Chapter 4 #2
The sliding back door was open now. The foot-wide gap let in a gust of cool air, fluttering the thin gray curtain pulled off to the side. Silence stretched, the only noise the thumping of his heart as his mind scrambled to make sense of it all.
He was certain that door had been locked. He’d planned on unlocking it once their blocked-off time had started, but since it was too early…The last place Pan and he had done this had been in the woods off Smith Park. There was no way the guy had a key to his place.
A trickle of unease ghosted down his spine. What if…this wasn’t Pan?
But who else could it be?
Eden didn’t have anything worth stealing.
He adjusted his grip on the bat and took a step forward, pausing and tipping his head to listen. Still nothing. He wasn’t hallucinating, the door was definitely open, and it had definitely been closed a moment ago.
How could someone pick the lock that quickly? All without him hearing?
He took another step forward, standing on the outskirts of the living room now. The bathroom was to his right, and he glanced inside. The shower curtain was pulled shut. Was there a chance whoever had broken in was hiding there?
Before he could change his mind, he stormed in, grabbed the plastic material, and whipped it to the side.
Empty.
Damn it.
He—
The power cut out.
Eden blinked, desperately trying to adjust to the sudden darkness, and spun on his heels so he was facing the doorway.
It took him longer than it should have to process that the shadowy figure blocking his path wasn’t a trick of the light, or lack thereof.
By the time he reacted, swinging the bat, it was too late.
He ended up hitting the doorframe, the force rattling down his arms.
The shadowy figure stepped back, and Eden followed, swinging a second time. A hand caught the end of it, pulling down and to the side, using Eden’s momentum against him so that he stumbled out of the bathroom and slammed into the wall of the short hallway.
The figure chuckled, a low, charged sound that Eden felt all the way down to his toes.
He’d gotten the bat off him in the struggle, but instead of wielding it, he tossed it off to the side.
The weapon disappeared into the dark living room, the sound of the metal rolling against the wooden floorboards echoing loudly in the small space.
“Try again,” the figure ordered, and not wanting to think too hard on why, Eden obeyed.
He shot forward, pushing off the wall. His leg connected with the figure’s side, and then he threw a fist, knuckles crushing against the figure’s jaw, connecting with plastic.
Eden had been a boxer in high school and had picked it back up again after the death of his family, but his movements were limited in the dark, and he kept crashing into pieces of furniture.
It wasn’t until he practically tumbled over the arm of the couch that he realized whoever had broken in must have moved things around. To do that so quickly and so quietly…
“What do you want?” He regained his footing, took a punch to the face himself, and then kneed the figure in the stomach. Another hit sent him to the ground, and something sharp bit into his palm and the side of his thigh. They must have broken one of the picture frames on the end tables.
Whoever this was had planned it.
Eden slowly rose to his feet, smearing blood across his face when he pushed strands of blond hair off his forehead. His vision had started to adjust, and he could make out the figure now, standing between him and the door to his bedroom.
“Lucifer?” He recognized the shape of the man now, the familiar outline of him and the cyberpunk mask, though the neon lights were off. This was the same guy he’d seen shoot Galen in the back, and yet it wasn’t fear that raced through Eden’s body at the sight of him.
He took a step forward, tripped over an object on the ground, and fell all over again, this time landing in front of the masked stranger.
A hand shot down, gripping his arm tightly, hauling him back up. Eden was twisted on his heels and shoved, bumping into the edge of his bed and crashing onto it. A heavy body was on top of him quicker than he could blink, pinning him to the mattress, capturing his legs beneath a muscular form.
Eden clawed and tried to get in another punch, but his wrists were caught and held down over his head. He bucked beneath his assailant, instincts urging him to keep fighting, panic building in his chest for what might come next.
Panic, and something twisted.
Anticipation.
He wasn’t small by any means, but the figure held him down like it was nothing, barely grunting when Eden headbutted him as a last-ditch attempt.
All it got him was a flash of blinding white light and an instant migraine.
“Game.” A gust of hot breath fanned against the side of Eden’s face, lips dropping to ghost against the curve of his left ear. “Set.” A tongue flicked out, the wet tip licking his earlobe as if testing the taste of him out. “Match.”
The voice was difficult to place through the ringing in his head, though the words were clear enough for him to follow.
But it was the smell that finally shocked him into stilling.
Spicy and woody, with a hint of citrus.
He could have sworn this was Lucifer, but now…
“A-Ares?” There was no way. He’d hit his head and lost it, because there was no way the new shareholder had broken into his house and attacked him for no good reason—or for any reason, for that matter. “Ares Major?” That would be—
“Ding, ding. I guess this means you get an extra point in the next round.” The voice was unmistakable now. The lilt, the softness…A sharp juxtaposition to every other part of the man, if his body was any indicator.
