Chapter 34
Diesel
I blinked my eyes open to stare at the dark ceiling. Realizing it was still night, I sulked and rubbed the bridge of my nose. A sharp pain jolted me up, and with a grunt, I dragged my ass out of bed and into the bathroom. My nose was probably bleeding again, and I’d have to clean it up. It was pitch-dark, and with my eyes still heavy from sleep, I moved my hand over the wall until I located the switch and flicked it on.
“Fucking shit,” I sighed once I looked in the mirror to see I had a nosebleed. I reached down and grabbed the towel hanging on the bar. With one hand holding the sink for support, I tried stopping the bleeding. It wasn’t the first time my nose bled during sleep since it broke, but something felt off tonight. Well, whatever . After several minutes had passed, I noticed the bleeding had stopped, so I tossed the blood-drenched towel on the floor. I’ll clean up in the morning. Ready to go back to sleep, I moved to turn off the light in the bathroom when something caught my attention, and I turned back to face the mirror. I glanced at my reflection to see the nosebleed had returned, only a lot stronger. Shit . I looked at the floor to pick up the towel so I could use it again, but it wasn’t there.
What the fuck? I searched around the bathroom when I spotted the towel hanging on the bar, white and clean. My brows furrowed in confusion because didn’t I just use it? The bleeding from my nose made me pull it together, and I reached to grab it, again , when I began coughing. I covered my mouth with my hand while trying to calm my breathing when I felt something warm and sticky on my skin. Looking down at my palms, I saw red. So much red. Fear struck me, and panicked, I looked up at the mirror to see I was covered with it.
Blood.
Hands, face, neck, it was dripping everywhere until my whole body was covered with it. Unsure of how this happened, I glanced around. One second, the shower was clean, and now, the floor was drenched with blood. My heart rate increased, and my breaths turned heavier with each passing second. I need to get out of here , my mind screamed, only I couldn’t move because my legs were stuck in the blood like it was wet sand, and I began sinking down until it reached my chest, my neck, my face—
“Fuck,” I gasped as I jolted awake.
Heaving like a pig, I straightened up and looked down at my sweat-soaked body. My heart was beating like crazy, and panicked, I glanced down at my palms and checked them out. With my full focus on my hands, I flipped them back and forth to ensure there was no blood before I breathed in relief. Thank God.
“What a messed-up dream,” I mumbled, then grabbed my phone from the nightstand to check the time. It was midnight, which, for some reason, didn’t align with me… but who cared. Putting the phone aside, I turned around to make sure I didn’t wake Shay-Lee. As always, that thief had stolen our shared blanket and was cuddled with it like a cat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see his sleeping face as he had his back to me, but that didn’t stop me from smiling like a goof. Feeling loved, I ducked down to kiss his cheek. But as my lips touched his skin, I noticed it was ice-cold, and just like that, my nerves kicked in again .
“Llorón?” I tried waking him up by shaking his shoulder. When he didn’t move, I turned him to his back. My heart dropped to my stomach at the sight of his eyes staring at the ceiling, wide open. Feeling sick, I immediately moved on top of him in an attempt to wake him up.
“Oh, no,” I cried while holding his face in my palms. “Oh, no, no, no,” I repeated, tears already choking my throat when he didn’t respond to anything. “Fuck, no, Llorón.” I shook his body, but his head dangled like a wireless puppet.
My stomach curled, and I looked up. My eyes burned from crying as I took a breath, my whole face twisting with unbelievable pain before I dared to look back at him.
He was dead. He was really dead, but how—
My eyes latched on to his neck, which was bruised and covered with marks. Choking marks. The same as Carmen.
What does my sister have to do with it?
My skin erupted with goose bumps, and shaking, I moved the blanket away to see the mattress was soaked with blood. His blood . Blood that came from between his legs. A broken cry left my throat, and hopeless, I gripped Shay-Lee’s lifeless body and hugged him tight. “No, no, no,” I cried into his neck. “Please, God, please.” I held him harder, praying it was all just a nightmare and that he’d wake up soon when, suddenly, he hugged me back.
“Diesel,” I heard him say.
“ Fuck ,” I cried. “You scared me,” I confessed and shoved my head deeper into his neck to inhale his scent, but all I could smell was the stench of blood and burning flesh. My eyes widened with fear just as I was pushed down to the bed. Above me wasn’t Shay-Lee but him . That demon I thought I’d buried four years ago.
Christian moved above me, his weight keeping me pinned down to the bed until I was unable to move and get away.
“I’ve already killed you,” I hissed when I felt something dripping on my abs, and I looked down to see more blood, blood that poured down on me from his open guts. Everything was out there, spilling over my stomach—it felt wet and disgusting, just like it did back then .
