Chapter Seven
I hover in Phantom’s open doorway, head pressed against the worn wood, staring off into the hallway’s darkness with wide, bored eyes.
Phantom passed out over an hour ago, and his soft snores have been more annoying than cute. I’ve been focused for the last hour on what to do if that chick comes back. But I’ve got nothing.
One of the club members, Hyde, suddenly appears in the hallway, his hands roaming all over a young Annie, who doesn’t seem too excited about the idea of them sleeping together.
I wouldn’t be either. The biker is a grizzly-looking beast of a man, and not in that sexy oh my god you must be a werewolf type of beast. No, I’m talking about the kind of man that crawled out from the gutter, with greasy black hair that’s partially going gray, craters in his face from years of drug abuse that you could stick a pinky in, a nasty mouth that’s missing teeth or are rotting out, and a grotesque beard that still has flecks of food stuffed in it.
He was vile when I was alive, and he’s even more repulsive to look at while dead.
“Come on, baby, don’t play so hard to get,” he encourages.
He kisses the top of her cleavage, and she freezes.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” she whispers, covering her tits with her arms, stepping back a few steps until he has her backed in a corner.
“Yeah, you’re going to bed with me,” he growls, covering her mouth with his big beefy hand, ripping her shirt until both of her tits are exposed.
I’m marching into action before I can stop myself, ready to break into a full sprint and rip the guy off her, but I only make it one door past Phantom’s before I’m ripped backward, the force only stopping when I reach Phantom’s door. My tether to him seems to be getting shorter as the days go on.
“Shit!” I cry out, watching in horror as the asshole basically manhandles her toward his bedroom. “Someone stop him!” I scream.
Fuck! I only have one choice, and I fucking hate that I have to use it.
His name leaves my lips before I can stop it. “Damien! Damien, come quick. Please! I need your help.”
He appears without warning, casually leaning against the doorframe with that charismatic smile he’s so famous for. Even with a part of it gone, it’s still dismantling.
“Miss me?” he questions, grinning too fucking wide.
“Do something!” I shout, pointing to Hyde, who’s still dragging the Annie towards his bedroom while desperate tears rip down her face, her screams muffled by his unwanted hand. “Help her!”
Damien frowns. “I can’t do what you do, Babe. My ghostly powers don’t work like that.”
“Then possess him! Do something! Don’t let that asshole rape her. She’ll never come back from that.”
It’s the memories I don’t want to relive. The ones I’ve buried deep beneath the surface and thought I’d forget after dying… but they’re still there.
The unwanted touching… hands groping my underdeveloped breasts while he forced me to touch his flaccid cock.
Tears prick my eyes as my neighbor’s face comes into view.
He was handsome… my first schoolgirl crush.
The kind of guy young girls go gaga over.
I thought I’d do anything to make him like me, but I wasn’t ready for what he wanted.
I was barely thirteen, and he coaxed me over to his house with the promise of doing something fun.
Nobody heard me begging for him to stop.
Nobody heard my screams that he snuffed out with a pillow.
He ripped my innocence away from me, even though I said no, and I wasn’t comfortable with his touching.
He didn’t care. All he wanted was sex. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I found out my young, hot neighbor was a thirty-five-year-old adult male, who preyed on young women misjudging his age.
He was a fucking bastard, one who used coercion, misdirection, and threats to stay in control.
I’ll never forget the feeling of his cold blade pressing against my throat, his eyes gleaming with a vile evilness that let me scarred and traumatized.
He said he’d kill me if I told anyone. And I believed him enough to stay quiet.
I never told my parents or anyone at school.
I kept that shit inside, refusing to let anyone see just how fucked up he made me.
Instead, I got too out of hand, rebelling at school, getting into fights with anyone who dared to look at me cross-eyed, and let my grades drop so significantly, that my parents moved to the other side of the state, blaming my outbursts on teenage rebellion instead of traumatic life changing circumstances I could never take back.
I never told anyone about my experience with the neighbor… only Blake. He’s the only person who ever made me feel protected and safe. Safe enough to reveal my darkest secret with ease.
He tells everyone we lost our virginities to each other, but we both know otherwise. My innocence was lost before I ever knew what it was, and he was man enough to accept that and keep my secret locked away for eternity.
