Chapter Ten #2
Okay, one block. He skidded, catching himself on his palm as he rounded the corner and closed in on Shay’s location.
Glanced from his phone to the road. Turned in a circle, caught his breath, and darted into an underground parking garage.
The swampy overhead lights hummed, casting yellow across the gray walls and concrete floor.
A few cars lingered, stationed in spaces along the far wall, but otherwise, the place was empty.
Noise from the strip leaked in, mingling with the quiet thud of his boots.
A sign above the parking-station read: GROGERY OUTLET PARKING ONLY—CLOSED 11 P.M. TO 6 A.M. He tapped his phone.
The screen lit, showing Aiden standing, literally, on top of Shay.
Aiden Moore: WHERE ARE YOU
No answer. He jogged through the parking garage, thinking, searching, and halted before two closed doors.
The bathroom signs were blue with geometric figures holding hands—the gender-neutral kind he’d always prayed for pre-transition.
He held his breath and leaned toward the first door.
Adrenaline amplified his pulse. Blood rushing inside him, thrumming, pounding, stampeding, dulled his senses.
Everything said run . Everything said go, hurry, quick .
A heavy, gasping breath came from behind the second door, followed by a damp slap —wet skin—and a throaty, feral noise.
Crocodile sounds. Tiger sounds. Both, combined.
Like a wolf’s growl, slowed, deepened, made worse.
Aiden squeezed his eyes shut and tapped on the door. Shyly at first. Then louder. “Shay. . . ?” The sounds died. Chills scaled his spine. He managed to whisper, “It’s me.”
The door swung. Oh, no. He didn’t have time to rationalize or theorize or run.
One second, he was standing in the parking garage, and the next, he was slammed against the door inside a pitch-dark bathroom.
Pressure, then stinging, clamping, pinching pain, weighed on his neck.
He’d been bitten before, by ex-boyfriends and one-night-stands.
Nips to his thighs and belly. Sometimes harder—possessive crescents printed on his ribs and shoulders.
But Shay’s fangs were deadlier. Sank deeper.
Made him gasp and cry out. Sent a single, fixed thought, this is it , into overdrive.
This is it, this is it, this is it. Shay pressed him against the door, hips against hips, chest to chest, pinning him like a ragdoll.
Aiden surged against him, but it was no use.
Shay’s teeth were heavy in the soft column of his throat, and there was nothing left to do but hold onto him.
Aiden thought, briefly, about shoving his thumbs into Shay’s eye-sockets.
Kneeing him in the groin. Digging his knuckles into the bandaged gash on his stomach.
But instead, he gripped Shay’s nape with one hand, clutched his shirt with the other, and memorized the weight of Shay’s palm on his thigh, pushing upward, over his hip, beneath this shirt.
Such a strange, intimate touch. Too gentle, too honest.
“It’s me,” Aiden whimpered, sucking in another shaky breath. Tears stung his eyes. Burned on his cheeks. “Shay, it’s me. It’s me, it’s me, please. It’s me .”
Aiden thought his life would flash before his eyes.
He’d meet the him he could’ve been. Stare into a heavenly white light.
Feel flames on his feet. But none of that bullshit happened.
God didn’t have a damn thing to say to him, and neither did the devil.
He shut his eyes and gripped Shay’s ribs, pulling him closer.
Shay splayed his hand on Aiden’s tailbone.
Tugged until their hipbones knocked and Aiden’s breath ratcheted.
Is this how you felt? Aiden pushed his fingers through the fine hair at the root of Shay’s skull. I’ll die being held, at least.
“Shay, it’s me,” he said again, desperately.
Newly sprouted claws scraped his lower back.
Shay opened his mouth wider, retracted his teeth, and pressed his tongue to the punctures left behind.
Aiden choked back a weak sound. Breath cooled the wound, then lips landed on his neck again, suckling there, kissing blood from his tender skin.
Aiden stared into the opaque darkness and shivered when Shay pressed too hard, grazed his teeth over Aiden’s thrumming pulse, hinted at another bite.
Thought do it, don’t do it. Blinked through a dreamlike state—the place before dying—and met Shay’s glinting, night-shine eyes.
Shay knitted his brows. Sadness crossed his face.
Something close to sadness, at least. Confusion, maybe.
As if he’d unlocked the answer to a long-held question.
He opened his mouth against Aiden’s cheek.
Copper tainted his breath. His voice rumbled like a thousand different animals.
“Get out,” he said, and tore his hand away from Aiden’s waist. “Get out! Go! ”
The door opened with Aiden still leaning against it.
He stumbled into the parking garage, one hand plastered over his sore neck, the other scraping the asphalt as he hit the ground.
He scrambled backward. Shay stared at him, shoulders rising as he inhaled great, painful breaths, hands forming fists at his side.
Red dripped from between his knuckles. Light poured into the bathroom, illuminating linoleum and porcelain, and the groupie, Cassandra, slumped against the wall, arranged like a Halloween prop—lipstick smeared, chest ravaged, thigh chewed, throat butchered.
Aiden said his name, just once. “Shay,” like please .
The door slammed.