by Sarah Tobias
Yet…
Something tickled inside my head, cooling the scorching flames, reverberating delicately and rising in sound as it reached my ears, but it didn’t come from him.
My soul was shaken awake. There was a nudge, a spark, an ember bursting to life that set my limbs alight and caused me to feast on the cool air, abating the sudden shock of internal flames.
A melodic voice danced through the quiet tranquility in my mind, speaking softly, explaining what to do in sweet, overlapping words. A rush of whispers, swirling. I listened, searching within as the meaning surrounded my senses. And I opened my eyes.
The screaming pain inside my mind and body died down, instantly silenced. But just when I thought it was over, another round of unbearable heat rushed forward and I convulsed against Not-Rob. The flames curled under my skin, spreading and destroying as they reached my face. My lips swelled, my cheeks flushed, and my eyes ignited with infernal heat.
Not-Rob’s mutant eyes widened. The black slits dilated into round, black saucers.
The fire unfurled, stretching, snaking through my arms and legs, lifting my head. A tremulous, weakened voice in my brain tried to tell me something, to stop this, but some need, some hunger, refused to listen.
I removed my hand from Not-Rob’s chin to brace it against his bare forearm, keeping him in my molten sights. This time, there was no electric pain. My boiling blood was too strong.
“You want to come to me,” I said.
My voice sounded pure. Like chimes in the wind.
The air stirred, blowing my hair up and around, twisting the strands across my face.
“You are beautiful…” Not-Rob lisped through his fangs.
His form relaxed. My swollen lips curled into what I thought was a smile, but my mouth felt tight and crowded, strange and foreign.
One simple need broke through the fervor and registered in my heat-saturated mind, taunting, begging. Hunger. My stomach clenched with tension and new pain, and I searched within the swirling whispers to learn how to staunch it.
Underneath the starved pain, the answer became clear.
Without a second thought, with no hesitation, I pulled him in for a kiss.
Chapter 6
Cold.
I woke up, shivering, confused, and one-hundred percent frightened.
Black.
Darkness crept in from every corner, but to my left, a shaft of light came from underneath a door.
Sounds.
Creaking, billowing movements groaned above my head. Distant laughter and thumping bass vibrated underneath the floor.
A party?
Yes, a party. I remembered. I was at Nick Daniels’s house with Macy. She’d handed me a beer that spilled all over my sweater, and then…?
Hard, cold concrete seeped into my hands, powdery like loose dirt. I was splayed out somewhere outdoors, clear plastic swaying softly in the wind above. I moved to my side, groaning at the sudden sting it caused, when I hit something.
A warm arm. It wasn’t mine. Warm and slick.
My eyes adjusted. A shape appeared beside me, one looking remarkably like a person. I raised my hand to my head to quell the pulsing ache, but cringed at the sticky slickness on my forehead.
“What the…?” I brought my hand to my face, seeing red. “What the…?”
A scream built up in my throat.
Blood, blood everywhere. All over.
The shape beside me took on sharper angles as the moonlight shifted, forming a face.
“Rob?” I gasped. “Rob?”
His normally soft green eyes stared up at the night sky, milky and lifeless. Blood covered him, mixing with the plaster dust as it left his body, all from a gash across his throat.
He was pale, so pale he looked almost frozen white. I sat there, shivering and gulping. How did I get here? What’s going on?
I searched around frantically, wondering if this was some ridiculous, horrible hoax. Halloween was coming up. Nick was well known for his stupid pranks. But there was no one around, no snickers of laughter. Just creaking, deserted construction work surrounding us.
Us.
Rob was dead, but I put my fingers on his neck to check for a pulse. It was difficult to find any spot that wasn’t mutilated, but my numbed mind forced the touch, anyway. And as soon as I did, my body sang with pleasure.
I tried to pull away, disgusted, but that deeper part was talking to me again, telling me to stay right where I was.
In the darkness, a sparkling blue spiral of smoke drifted out of Rob’s mouth. I twirled my fingers through the vapor, glittering azure sifting across my skin.
