No Parting Between Soulmates

1. Now That You’re Dead…

ONE

NOW THAT YOU’RE DEAD…

MILA

The faint smell of bourbon and cedar invades my senses in the dead of night, my eyes slow to blink open.

Demetri’s cologne awakens my senses long before my mind can follow; it does something almost primal to me.

I’m wrapped into the comfort of his hold, warm all over from his touch, every fiber of my being coming back to life from just the contact.

I can practically feel his breath against my neck, hot, minty and inviting, before a kiss is placed on the crook of my neck.

Leaning into him is easy. Surrendering to Demetri Harkins comes as naturally as breathing.

Home, I think to myself. He’s my home.

“I missed you.” The words fall from my mouth like a gasp, as if he’s oxygen and this is my first ever breath.

“Darkling.” His voice is filled with gravel, scratchy and tired, and I can’t help but feel guilt.

It is because of me, his nights are filled with worry and sleeplessness.

His lips don’t stop moving; with every press of them against my flesh, I catch fire, his hands trailing down my sides, fingers sliding between my thighs. I give him just enough room to move, a featherlight touch that nearly burns the sensitive skin the higher he climbs.

A throaty moan escapes me, adding to his satisfaction, his lips quirking up in a smile I can almost feel inside my own bones despite not yet having turned to face him.

“So perfect for me, Darkling.” I dissolve into a million particles, and somehow, he’s able to catch every molecule in his hands.

Thick fingers graze over my panties, knuckles brushing my clit through the fabric.

The caress is a full collision of my atoms, a nuclear reaction waiting to happen from the force of him breaking me apart.

Demetri moves his free hand to my hip, pulling me closer so I’m molded to every inch of his shape.

He’s hard, hot, and everything I’ve ever wanted. Demetri is my safety, my security, my sanity all in one. He’s my best friend, my partner in all things batshit and vile. He’s my reminder to stay soft in a cruel world.

But right now, in this moment, he’s the only one who knows exactly how to make me come undone.

I press back into him, arching my spine with the next stroke of his knuckles, his erection only barred from sliding into me from the underwear that keeps us apart.

Harkins moans into my ear, my absolute favorite sound, despite how quiet or small he tries to keep it.

A man’s moan is like catching a firefly in a jar.

My man’s moan is like finding an oasis in the desert.

When Demetri gifts me the sound, it’s like trying on a crown in front of the mirror.

He slips his fingers into my panties, my knees splaying apart to invite him in.

“You’re so wet, Camila.” He hums, delighted at how good of a job he’s done working me up.

“Please,” I whine, positioning his thigh where I need so I can start chasing the relief on my own.

His chuckle fills something inside me that scorches, incinerating every part of me that knows how to stay composed, how to steal control and make him melt in my hands like putty.

Not tonight. Tonight, I can practically read his mind.

Tonight, he’s the one in control, the one in charge.

His touch is intense, and I’m closer than I should be when he’s not even inside me.

Every grind of my hips against his leg has me trembling and whining until I’m panting, begging him to finish me.

He squeezes my hip, moving me against his thigh until I’m dripping through my underwear. The friction is nearly uncomfortable, every nerve ending on fire and ready to combust, but I need him inside me. I have to feel him.

“Please,” I gasp between moments of pleasure, trying to remember to breathe.

He hums in my ear, low and hushed, before he finally speaks. “I don’t think so, Darkling. I say when you get to have me again.”

“Check.” A female voice tears through my dream like a record scratching, the bright glow from her cellphone’s flashlight through the cracked door pointing directly into my eyes.

I squint, but it isn’t enough to shield my vision or ease my confusion. I’m disoriented, too tired, too sleep deprived to fully comprehend what feels like math in my head during the breaking point of my climax.

“Check.” She’s louder now, less patient as she shakes the light with urgency.

The whine is autonomous, both wrapped in sexual frustration and exhaustion. Clarity returns to me, my tired grunting enough to appease the white-coat overlords when the light dances from my face to the bed beside mine.

No wonder everyone here is crazy—they won’t let a bitch get a full night’s rest.

“Check!” my roommate yells angrily, covering her head with her pillow to block the orderly’s flashlight.

The door creaks shut, the light disappears entirely, and once again, the room is dark.

It only takes a minute or two for a low snoring to commence directly to my right.

