Shadowface

Chapter 29

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

LINCOLN

I t’s nearly one PM by the time Summer stirs beside me. I’ve been awake since mid-morning, working away on my laptop while she slept. I’ve never seen anyone sleep as deeply as she does. Especially when she knows we are watching and where we are right now.

I glance over at Summer again, at the faint gash on her cheek that wasn’t there the night before. I open and close my hand, the pain of my bruised knuckles shooting all the way up my arm.

Everything he touches turns to ash, and it pains me to see Summer bleeding and the marks on her flawless face, especially since I wasn’t remotely aware enough to stop it. Something happened last night, and I have no memory of it.

It’s a black hole when I’m asleep, and I often wonder if that’s when he takes full control. He dreams, and I merely experience it.

Witness, observe, and analyze.

But this was different. It was as if I didn’t exist at all.

Summer, however, is not dead despite being injured. I made him promise one thing after our rare and vivid conversation after we fucked her in my office.

Not to kill her.

I suppose he kept his promise, although the shattered glass in the bathroom and the cuts on Summer’s cheek indicate it was difficult for him. And now I am burdened with the overwhelming guilt of what he did.

Guilt…

My blood is absorbing his emotions, and it’s been slowly happening since Summer came back into our lives. His anger and guilt—they hit me in waves, almost like he’s turning on a faucet and giving me more than I can handle.

It is changing me, transforming the very essence of my being and my purpose. Because I also sense his hatred as if it were my own. And that fragmented split is starting to grow, implanting itself in my bones.

I should have captured it when I had the chance. Instead, I have spent the morning accepting what is happening and deciding not to resist it. The process of fusion is taking place, and I will not fight it. When he sends me these emotions, I get a surge of power.

Desire. Anger. Guilt.

It is exhilarating, and now that Summer is by my side, I am beginning to explore her in every way.

He may be strong, but so am I, and this is the life I have created. Unlike him, I do not carry the memories that shattered his mind. He needs me just as much as I need him. Without me, he will always be fractured.

He shoots me a hint of jealousy, and I can’t help but smile at the irony of it. I will take whatever shred of emotion he will give me.

I’d sacrifice everything to feel emotions, but I’d give up my soul to experience a single second of loving her.

She moans and turns around, lifting her leg out of the duvet and crossing her leg over it. I close my laptop and watch as she finally starts to make motions.

Mikael stirs deep within…and I shove him down.

At some point in the night, she found my shirt and slipped it on. Her hair is damp, she smells like my shampoo, and not to mention the shattered glass in the bathroom I had to clean up.

My eyes are fixed on her legs, her toned thighs hanging out of my shirt. A throb of desire consumes us. Our joint emotion intensifies everything, intensifying my arousal and fueling that split as it flaps around inside me like a banshee.

My head pounds, so I take off my glasses and set them on the nightstand and my vision clears, his chaotic emotions erupt at the crystal-clear view of her.

I give him a moment with her as she opens up and smiles at me. He’s like a tornado destroying everything in its path. Whatever he’s feeling right now, it’s hazy, and I can’t quite capture it. Like he’s hiding from me or pushing me out.

When I glance back over, her face is a blur. I place my glasses on and smile. “Wake up, Summer.”

Her brows twitch and pretty lips part, then she visibly relaxes. She didn’t know which one of us she was getting, I realize. Only Mikael brings out that look of fear in her eyes.

She lays her head down and continues peering at me. “I think I’m going to puke,” she says, moaning. “Make it go away.”

My lips graze her hair as I continue typing. “Someone shouldn’t have taken so many drugs last night.”

She runs her lips over my arm and her hair falls over her face. “Like I had a choice,” she mutters but can’t help but smile. Xander targeted her the second she decided to walk into this house. “I feel dirty.”

I adjust my glasses. “Why would that be? Because you spread your pretty legs for both of us last night, or because you fucked Mikael near a toilet.”

She blinks in surprise, then her eyes gleam as she lifts her head up to her elbow. “Lincoln Kennedy, are you jealous?”

Taking a deep breath as the waves of this emotion course through me, I close my laptop to give her my full attention. “Jealousy must be one of the single worst emotions to ever exist,” I say to her. And truly…it is quite icky.

She merely nods and lays her head back down on me. “Yes, it’s not very fun, is it?”

I don’t know if it’s his emotion or mine. And that thought is unsettling.

A deep, mocking laugh erupts from within.