It horrified me. Fascinated me.
Instinctively, I bent close to Rob’s lips and breathed in, and as the mist sifted into my mouth, my blood simmered with pleasure.
The taste. Oh, the taste. It was like every delicious thing that had ever been made on this earth scattered across my tongue. Chocolate chip cookies, whipped cream, strawberries, seven-layer cake, milkshakes, pizza, everything. I moaned, vaguely registering how unearthly it sounded.
I sucked in more, but soon I was only swallowing air. There was no more mist to inhale. I came close to wailing in displeasure at the abrupt ending. It tasted so good. It felt so divine. I wanted whatever this was to last forever.
I felt more alive and refreshed than I’d ever been in my entire life. I fixed my posture, smiling wide, smoothing back my hair.
As I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth, the logical part of my brain stepped in and told me to stop. Stop whatever I was doing and understand that there was a dead person beside me. A dead friend.
That was okay, though, because none of this made sense, anyway. I was a terrible eye-witness to Rob’s death, since I couldn’t remember anything or be relied on to state facts. But hey, at least I could say to the cops when they arrive, Well officer, he tasted good.
I glanced down, unnaturally calm despite the grotesque scene. This was what “going into shock” must mean.
Except … there was nothing there.
I checked my hands, my chest, finger-combed my hair, and nothing. No blood, no gore. Nothing covered me but clean skin and clothing.
I launched to my feet, spinning around, then assumed a defensive position, like there was someone responsible lurking in the shadows.
You’re crazy, Em. You’re going crazy. Just like your mother.
Here I was, on a deserted rooftop, hallucinating that I’d violently killed someone, breathed in his deliciousness, and then promptly evaporated him.
“Dreaming, hallucinating—as long it’s fake,” I muttered as I crept across the rooftop, my hands spread like I was about to jump at any sound. “As long as this never happened.”
“Emily?”
I halted at the voice. At the buttery, husky, masculine tone I’d heard only a few times before. “Uh … Asher?”
Asher’s tall, ropey form stepped into the singular light cast by the roof’s entrance, his ebony hair haloed in indigo.
“Yeah. I thought I heard…” He glanced around before his silver eyes pinged back to mine. “Everything okay up here?”
Realizing I was hunched over like Gollum, I straightened and added to my forced nonchalance by brushing at invisible lint on my dress. Any excuse to avoid Asher’s eerie, beckoning focus. “Totally. I needed some fresh air, thought I’d escape the party for a while.”
“I hear that.” Asher shoved his hands in his pants’ pockets, remaining still. Odd, how he never twitches, or shifts, or even kicks at a pebble while in conversation with someone.
The moon’s rays mixed with the artificial, never-ending light of the city, carving white shafts across his face and creating an angular glow ethereal to behold. I sucked in a breath at his beauty at the same instant I remembered another shape in the moonlight. A prone, lifeless corpse who used to be my friend and was nowhere in sight.
“Emily? You’re shivering.” Asher stepped forward, but thought better of it, because he stopp
ed halfway.
I wanted him to come closer. I yearned for him, but not in any way that was sexual. I didn’t think. My tongue felt thick. I was salivating. Gulping, I took a step back.
Blood. Blood everywhere.
“You know what?” Asher said after a beat, his attention never wavering. “I’ll go find your jacket. And Macy. She should take you home. You’re looking … pale.”
Nodding, I reply, “I’ve had way too much to drink. I think I’m drunk. Way, way hammered.”
Adding to my rouse, I hopped sideways, pretending to trip, then landed against the stone barrier.
“I’m fine,” I said before he could come any closer. “Totes good.”
I crossed my arms and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping this humiliation would end soon. I couldn’t believe I was alone on a rooftop with the hottest guy on the planet and all I could envision was blood, violence and murder on a clean rooftop with no sign I’d done anything wrong.
You have done nothing. You’re not going insane.
Biting my lip, I waited for Asher to leave. I couldn’t look at him anymore. Couldn’t want him the way I did.