My pulse still throbs between my legs, the pillow I somehow saddled mid-slumber is soaking wet, and I’m no closer to achieving anything.

I haven’t come in days.

Between the barrage of meds they sling my way and the serious lack of my man, friction burn is more likely in the future for my girl bits than an orgasm.

“Milaaaaa.” Cold wind brushes the hair off my neck, and my entire backside feels the chill, as if I’m being spooned by winter itself.

I feel the weight of cold fingers tapping my shoulder, but I don’t turn my head, don’t acknowledge it. Squeezing my eyes tightly somehow convinces my brain I’m in control, as if I have the power to make her go away.

I don’t.

And neither do the antipsychotics.

“Milaaaaa,” my best friend calls to me again.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I whisper to myself, covering my ears like a child and bringing my knees to my chest for comfort.

I lay on my side and wish her gone.

“Milaaaa.”

The next bed check somehow takes hours in contrast to the last, though I know well they’re perfectly timed at forty-five minutes apart. That’s just what happens here—time plays tricks on us because it knows we are at its mercy.

“Check.” This time, it’s a relief when the orderly comes. I run to the door, tears streaming down my face, the ghost of my best friend still at my side.

“Please,” I beg, dropping to my knees, clutching her scrubs. “I need something else. She won’t go away. She won’t go away!” I scream.

“She’s your roommate, darling. She’s here to get better, just like you,” the woman assures sweetly, not understanding I don’t mean the adorable purple-haired girl I’m sharing space with during my stay at Sunny Valley Sanatorium.

“N-not her.” I shake my head, turning it just slightly to look at the other bed. To my horror, tucked in tightly with my roommate is Naya Costa, my best friend since grade school.

The one I killed on Halloween.

She pulls her little ghost phone out of the ether, taking selfies with the curly-haired girl, making kissy faces at her ghost camera, but when I turn to face the orderly again, she’s there, right next to her, in front of me again.

I shut my eyes, tears streaming fast as I drop my head to the floor, practically bowing at the orderly’s feet as I beg for mercy, for salvation, for anything to make this torture end. “Please,” I sob.

Her nametag reads “Ferreira,” and her face carries no softness or empathy. Her eyes lack any sort of pity when she looks at me. “You’ll have to wait for the doctor to get in so he can approve it.”

It isn’t news to me.

I can’t even take a shit without the shrink’s permission around here.

“Tell her she’s no fucking good to you and bash her face against the wall!” Naya giggles, clapping her hands to egg me on.

“Shut up,” I growl.

“Excuse me?” Nurse Ferreira’s tone quickly loses all empathy the moment it catches a whiff of disrespect.

I beat my fists against the side of my head and scream in agony. “It’s her! Her! Her!”

Naya’s cackle fills the room until I can’t make out what the nurse is saying.

“Get her out of here!” I don’t know if it’s me saying it or if it’s my roommate, but every sound becomes amplified.

Every thump of my heart.

Every shrill burst of laughter from Naya.

Every incoherent word trying to process in my brain.

My pulse swims through my ear canals, louder with each beat, as if it’s rising inside me until I’m convinced I’ll choke on my own heart.

And then I’m on my back again, the cold of the linoleum floor seeping through the fabric of my pajamas.

Weight above me crushes down, suffocating me.

My ribs feel like weak glass holding up the world as two male orderlies pin my extremities, a third white coat shining a flashlight directly into my pupils before he draws medicine from a vial.

There’s no warning, no pleasantries, no calm, nurturing voices in the middle of the night anymore.

There’s just medical terminology spoken over me as if I’m not the subject in question.

No eye contact, just a stab of a needle and hands squeezing me far too tight because their only goal is to keep me from squirming.

The heavy sensation is almost instant, so much so that it feels like its own death when the two men stay on top of me. The panic it brings is short-lived, my eyelids no longer strong enough to stay up as the drugs coursing into my system finally slow my brain from the overload.

My best friend’s ghost still holds my hand, but I don’t think it’ll kill me anymore.

“Can you carry her to the bed?” I hear the nurse ask the men.

The one still lingering on top of me laughs. “Only if you let me crawl in there with her until the next check.”

“If you get caught again, Fred, leave me out of it.” Ferreira’s voice becomes quieter with my pulse, the weight above me finally lifting, though the cold of the floor stays below me.

Naya does too.