Ares Major was lying on top of him.
“Get off of me.” Eden was shaking, but he couldn’t tell if it was from rage, fear, or lingering lust. “Get off, you psycho!”
Surprisingly, Ares obliged, though he pulled Eden up with him, using his hold on his arms to turn his body and resettle them so that he was now leaning against the younger man’s chest. He struggled, but Ares merely chuckled and then tightened his hold, strong thighs cinching around Eden’s hips as he trapped his bound hands in his lap.
“Shh,” his chin rested on Eden’s shoulder, laughing when Eden tried to move to the side, only to be forced back into position, “the first game is over, Ransom. You lost already. Don’t hurt yourself more.”
“My name isn’t Ransom!”
“Same difference.”
“It is not! How would you like it if I called you something else?”
The man behind him seemed to perk up. “Like a nickname?”
“No, you crazy freak! Let go!”
“Don’t wanna. You might keep hurting yourself.”
“As if! This is all because of you!”
“You said you liked psychological horror games,” Ares reminded.
“It doesn’t get more classic than a home invasion in the dead of night.
Turning someone’s private space against them?
Soiling their sanctuary? Tainting it so they can’t go a moment within the same walls that had once felt like safety and shelter without thinking of you? ”
Eden felt his lungs seize, the words hitting too close to that time three years ago. In the adrenaline rush, he hadn’t had the chance to stop and consider the parallels, but now…
No. No. Half the reason he liked CNC and fake home invasion play was because it helped dash those dark thoughts away. It helped him ignore the scenarios he’d envisioned in his mind whenever the world got too quiet.
Of his sister, upstairs, alone, listening to their parents being murdered.
They’d found Ella’s body in her bedroom. A single bullet to the head. But it’d entered from the front. She’d seen her killer before he’d pulled the trigger and stolen her life.
That fear Eden had felt, had that been even a fraction of the panic she’d experienced? Her clothing had been soiled, but they’d assured him most of the time that was the body’s natural response after death, because there were no longer signals to order the bladder to stay closed.
Those people, the ones who’d broken into the store downstairs intending to hack into the register to steal the measly couple of hundred coin they’d made that day, they’d ruined any positive memories or attachments Eden had of that place. They’d stolen from him more than just his family.
And now here was another man, come to do the same. To repeat the process and—
“You’re hyperventilating,” Ares sounded…confused.
Eden may have laughed about that if he weren’t spiraling.
“Hey.” A hand pinched his jaw, tipping his head back against a firm shoulder. Red eyes glinted in the beam from the streetlight out front, and there really was a look of bewilderment there. “What’s wrong with you?”
Eden tugged at his hands, and when Ares released him, clawed at his chest, nails digging into his bare flesh since he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
The pain was minimal, fleeting. Not enough to ground him.
But the panic was overflowing now, consuming him from the inside out, blocking out all rational thought and his ability to breathe.
“Ah.” The Black Hart nodded once. “I see.”
Ares pushed them forward so that Eden was sprawled over the bed a second time, only now he was on his stomach with the man draped over his back. “Can you see anything?”
What the hell kind of question was that?
“Ransom.”
“That’s not,” he sucked in oxygen, but it did nothing to clear his vision, “my name, asshole.”
“Can you see?”
“It’s dark.”
“We’ll skip that one then. Quick, name four things you can touch.”
“What? What are—” Eden was rolled onto his back, but Ares was there a split second later, settling over him. His right hand was captured and lifted, and he didn’t have the strength or ability to resist when his palm was forced against the curve of the younger man’s face.
His mask was gone. Had it fallen off during their tussle?
“Words. Focus. Name four things you feel. I’ll help you. What’s this?” He dragged the tips of his fingers to his mouth.
“Lips.” He didn’t have it in him not to humor Ares, the pounding in his skull and the burning in his lungs too great.
“Describe them.”
“Soft.” His fingers were forced to trace over the top and bottom. “Full.”
“Good. That’s one. Give me another.” Ares made him trace his jawline.
“Sharp. Smooth.” Had he shaved recently?
“Another.” He brought his hand to his brow.
“If I say bushy, will you be insulted?” Eden murmured, not even sure why he cared. Oh, probably because he knew pissing off the guy currently pinning him down wasn’t wise.
“Not in the slightest. You’re doing great, Ransom. One more.” Ares placed Eden’s hand over the top of his head.
“I said,” Eden’s hand flexed on its own accord, and the next thing he knew, he was grabbing a fistful of that luscious black hair and yanking with all his might, “my name isn’t fucking Ransom!”