“Hang tight,” he said softly, and thankfully, I heard his footsteps, then a door opening and closing.
Once I was alone, relief sloped my shoulders, and I tilted my head back, staring up at the sky.
Somehow, despite these jumbled, impossible pictures in my head, I sought solace in this alone time. Almost as if Asher’s presence created a fracture between a nightmare and a dream, allowing me the pleasure of recalling his angelic face, his artistic body, and his calming posture coming through the night and dissipating Rob’s mutilated body.
There was something under Asher’s skin warning me away, though, an invisible current that repelled, but gosh, his physical form. He was gorgeous. True beauty, and despite the foreign tingles I couldn’t make sense of, I’d much rather envision Asher than the twisted maw of Rob’s grin before he died.
My chin fell forward. Maw? Why would I think Rob had a wide, garish mouth—?
I WILL FIND YOU!
I screamed as a voice that wasn’t mine pulsed into my head, paralyzing my limbs. Mortified, I watched them straighten. And tighten. Muscles around my bones grew and squeezed, my joints reaching their breaking point as something forced them past their natural position.
“Aaaaaagh!” I cried out, helpless to stop the way my body was twisting. Breaking.
I WILL KILL YOU.
My limbs went limp after the threat, but they remained out of my control. Groaning, I fell sideways, smacking to the ground. Streaks of torment shot down my neck and corroded my nerves. I seized against the stone, my body not done with me yet, my teeth digging into my tongue.
Asher, Asher come back, I pled silently, though I had no proof he could help. But … his eyes were wise. Maybe he’d seen the things I have, or done things…
Crazy. You are bona-fide psycho.
Then, with calm mental acceptance, I override the thought with; You were right, Mom, it was bound to happen sometime.
Macy, I’m sorry.
My head thwacked against the stone in a final seize. My vision dotted with black stars.
I was thankful for it, because soon, blissful silence encased the pain.
Chapter 7
“Emily! Wake up!”
Groaning, I swatted at the arms rattling me awake.
“Ems!”
The voice became more persistent and laced with panic. “Wake up! What did you do? What’d you take? Did Asher leave you like this?”
My eyes felt like a stack of metal weights had landed on them. Through slitted vision, I assessed the source preventing me from my nap.
“Macy?” I garbled out, my throat clogged and dry.
“Yes! It’s me. You’re ok. Thank goodness.” Her liquor-coated breath wafted over as she helped hoist me into a seated position. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! You just disappeared! Asher had to tell me where you were and then I find you playing corpse on a rooftop? What the heck, dude? Are you okay?”
I cringed, her voice piercing through the pounding in my head. “I don’t … know. I had … one drink?”
“Did someone put something in it?”
Trembling, I stood with Macy’s somewhat assistance. We both tottered against each other, losing our balance on first the right side, then the left.
“I don’t think so. Wait. Wait.” I held a hand to my temple. “Rob. Where’s Rob?”
“Robbie Pearson?” Macy released me only when she felt steady enough. She held her arms out for a moment, testing her balance. “Why are you asking about him? I don’t think he’s even around, unless it’s to try to get me to sleep with him again. Hang on—is he the one who gave you something?” Macy’s voice rose a few octaves at the last part of her sentence.
“No. Rob Morrow.” I said, holding onto her again as she faltered.
“Who’s that? Some douche at this party who gave you something?”
I teetered slightly with her. “No one gave me anything, Mace. I’m talking about Rob Morrow. Your boyfriend.”
“Who?” Macy scrunched her brows. “Ems, I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Rob Morrow! Why are you screwing with me?”
“Did you hit your head? We need to take you to a hop ...” Burp. “A hospital.”
I gently extricated myself from her hold. “No. No doctors. Just home to bed.”
Why was Macy acting like she didn’t know who Rob was?
“Mace, did you see Rob? Did you … see?”
“Girl, I’ve been looking for you everywhere, going into every room and yelling your name like a crazy woman. All I found were naked limbs.” She made a face, stumbling again. “What the heck happened to you?”
