Chapter 31 #2
“Be careful, Son. They are getting stronger.” My father's voice was now a whisper.
One that wormed its way into my head with all the other bullshit he'd spoken in these last few minutes.
. . during the most painful moment of my life, when my broken heart ruptured enough to let him in.
To let him ruin me all over again, by having me believe something that wasn't fucking real.
I scooped Jolie’s head into my palm, and her blood made my skin sticky.
Her hand moved, the demon's power growing enough to move Jolie's limbs. Her fingers drew high, reaching for my neck.
“Be careful, Son!” my father screamed. “It's going to hurt you.”
The demon used Jolie's thin and broken nails to scratch at my bruises. My father was right, it was trying to hurt me.
I stared up at him, holding back the demon's hand. Not one part of Jolie’s body belonged to me now. It was already possessed by something else. I bent the demon’s wrist back as it tried to reach me again.
My stare didn't leave the demon, seeing its fear of failing all over Jolie's pretty face.
“Hell,” it whispered, sounding so much like the girl I craved to hear. “Stop.”
I'd never listen to its command.
“I’ll help you, kid,” my father shouted down.
The creaking of the floorboards above my head alerted me to my father's retreating steps. To the sound of him rustling through his bedside drawers for something he kept hidden.
I could hear too much, my senses exploding into overdrive.
“Stop.” Another command blared, this one coming from somewhere inside me. I recognized the voice—similar to mine, but even with emotion riding the tone, it was less aggressive. It was Woodrow.
Jolie's wrist popped, her bone slipping out of place, making it harder for the demon to hurt me.
She roared out her pain. Her other hand came up quickly, her bony knuckles creating a small fracture along the bridge of my nose. My blood rained down on her, and as she opened her mouth to call his name–“Woodrow!”—she choked on it.
Her gargled word made no sense to my ears, but somehow, he fucking heard it, and he was fighting with me to get to the surface, using energy I needed to fight off this demon. Wasting it.
And it gave the entity possessing Jolie’s frail body time to tumble away from me.
Her hands and one knee patted the floor, creating a space between us.
This thing already knew the weaknesses of her body, careful not to put her damaged leg to the ground, and that meant it was stretched out long enough for me to grab.
Her scream was loud as I yanked her back, my eyes blinking in her image as my muscles twitched, loosening my grip.
A small foot kicked me away, more sharp nails catching my skin.
I staggered to her front, unsteady on my feet. I edged backwards, blocking the escape through the front door. Blocking the bright moonbeam through the cracked glass.
I twitched again, and gripped onto anything that was near, and apparently that was flimsy cardigans hanging from a nearby coat rail. They gave no support, and I blanked, falling to the floor.
Woodrow
Old wood, faded and dirty, assaulted my knees.
I rushed to my feet, listening to the sound of my father upstairs, arguing with someone who shouldn’t be in this house.
They were both searching for something that my mother must have moved during one of her reorganizing sprees.
She liked moving stuff around that didn’t belong to her.
I took a step forward, my eyes finding Jolie in the space between the hallway and the kitchen.
“Moonlight,” I called quietly, forcing myself to step in her direction.
The look of fear on her face would haunt me until the day I die. Her mouth was open, her trembling lips mumbling something as her head shook, pleadingly.
“Moonlight,” I said again, moving closer to her frozen body. I took in the blood on her body, a trail of red moving down her neck.
Drifting into her breathing space, she didn’t move. I flicked her hair from her neck, peeling it from her sticky blood. My fingers weaved through her curls. And she jumped, flinching from the pain and not me.
“You’re bleeding.”
She didn’t talk, but shaking fingers wrapped around my wrist as I touched her, proving she didn’t trust me.
And it hurt me.
My hold on her stiffened. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted something to grasp onto because I was slipping away already.
It freaked her out, and she pushed away, falling into the kitchen away from me.
I blinked, seeing her differently, through someone else’s eyes. As a thing that was no longer my girl.
My head spun. Hell wanted to get back to the top. He wanted to protect me from my feelings and the girl that caused the pain behind them—pain, he was also feeling.
I tried to touch her again.
“Keep me here. Keep me with you. Talk me through it,” I begged, not knowing how to do it alone. “Jolie. . .”
She backed herself against the far wall. Her fingers tried the back door handle but the door was locked.
She didn’t talk to me, but her eyes remained glued on me, watching as I switched rapidly, my eyes blinking throughout, my body gifting her the image of its mini-spasms.
The rage inside for the brief seconds where Hell took over couldn’t be held in, but I wouldn’t allow him to get near Jolie.
But every time she so much as moved or murmured, he broke everything between them.
Cookware pots flew through the air, one of which, knocked one of my mother’s scented candles onto its side.
The flame too near to the ugly curtains.
But Hell didn’t care about that. He stomped around, destroying all in his path; cups smashed and glasses shattered.
He stepped over the broken pieces, each one crunching beneath our bare feet.
I’d feel the pain of those china splinters later.
Jolie’s breath got quicker as he closed in, a desperate plea fell out of her mouth, “Woodrow, please.”
And I heard her. Her voice called me back, just like I’d asked.
Registering the switch between Hell and me, she relaxed a little. . . only a little.
And that hurt, too.
I heard my father shout upstairs, shout at my mother who had suddenly appeared from wherever the fuck she’d been. He’d found the item he was looking for. My stomach dropped because I knew what item that was.
“You need to leave. Right now.”