Chapter 50 Jonah - Past
fifty
Jonah - Past
LET ME GO.
There was no escaping what I’d done. Even if I had been able to run without my leg threatening to give way, no amount of fresh air and exercise would change the fact that I’d killed someone. Not just someone. I’d killed Dex’s mom.
It was the right thing to do. I had to. I was protecting us. She’d deserved it. All things I told myself over and over. I’d believed those whispers from the demons under my skin last night when I’d done it. It was harder to believe them in the daylight.
New fears. New panic. What if Dex found out? What if he hated me for it?
My mind raced at a speed my feet couldn’t keep up with. The stabbing ache in my leg was amplified by the ache in my head. It was too late now. My decision burned into my soul like the fire that had erased hers.
I pushed onward, until the itching from my self-inflicted wounds proved to be the final straw, and I screamed my frustration, my rage, and my anger to the world, not caring who the fuck heard me or what the fuck they thought.
Lost. Adrift. Unmoored. A storm of emotions that I couldn’t face, not alone. I needed him. And maybe I didn’t deserve to be comforted after what I’d done, but I needed him anyway. Needed the only person my demons would listen to. Only he could calm them again.
It was time to go back.
I turned around, heading to my home, to my devil.
There were two extra motorcycles in the driveway when I returned. New emotions joined the storm. Because of course they needed him again.
I didn’t want anyone but him to see me, so I entered quietly, intent on sneaking off to the bedroom to wait for him to be done.
Then I heard him scream. An awful sound I’d never heard before, but I knew in my bones it was him. My demons rose to the surface, and I let them lead me.
Toby was the first thing I saw. Then the blood. Dex on the ground. Reaper over him. A bloodied knife near my feet.
Red.
Toby noticed me. “Reaper.”
The knife was in my hand before I could process the situation. Thoughts evaded me. There was only red. Red. Red. Red.
“Reaper!”
The knife plunged into Reaper’s back. Again. Again. Red. Red. Red.
He fell. I ripped him away from my devil. Again. He wasn’t moving anymore. I didn’t stop. Over and over. Until I couldn’t see. Red in my eyes. I wiped it away. Rage still bubbled away like acid at my core. Not enough. He still wasn’t safe.
I turned to Toby. Tears streamed down his pale cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Reaper said we were going to talk. We were just supposed to talk. He said to back him up if things got violent, but I didn’t think—I didn’t know—I’m sor—”
Red.
“Rabbit.” A voice that almost reached me. Not quite.
A sob. A choked cry. More red. New blood on the blade.
“Rabbit. Stop!”
The wet squelch of the knife as it impaled an unmoving body again and again. So much red.
“Jonah!” A hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. Eyes the color of an overcast sky through the clouds. Soft.
“D-Dex?”
“I’ve got you. It’s okay. You can stop now. We’re okay.”
My fingers trembled around the handle of the knife, then released it.
The demons shrank back inside me, and I looked down at the body… No. Bodies. Two. I’d killed two more people. Ice in my core. Fuck.
Too much. Everything was too fucking much.
“I can’t do this.” My thoughts poured out of me without filter. “I can’t fucking do this.”
“W-what does that mean?”
“I can’t do this!” I raised my voice. “I’m not this person. I can’t do it anymore.”
Dex’s hand tightened around my arm. “We’ll figure this out.”
“No.” I tried to shake him off, but he wouldn’t let me. He groaned as he used his other hand to grab me as well, the grip weaker in that one as blood streamed onto the floor. “I can’t do this! I can’t! It’s too fucking much! Let me go!”
“No! I won’t ever let you go!”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “I can’t do this, Dex! I’ve killed three fucking people in two days. I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore!”
“Th-three? Who else did you kill, baby?”
Fuck.
“Let go of me!” I tried again to pull away, needing to escape, needing to run.
“No!” He tried to tighten his hold on me. “I’ll die before I let you go!”
I needed air. I couldn’t get any. Not here, not where there was so much red. I tried again to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. His hold on me was bruising.
“I said let go!” I shoved him this time. Hard enough that he was forced backward. A step on a tile covered in red. His bloodied leg failed to support him, his foot unable to find traction. He slipped.
The sound of his head hitting the counter made me want to hurl.
“I’m sorry!” I sobbed as I kneeled at his side. But he wasn’t moving anymore.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
FUCK!
“Dex?”
More red pooled around his head like a halo of death.
I wasn’t sure if it was blood or tears that obscured my vision, but his face blurred. So still. The silence like a blade to my heart.
I tried to scream, but even my voice had died, a void of regret and grief tearing open at the core of me. My fingers shook as I checked for a pulse, the void tearing me up further when I couldn’t find one.
‘I’m sorry,’ I wanted to scream over and over, but my voice remained out of reach. My soul reached for his and couldn’t find it. My love. My purpose. My home. In losing him, I lost them all.
A sound from the doorway. I turned from the horror I had created to see it reflected back at me in wide eyes. Roy.
Too much. It was all too fucking much.
Run.
I stumbled to my feet. My legs threatened to give out with every step. Roy remained frozen in place, his eyes on the carnage as I pushed passed him. Bloodied handprints smeared over the walls as I made it to the door.
Run.
A cold breeze chilled the red on my face, on my clothing.
Run.
Keys shook in my hand as I unlocked the car.
Run.
I slid into the driver’s seat and started the ignition.
Run.
The car jerked backward onto the road.
Run.
My foot hit the gas. Tires rolled forward. I didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was the voice in my head and the one word it repeated over and over.
RUN.