Macy hooked my elbow, leading me across the uneven concrete, through the roof’s door, and into the stairwell.
“This is some shoddy construction work,” she observed, glancing at the cracked, crumbling brick facade that framed our exit. She held her free hand up, as if the strength of her arm alone could prevent falling concrete from breaking through our skulls.
“I was having a drink with Rob on the roof,” I said, more as a reminder to myself. “And then…” My mind blanked. Or not entirely. I vaguely remembered the smell of blood, and the taste …that wonderful taste, unrelated to red blood cells and iron content. But … what was it?
I wasn’t about to tell Macy. But, I think I killed Rob, and while that was terrifying enough, the more I thought on it, the more detached I became. That wasn’t Rob I mutilated. Rob had turned into something else. Something my mind must have created. There’s no freaking way that thing was real. Does that mean Rob is still alive?
It can’t be true, my brain rationalized. Where are your bruises? Why aren’t you injured?
My exposed skin was flawless. In fact, my body had never looked better. A faint glow came from beneath my flesh, golden and sweet. I also noticed muscle tone in my arms I never knew I had.
“Em, you’re starting to worry me.”
Well, that made two of us.
Macy paused in the stairwell, regarding me a little blearily.
“You’re looking at your arms like you’ve never seen skin before,” she said, wobbling over a step.
“I’m just recovering from my fainting spell up there,” I assure her as we tentatively descended. “Making sure I didn’t cut myself when I fell.”
“Dude, I don’t know who this Rob is, but I seriously think he spiked your drink. We need to get you to the hospital so they can run some tests, figure out what it is.”
“No, really Macy, I’m fine. Nothing was put in my drink. You know I haven’t been feeling well, I probably just fainted because of low blood sugar or something.”
“That’s ridonkulous. You don’t walk yourself into a construction zone on top of a house just to go pass out. You will go get checked out.”
I ground to a halt and turned Macy by the shoulders to face me.
; “Ack—hey! Em, are you trying to kill me? I can barely get down these steps on my own. Stupid steps.”
An eerie tranquility settled over my head. Heat swirled, though not as intense as before. Just a gentle trace, gliding and flowing like a calm, warm river through the veins under my skin. “Macy … no. I’m not going to a doctor. Forget we were ever up here.”
Macy’s expression drooped, her eyes shuttering as if half-asleep. Her shoulders slumped under my palms.
“Okay,” Macy said, but not with her usual tone. It was flat, lifeless. “You’re not going to the hospital.”
It was impossible to convince Macy to do the opposite of what she wanted; yet somehow, she relented. I peered closer, and under the small dome of light in the stairwell, I noticed her pupils had dilated and taken over her irises.
It triggered a memory, and I reeled back as if Macy was the one responsible for it, nearly falling onto the stairs behind me. Macy blinked.
“Why are we just standing here?” she asked, taking my arm again. “Let’s get you home to bed.”
Too confused to say anything else, I let her lead me through the house, ignoring everyone as she pulled me between the clusters of partiers.
“Hey, you guys aren’t leaving, are you?” I heard Nick say above the crowd. “I just cracked open a fresh bottle of tequila! I wanna see you eat the worm, Tequila Barbie!”
“She’s not for you!” Macy yelled. “She’s for Asher!”
I made another grab for Macy as she whipped around to scream at Nick.
“Mace. Let’s go. Let’s call a car,” I said, steering her to the door. But Macy was right. As embarrassing as it was to have her yell it, I had no interest in Nick. My thoughts scattered like frantic insects when I scanned the room for him, Asher, but I didn’t spot his tall, motionless form, or sense the summoning buzz of his presence anywhere. I didn’t know how I knew this, but it was true: Asher was gone.
Macy nodded, drunken thoughts of strangling Nick set aside. “Good plan, but it’s gonna be balls to wait for one at this time of night. Then again, I see you don’t have shoes.” She tripped down the front stairs of Nick’s brownstone house, but I caught her in one whiplash motion, her feet bending dangerously at the ankles as she rebalanced.