. “You’re looking at living proof. And it’s not exactly DPD… I mean… Oh hell…” Finn gave a little growl of misery and covered his face with his hands. Polly peeled them away and stared hard at him.

  “Just tell me the truth,” she said.

  Finn looked wretched.

  “I wish it was that easy. Okay, there is no other way to say this – this is not just some mental health problem. Liam and I share this body. I am not Liam and Liam is not me. He is my brother – we just share the same body.”

  Polly felt as if someone had just pounded her with a lump hammer, but she let what he’d said process. She’d heard of cases where people truly believed that another person lived inside them – it was awful, but just a mental illness. If she loved Finn enough, perhaps she could manage somehow to deal with it – but after what Liam, Finn, whoever had done to her tonight, could she ever forgive him? It was too much for her to think about right now.

  “I can believe what you’re saying, although it’s terrifying. You’re nothing like him, nothing at all – even your aura is different. It really is as if you’re two different people.”

  “That’s because we are two different people – that’s what I’m saying to you. That’s surely proof?” Finn said, sounding exasperated now.

  Polly couldn’t accept that. If this was DPD, then she could accept it, just about, but if there really was another soul living in the same body as Finn? That was too much.

  “Look, tell me that you’re suffering from DPD and I think that I might be able to cope with it. I’m not sure, but I think I might. But I can’t accept that there is another soul inside you – that’s a one-way ticket to Loony Land City Central.”

  “There is more to it than that, Polly, much more, Let me tell you all of it,” Bert said. “My wife was pregnant with twins, two boys, Liam and Finn, but Liam was stillborn. We just accepted that we’d lost our son and carried on, bringing up Finn as a normal child. But right from the beginning, my wife knew that something was very wrong. Within a few weeks, she told me that she was nursing not one child, but two. And I had to believe her because as the child grew, I could see two different personalities there. Finn was so quiet, good, obedient; Liam was always crying, spiteful and malcontent. More than that, they had time-outs when they weren’t aware of what was happening. There was no question that we were raising two children, not one.”

  “But that could still be DPD – we don’t know what causes it,” Polly said.

  “Perhaps, if that makes it easier for you,” Bert replied.

  That was the wrong thing to say.

  “I don’t want it made easier for me; I want the truth!”

  Bert let out a sigh.

  “Then I have to say; the truth is that Liam and Finn are two separate souls occupying the same body.”

  Polly couldn’t accept that, she couldn’t, but they did have two different auras – that had to be some kind of proof that they were telling the truth, surely?

  “How does it work then, how do you share the body?” she asked, not believing that she was actually saying it.

  “Liam takes the body when I’m asleep,” Finn said. “Our brains sleep, but the body doesn’t. We obviously have to rest it, not overtax it by doing anything too strenuous all the time, or we’d wear it out, but it’s only the mind that needs sleep to stay healthy. The body can mostly keep going if the mind is rested.”

  Polly tried to slot that information into what she knew already, but it just buzzed around in her head like angry wasps.

  “So you’re not aware of what’s going on when Liam has the body?” Polly asked.

  “Hardly ever. It’s just emptiness; then I come back to my body wondering what the hell Liam has been up to while I’ve been out of it. Like Jekyll and Hyde, I have to face the consequences of his actions, and they’re rarely good.”

  That did make sense.

  “You can never speak to him directly, never communicate with him, though?”

  “I can if I have to. We can tap into one another for a short time, but it’s not easy. I did that to find out what else he’d seen in the Tarot reading; we can read each other’s thoughts, sort of. It’s hard to explain – it’s a bit like talking to someone in a dream. Most of the time we aren’t aware of what the other one is doing. We have a book, a diary, and we communicate that way. We write down anything that’s happened in the day we want the other one to know about – or we tell Dad to pass the message on.”

  Polly had to think that over for a few minutes. She felt a little calmer now – at least not so close to total meltdown. It did all seem to make some terrifying kind of sense.

  “So you have no real idea of what he’s like? Not really.”

  Finn gave a halfhearted smile.

  “Dad makes videos of us so that we can show the other one – we can get to know one another that way.”

  “That’s just nuts,” was all Polly could think to say.

  “Welcome to my world,” Finn said. Polly saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks. He smeared them away with his hand. “I never asked for him to invade my body. I’ve had to put up with him all of my life – sometimes I love him, but most of the time I hate him because he’s taken away every chance I have for a normal life. Please don’t let him take you away from me as well.”

  Polly’s anger had gone entirely now, and in her heart, she knew that she was going to give in and try and make what she had with Finn override the nightmare of this situation.

  “I need time to get my head around this. Just give me time,” Polly said.

  Finn looked faint with relief.

  “Of course, take all the time you need. I promise, I didn’t have anything to do with what Liam did tonight – it wasn’t my fault. If I could, I’d be beating the shit out of him right now for what he’s done to you. I swear I want to ki
ll him.” Polly only had to look at his face to know that was the truth.

  “So you were asleep when Liam raped me?” she asked.

  Finn looked across at Bert.

  “Sorry Dad, this is a bit personal, but I have to say it.”

  “Would you like me to go?” Bert asked, already standing up to leave.

  Finn looked to Polly for her reaction.

  “No, I think we’ve got past worrying about such niceties,” she said.

  “It was me for most of it; we made love, then suddenly, suddenly I wasn’t there. Liam must have taken over. It’s all a bit foggy. I’m not sure what happened, not really. I don’t remember falling asleep,” he said, frowning a little, bewildered. “I’m sure I didn’t fall asleep. I think that Liam somehow managed to find a way to come to the surface and push me out. That’s never happened before.”

  Bert looked very disturbed.

  “What are you saying, my boy, that Liam took control of the body without your consent?”

  “Yes, I think that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Finn replied.

  “And that’s never happened before?” Polly asked. Bert and Finn shook their heads in unison.

  “That is very worrying,” Bert said, “but we’ll work it out.”

  Polly’s brain was on overload, and she really couldn’t cope with any more right now.

  “I really have to think about this – I need to be on my own for a while,” she said.

  “Sure. What do you want to do?” Finn asked hurriedly, so anxious to please.

  Polly had no idea.

  “Go for a walk to clear my head, perhaps. I don’t know. I need fresh air.”

  Bert shook his head.

  “No, sweetheart. You can’t go out on your own – your uncle’s still out there, and it’s almost certain that he’s still after you.”

  Polly was too tired to argue.

  “I’ll go to my room. Please just leave me alone for a while.”