I reach over to my nightstand and pull out a pill bottle. Her hand immediately reaches for my stomach, running her fingers over my abdomen like she doesn’t want me to move. I slip a little pill into her mouth, and she tenses. “It’s ibuprofen, Summer. Relax.”

I reopen my computer and start typing again. I can’t help it…when I get into a flow state, it consumes my brain.

She stares at my computer screen, then up at me, then back to the computer screen as trying to read my work.

This section is titled Moral Code . Something she clearly lacks—because we stole it from her in her sleep when she was a teenager.

I can sense the confusion etched into her face. “You have questions,” I say, typing away. “Feel free to ask me one.”

“Can you see when you’re not wearing your glasses?”

I wrap my arm around her and wipe my thumb across her hairline. “Out of all the things you could ask me, you choose that?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen glasses so thick.”

Another handicap he gave me—he made me blind. I think it’s because he didn’t want me seeing her when he was watching her.

“I’m blind as a bat without them.”

She reaches over and pulls the glasses off and runs a hand over my face. She looks at me inquisitively, her blurry face studying me. She closes her eyes for a moment as the ibuprofen kicks in. Her breath grows heavy again.

I place my glasses back on and click away. After a few minutes, her body is tense.

“Instead of staring at me for the next hour, why don’t you ask me what’s really on your mind?”

She sits up. “I can’t express my thoughts in words.”

“Say the first thing that comes to mind. Usually, it’s the most unfiltered and interesting.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason. Patience is not a virtue of mine.”

She presses her lips together. “How old are you, Lincoln?”

I give her a sly smile. “I’m ageless.”

Her brows furrow. “So you’re old?”

“I’m timeless, baby. In my mind, it’s as if I’ve always existed.” I wrap my arm around her and she nestles in close, running her hand along my stomach.

“How many of you are inside your head?”

I take a deep breath as that darkness ripples beneath my skin. “Just the two of us,” I lie. “And trust me, that’s plenty.” I don’t bother trying to explain the split. Partly because I don’t truly understand it myself, but I also don’t want to frighten her.

Fragments, like this one, aren’t sentient. You can’t reason with them, and I don’t seem to have the ability to stop this one.

Her fingers dance lower on my abdomen until she’s playing with the line of my sweats. “How does that all work? I mean, with you and him… Aren’t there sometimes more? I thought DID patients had hundreds of alters.”

I place my computer down, pull her on top of me, run my fingers up her shirt and play with her, running my fingers down her back.

“That’s how powerful I am. Usually the various alters in DID patients make up what’s called the system. I am the system, or at least I used to be. The few times in my existence when a fragment emerged, I would control it and stifle it before it could grow into a sentient being. I’m all this body needs, Summer. And when I take what’s left of Mikael, he will be gone, too.”

Her lips part as if she wants to say something but doesn’t.

Her knees squeeze my torso and her pupils flare. “How do you silence them? The other alters, I mean.”

I chew on my bottom lip. “I tear out their tongues.” I smile at her while I say this, of course.

She gasps. “ Lincoln …how do you do that?”

I shrug. “A knife…though my preferred method is razor blades. Metaphorically, of course, since they aren’t real people. But the pain they experience is real, and it all feels very real to me. Sometimes I’m gentle, but with the particularly stubborn ones, I need to use extreme measures. The outcome, however, is always the same. They are silenced.”

Although…that’s not entirely true, either. They are all part of the system; I just found a box to put them in, so I don’t have to hear them.

She swallows hard. “Do you do that to real people, too, or is that just Mikael?”

My vision shimmers and all Mikael’s memories come rushing in.

Blood, screaming, shredding.

“No, Summer, I don’t kill people.”

Her lip trembles. “Mikael kills people, though, doesn’t he? If you’re part of the same system, then that makes you a killer, too.”

I squeeze her sides and pull her head in for a kiss. “He hasn’t killed a single soul since I was created. I’ve made sure of that.”

She lets out a breath, but her face tells me she’s far from done. Her eyes drift to the back wall where I have Cali.

“Lincoln?”

“Yes, Summer.”

“You have a girl hiding in your walls. The girl you told me you killed.”

She shivers as I run my fingers up her back. “I told you, my love, I don’t kill people. And yes, I do have a girl down here with me—you can thank Mikael for that one. He screwed up and took her in a blind fit of rage. She reminded him of you. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what to do with her. She’s seen my face; she could ruin me.”

She lets out a labored breath. “Why did he come back?”

My body tenses, my pupils shimmer again. “Because of you. You woke him up when he saw you in town the weekend you moved in. I hadn’t felt him for two years before that.”