It took seven years for the cops to finally catch the guy, but that was after countless unsolved rapes went unnoticed and a few girls came up dead.
People called him the Vegas Night Stalker, and even after he went on trial, I stayed hidden, refusing to be named a victim in that man’s trail of tears.
Maybe that’s why I feel so protective over this girl. Nobody deserves to feel unsafe and pressured into doing anything. Especially here, where there’s so many men who can protect her.
“Please, Damien. Don’t let him do that to her.”
Damien studies me for a few seconds before nodding. “Okay, Dollface, I’ll try. But I’ve never tried to possess anyone who wasn’t in the middle of fucking before.”
“Just do it, Damien. Please! She’s never going to forgive herself if it happens.”
He closes his eyes and saunters up behind Hyde, taking a casual step inside his body seconds before he would’ve pushed the girl through the door.
Hyde blinks a few times, then drops his hands, taking a couple steps back so the girl can escape. She’s crying as she runs down the hall, but at least she got out of there before the asshole did something she would live with for the rest of her life.
“How does that shit work?” I question, wondering if he can even hear me inside of the piece of shit biker.
But Hyde’s smile spreads. Not in the usual vile and unnatural way, but cocky and charismatic, one that is all Damien.
“It’s all about control, Dollface.” He leans against the doorframe of Hyde’s bedroom, standing there in the exact way Damien would, but with the voice of a seven-year smoker belting out.
“It’s hard to take you seriously standing in that grotesque body.”
Hyde laughs. “Dollface, I’m about to serve him up to you on a silver platter. Are you ready?”
A twinkle of revenge deepens in my eye as Hyde kneels before me with his head bowed like a slave.
My fingers delve into his greasy locks and grab hold, thankful that my sense of touch is numb, and it’s more of an action than an actual feeling.
The thought of feeling that grease between my fingers makes me want to vomit.
But I push that urge back, my eyes closing as the rage builds, the need to eradicate this selfish prick from existence reaching the point of explosion.
Damien casually backs out of him, smirking wickedly when my eyes violently pop open, and everything in me snaps.
“You think you can fucking abuse women, you sick fuck?”
Hyde’s eyes widen as he’s thrown against the wall, his thick skull sounding hollow as it ricochets off the hard concrete.
“Think again, asshole!”
Damien leans against the wall, arms crossed, enjoying the show. But this isn’t a show for me. This is me teaching a low-life bastard the lesson he deserves.
I feel the pull of my power before I even call it. The hallway trembles, the lights fizzing in and out the stronger I pull on the currents. A cold, violent wind whips through the hallway before surrounding me, my strength increasing, almost like it’s urging me to take it even further.
Hyde’s bloodshot eyes dart around the hall, the color draining from his face. “Wha—What’s happening?”
A terrified scream rips out of his throat as my hand rises, and his body starts inching up the wall until his feet are at least a foot off the ground.
His legs kick uselessly. A strangled sound escapes him as my fingers invisibly clench around his throat, his heartbeat thrumming against my palm like a trapped bird trying to escape a caged prison.
His fear soils the front of his pants and crawls down his leg until a yellow puddle forms beneath him.
“That’s right, bastard, piss like the fucking suck pig you are!”
“Suck pig?” Damien questions, laughing.
“Shut up! I’m teaching this bastard a lesson.”
Damien takes a confident step back, allowing me to continue my rage, picking on the man who has no business trying to threaten or manhandle anyone.
“You think she owes you something?” My voice cracks through the air, but he can’t hear shit, only feel my wrath as it tightens around his throat. “You think she wants your pathetic cock, and that you can take what she won’t give you?”
Every word is like another Lego building block filled with rage, building higher and higher until I’m consumed by it, the darkness etching my vision, creating a storm of chaos that I’m the center of.
Phantom comes stumbling out of the room, drunk as fuck, jaw dropping to the floor when he sees Hyde pressed up against the wall, feet dangling, his screams silenced by my power.
“Just give me a second, baby. I’m taking care of this asshole.”
That’s when I feel it… the eyes of a darker presence watching me from the shadows. The shadow stretches along the wall, blacker than any absence of light, its edges alive and writhing. Two red eyes blink open inside it, watching me. Feeding on my rage.
The longer I hold him up, the stronger I feel. The stronger it feels. The air thickens, humming with a power that isn’t entirely mine.