Chapter 42 Slipping On New Skin #2
"I don’t know why I haven’t done this before.
" My voice clogs with emotion. "I’ve always told myself I'm too busy, that it’s too frivolous and ridiculous to take time to come here.
But now," I swallow hard, "to think I wouldn’t allow myself to have the thing I wanted most. Isn’t that silly? " I hiccup and wipe away a tear.
Shadows wrap around my shoulders as his hard, unyielding front presses against my back.
Instead of answering, he drops a long lingering kiss to my neck, heating my blood and adding to the cacophony inside me.
"Is it?" he asks quietly.
"Silly? Maybe. Or maybe I just didn’t think I deserved it.
" A laugh of disbelief hitches the breath in my lungs. "Stupid is more like it. Or maybe masochistic? Somewhere inside me, I believed I was so unworthy that I didn’t deserve to stand by the ocean. That the things I want aren’t meant for me.
Even though I live on my own, I’ve hardwired punishment into my routine. "
"Why should you be punished, Evie?" Shadow asks, his voice strained as if he is trying to lead me toward something specific.
The tears flow freely now.
"I don’t know." I shake my head. Something is building inside my chest at his question, pushing my ribs out uncomfortably until I think I’ll be split from the inside. "Because if everyone who has met me didn’t see something worthy in me, then they must be right. That many people can’t be wrong."
Shadow whips around to stand in front of me so quickly my head spins. "They aren’t right. None of them. They are empty, broken husks who are not capable of judging the world around them much less your worth."
I blink upwards, trying to stop the waterworks, but it doesn’t work. The bite of the cold ocean breeze turns them into rivers of ice on my face. I love that too.
"Maybe because I’ve always known I’m a monster at heart," I say slowly, "whether I was born this way or because I was made to be like this. I’m not natural. I’m a twisted bunch of guts with mean thoughts and feelings, and now I’m helping you kill people and I don’t even care.
I don’t feel bad for them. I feel like I’m coming into my own, like I’m becoming the woman I was always meant to be, and it scares me as much as it excites me. " I end in a whisper.
Shadow’s face, always a dark blur almost comes into focus for a second. Or maybe it’s a trick of my tear-filled eyes.
"You’re expanding faster than what is comfortable, and it scares you.
It should. You are learning how powerful you are, and it’s beyond what anyone has told you are capable of.
I know it’s beyond what you ever dreamed, but your bones can handle it.
They will not break. They will not shatter.
" His words are fierce and solemn. Each word lands like a brand, searing into my flesh.
The unnamable sensation grows inside of me, past comfort, past logic. I stumble away to face the ocean again. My body can’t handle what’s inside me for one more second. I’m going to explode like a supernova. With pain, with hope, with everything it means to be human.
A sob bursts from my chest so hard and loud that I'm sure it sends shockwaves across the earth. My cry of release travels on the waves of the ocean and the pain inside me is carried away, swallowed by the dark, frigid waters.
When pain explodes from me like this, more usually follows, emotions crowding each other out to escape into the open air. It takes a while to dam everything back up inside of me once I’ve let loose.
But this time, there isn’t more to let out. Instead, a calmness settles over me as the internal emotional pressure drains away.
I’m left shuddering and shaky, having let go of something inside me I’d been holding onto so hard, keeping so close.
I’m floating free, untethered. The old me is gone now, disintegrating into those watery depths. I’m new and anything is possible. It’s utterly fucking terrifying.
I sense a swell of pride coming from Shadow next to me, watching steadily.
"What did I tell you about being a monster, Evie? It doesn’t make you evil, it makes you other.
And from what I've witnessed, you are an otherworldly creature that should never have been put to suffer the injustices so cruelly. It’s why I could not stay away.
I also can’t stand that you are punishing yourself. "
A clawed hand squeezes my neck, putting enough pressure on my jugular to turn my breathing shallow and ensure all of my attention is on him.
"So you are going to cease this nonsense." His tone turns sharp and unforgiving. "No more punishing yourself. You can have whatever you want simply because you have the desire. That’s enough. The only one who will hurt you anymore is me, and only because you ask me to."
Soft tears slip over my cheeks, down my neck, and gather on his knuckles where he holds me. "Shadow?" I whisper.
"Yes, my Evangeline," he drawls, already knowing what I'm about to ask.
"Hurt me."
Without hesitation, he pulls me up to him and claims my mouth in a deep, searching kiss. Drawing me even closer, he tilts my head so he can deepen the kiss. I’m at his mercy and he takes full advantage until I’m a puddle underneath him.
He nips my lip until blood slides over our tongues. Claws slip under my coat and sweater to rake along my back, scratching the skin apart in delicate, eloquent sweeps. I shudder as he uses perfect pressure to get my skin to respond and sing with agony and pleasure.
The blood will ruin this sweater, but I don’t care. I need this more.
An internal calm surrounds me while my skin rises to the external pain. I make the intense hot tingles my own until they can’t hurt me. At this moment, I’m invulnerable.
When Shadow lets me go and I step away, I am yet again changed. Despite the cold burning my wet cheeks, I smile up at him with a genuine, near face-splitting grin.
A guttural groan escapes him. "I would eat the heart of this very world if it would make you smile like this."
His clawed hand wraps around mine and again I find myself enjoying a moment of domestic bliss with my monster.
We walk along the shoreline, our footsteps mingling with the patterns left by the receding tide. He's there but not, a part of the night itself. The moonlight dances on the water, creating a path of silver light that stretches to the horizon.
For just a fleeting moment, I allow myself to forget everything else. Here, with the ocean's song in my ears and Shadow at my side, I find a peace I thought I'd never find.
But the thing I can never forget about peace is, it never lasts long.
We stay by the ocean until dawn, when Shadow has to slip away.
My limbs and body have gone stiff with the cold, but I don't mind. Now that I made it here, I vow to myself never to stay away for long again.
When I get on the bus back to my apartment alone, my phone vibrates. My frozen fingers struggle to pull it out. I miss the call, but there is a voicemail.
"Ms. Smith, I work at St Mary’s Hospital. Mr. Miguel Acevedo has woken up and is requesting to see you."