I closed my eyes and tried thinking of something else, anything else, when he grabbed me by the neck and began choking me. His grip was fatal, and I tried hitting him back, only to fail, as my arms felt too heavy with the blood covering them.
“I told you you’d never have him,” he said in a sickening voice while his hands choked the life out of me.
My eyes rolled back as I fought hard to stay conscious, even though it was getting harder and harder. Then, I remembered my gun, and I fumbled my hand under my pillow in a desperate attempt to track it down. The tip of my finger touched something cold, and I stretched my hand farther, so much that I nearly dislocated my shoulder, until I could wrap my fingers around the handle. He was just about to end me when I gripped the gun in my hand and brought it to his face.
Shay-Lee
Annoying sounds broke into my sweet dream about designer bags and football, and I tried forcing them out and focusing back on sleeping. Hugging the blanket to my chest, I snuggled into it when the weird voices became stronger, and I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I opened my eyes and turned around to see Camilo grunting in his sleep. Erase that. He wasn’t grunting. It looked like he was struggling to breathe. My nerves kicked in, and I jumped into a sitting position beside his trembling body.
“Camilo?” I called while hovering above him, but not too close, so he’d have air just in case. His brows were pulled down, and his eyes squeezed hard as he sweated bullets. It didn’t seem like he was having a seizure, more like a horrible nightmare.
“Baby, it’s just a dream,” I said and attempted to touch him, but the second my finger brushed his arm, he immediately moved away and began muttering incoherent sentences. My heart physically hurt when I saw the tears in his eyes, and unsure of what to do, I grabbed his shoulder.
“Camilo, wake up.” I tried shaking him awake. “Come on, baby, it’s just a bad dream.” He didn’t wake up and instead continued to struggle with whatever demon was hunting him. I immediately thought back on the panic attack he had in Thailand, which was enough to tell me this was a whole lot worse than just a simple nightmare.
Grunts of pain that turned into low sobs came from him, and the longer he suffered, the more I feared for his life. My own heart began pounding hard, like punches to my chest, and I was starting to lose it when I remembered an article I once read online about night terrors . I clearly recalled it said not to wake up the person who was going through a night terror since it could be dangerous. It also said to speak to the person calmly and slowly. Understanding I’d have to be strong for the two of us, I took in some air, then slowly blew it out before looking back at Camilo’s suffering face. We’d had such a perfect night. How did it come to this? Why did life always come to fuck us just when things were getting good? Frustrated and angry, I swallowed back my tears and moved closer to him.
“I’m right here with you, baby. You have nothing to be afraid of,” I said while attempting to stay calm. “Just try and listen to me, okay?” I forced myself to smile. “How cool was dancing together tonight, right? We should do it again. Maybe next time, we can go to a different club?”
My talking seemed to work because, at last, he stopped shivering. It gave me the confidence to continue, and so I did. “You look so sexy when you dance. I mean it.” My face twisted with pain because of how hopeless I was right now. “You’re the most talented person I have ever met.” My chest tightened with love because even though I was desperate, I meant every word. His brows relaxed, and feeling a bit more hopeful, I moved to wipe some of the sweat off his forehead when he erupted in a horrible scream that made my blood run cold. Forgetting everything that I’d read about in that article, I moved on top of him and began shaking him. There was no way I could let him suffer like this for another second.
“Wake up! Wake up!” I shouted and shook his body when he tried resisting me. It was hard to hold him down, but I did my best to keep him underneath me until he managed to slip from my hold and reach backward. I didn’t realize what he was doing until I had a gun pointed at my face. Did I panic? Fuck yeah, but on instinct, I blocked away all the thoughts that came with seeing the muzzle so close, grabbed my phone from beside me, and slammed it into Camilo’s head before he could pull the fucking trigger and blow up my face at point-blank range.
He dropped the gun a second before his eyes snapped open. The first thing he did was to reach for the side of his head. “W-what the fuck?” He rubbed it, probably dead-ass confused.
So overwhelmed with what had just taken place, I couldn’t say a word. My adrenaline dropped in a second, and unable to hold everything in, I turned my head aside and just puked the entire contents of my guts over the floor. It was probably because of stress and that damn tequila, but whatever it was, letting it all out felt good.
“Fuck, Shay-Lee,” Camilo gasped and tried to help me when I put my hand in front of me and shook my head.
“I’m okay.” I wiped my mouth. “I’m okay.”
“But you just puked.”
I snorted. “Better than having my face blown up.”
“What?” Only now noticing the gun, his gun , Camilo’s eyes widened with horror. “What happened?”
“You just gave me a freaking heart attack, Camilo. That’s what happened.”