She stares deep into my eyes, her brows furrowing. She sees it—the split, the anger living untethered in my head.

“He’s stronger than you,” she whispers.

“He’s part of the system, an important part, but no, he’s not stronger than me. He can’t function in society, and he knows it. He hasn’t grown much past his adolescence; his brain never made adulthood because I started taking over that role when he was young. He needs me, Summer, more than I need him.”

She’s quiet and contemplative. Her eyes blink and grow distant. “Can’t you just suppress him like you do the others?”

My pupils flare and he pushes into the periphery, and it’s everything I can do to calm him.

“Relax,” I tell him, pushing him down. This girl must really have a death wish.

“Do you remember anything from last night?” she asks me.

I adjust my glasses, seeking a better view of the expression in her eyes. “Not the part you’re referring to.”

A smile hints at her lips. “And you think I had sex with him?”

I don’t respond as her fingers reach down and find my erection. “You’re just full of questions this morning, aren’t you?”

“I have a right to know the person I’m in love—” She doesn’t finish the sentence.

I arch a brow and smirk. “Continue the thought.”

“I want to know who I’m in love with,” she breathes. “And if he’s a part of you, then that means I love him, too, Lincoln.”

She shifts and a surge of unbalanced and irrational emotions hits me as she grinds her pussy over me. He directs them effortlessly, like he’s playing a fiddle, until the jealousy nearly kills me.

I grit my teeth as his laughter fills my head, spitting me images of my hands wrapping around her neck, wanting to see how pretty she will be when she’s dead.

My heart rate quickens and body tenses as I grip her hips and dig my fingers in her. He hurts her when he fronts, and she seems to enjoy it. Maybe I should hurt her, too?

She runs her hands through her lush white hair and places her hands on my chest as she spreads her legs and slides herself over my cock, like I’m delicate. Her pussy is so tight my cock throbs just from the sensation of taking me deep. She leans down, pressing her tits over me, and I grab her hips as she starts to grind.

“You think he fucked me, and you’re bothered by it,” she whispers.

The rage blooms inside me. The angry split withers and whines. And it’s…exhilarating.

She arches her back, continuing to ride me and staring into the turmoil in my eyes. “You’re jealous, Lincoln. You think he was better than you.”

My jaw tightens as I thrust deep into her. She lets out a little squeak, a sound I’m discovering I really enjoy.

“Be really careful what you’re saying right now,” I warn.

She blinks at me and moves my hands to her soft tits. “Or what?”

She’s testing and teasing me, trying to see what makes me tick. She’s doing her best to understand me. Finally, I understand why he acts the way he does, the extent of his anger. She’s a little fucking tease, and he is downright lethal. I am the only thing in between him and the mass chaos he would unleash on this world.

A burning sensation begins to wind its way through my veins. I need to control it before it explodes out of me and it’s too late.

I squeeze my eyes shut and get lost in the physical sensation of Summer grinding on me. My body relaxes as she squeezes her thighs around me and works my cock.

After a few minutes, my heart is empty again. My body returns to just flesh and bone, and I can breathe. I’m able to enjoy this moment without the emotional baggage that comes with sex, and I just fuck her.

I open my eyes again and she’s staring down at me. She keeps her pussy tight on me, squeezing and grinding. “What did you feel, just now?”

How do I tell her I had the urge to kill her? That I felt his bitterness and rage because that’s all he will share with me.

I lean back, rest my hands on the back of my head and smile, enjoying the view of her tight little body. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s gone.”

She tilts her head, her pretty white hair falling onto her face. “But you felt something, didn’t you?”

I bite my bottom lip, pulling her body down so I can kiss her. “Right now, all I want is to feel you,” I murmur.

I now firmly believe that Summer is the root cause of my insanity and will ultimately lead to my demise. She will be the destruction of everything I know.

Mikael’s emotions are overwhelming, and his desires are so intense, it hurts. It’s unbearable, but I also can’t get enough of them.

He can’t resist when she’s near, and he’s tightening his grip. Every emotion he gives weakens me but also strengthens me. It makes me become him.

I grip Summer by the hips and twist her body around so I’m on top of her. I need her to understand she can’t manipulate me like that. She can’t toy with my emotions just as they begin to surface.

She stares up at me as I press down on her. The shadows are in my eyes, I can sense it. “Lincoln…you’re hurting me,” she whimpers.

She needs a reminder of who I am and what I’m capable of.

I am Shadowface.

I am a god.