Chapter Seven #2
“Eve!” Phantom growls, coughing as he fights for his voice.
But the air is thick, thicker than it should be.
“Stop!” he begs, still coughing to catch his breath.
I don’t think it’s me causing his reaction; it’s whatever is watching me from the darkness.
Controlling… enabling… making its presence known.
But there’s no turning back, not when Hyde’s still breathing.
He needs to pay for trying to take advantage of that poor girl.
My vision starts to cloud, and everything before me hangs behind a black veil I can’t blink away.
Instead of his face, I see the face of my old neighbor, his hot breath crawling across my neck, his hands touching parts of me that he shouldn’t have dared to touch.
Everything from that moment… the fear… the betrayal… it leeches out of me and into my hands, the lights flickering as my fingers curl around his throat and squeeze.
Hyde claws at his throat, face paling as he gasps for breath. I’m an invisible power he can’t combat, and it’s a dark seduction that has me drunk and feeling alive in my afterlife.
A voice filters into my head. It’s chaos and destruction, malice and hate. It’s feeding on my energy and enhancing it at the same time. The voice crawls across my mind like a spider, probing the weak spots and encouraging the worst. “Kill its.”
“Should I kill you, Hyde? Do you deserve to keep breathing after being such a vile human being?”
Blood creeps across the white iris, the veins bulging, his breath waning the more I squeeze.
“Kill its,” it hisses, the voice now sounding like it’s right beside my ear.
The urge is there to finish him off. I can taste his blood on my tongue, his life basically hanging in my own damn hands.
Only a few more seconds, and he’ll be dead.
“He doesn’t deserve to live,” it encourages.
He’s so right. Hyde doesn’t deserve the breath he still has.
“I’ll make sure it hurts, Hyde. Just so you feel her fear.”
Krueger’s voice cuts through me like static. “EVE!”
He appears out of nowhere, the lights flickering and cutting out, just as a few club members appear in the hall, watching helplessly as we reach the climax.
Phantom’s trying to pull Hyde down from the wall, but I hold out my hand, sending him sprawling backwards into Creature’s feet while still holding Hyde captive.
“Eve, stop! You’re feeding it,” Krueger bellows.
“He deserves it,” I spit back, my voice rising into something that feels evil. “You didn’t see what he was about to do.”
Krueger’s eyes darken. “And you don’t see what’s behind you! Don’t you feel its claws sinking into you?”
The shadow digs in, every heartbeat syncing with mine.
My grip tightens on Hyde’s throat. His pulse falters. For a second, I want to finish it. I want to make him feel what I felt all those years ago.
Then Damien’s voice joins in, softer, more urgent. “Okay, Dollface, I think he’s had enough. This isn’t you anymore. You’re not a killer.”
Killer? The word cracks something inside me, breaking me free of whatever mental prison the thing had me in. My grip lessens around his throat, and he drops, hitting the ground with a thud as he sits in his own puddle of piss, crying as he gasps for air.
“What the fuck?” he rasps out, just as two of his brothers try to help him to his feet.
Phantom looks at his feet, embarrassed and unsure. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know what got into her.”
Hyde’s gaze darkens as his eyes narrow into slits. “You tell your fucked up ghoulfriend to stay the fuck away from me, Phantom.”
“And you tell that asshole that girls aren’t fucking toys!” I shout, but only Krueger and Damien can hear me.
When I whip around to face them, I see the shadow retreating into the darkness.
Its glowing red eyes focus on the pulse of energy leaving my soul.
It’s like I can feel it, the anger… the decay.
It fed off my rage, igniting something inside me that I almost couldn’t contain, whispering promises in my ear I never want to hear again.
Whatever just happened, can’t happen again, I tell myself.
Krueger turns to me, his expression hard and accusing.
“I warned you,” he starts, his eyes damning me as they dart to the corner.
“That thing’s been waiting for a moment like this,” he says, his look of concern only lasting a few seconds.
“I don’t know if you can handle it taking over you again, so stop feeding its frenzy, Eve.
Don’t give it a reason to steal your soul. ”
“Steal my soul?” I grasp at my chest, suddenly feeling a loss I didn’t know was there. Part of me feels empty and filled with rage; the other is peering at Phantom’s shuddering hands, regretting causing the look of disappointment he can’t quite erase.
I’ve made him angry with me. Angrier than I ever did in my human life.
“Blake, I’m sorry. I was just trying to protect the girl—”
He looks towards his brothers, all of them sharing the same look of fear in their eyes. They know that he’s tethered to me, and even though this wasn’t his fault, they blame him for my actions.
Glancing down at my own trembling hands, I see the floor through my fingers. But there’s a strange power surging through me that wasn’t there before—a darkness that feels electric and fantastic. For the first time since I died, I don’t feel empty or lost. I feel dangerous.
But it’s a danger I can’t feed again.
Not if I want Blake to love me in the afterlife.