18. Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Sunshine
It took ten minutes for that fucker to stop talking. He finally told me he’d change my dose again, hopefully to a stronger one.
Maybe it will help tell the shadows hanging onto the fringe of my shorts to detach like the leeches they are and flop on the ground. Some other unsuspecting victim can have them—they can leap onto their coattails and hang on for dear life like I have been. Give them a taste of their own medicine.
You are getting too close to the edge, girl. Telling that man about us is going to put you in the same hole you threw those men.
Liz chides, with her nose tilted into the air. Empty eyes stare down the curve of her bridge with all her pompous righteousness.
Stuck-up vulture.
Ignoring her, they follow me into my room before I can get the door closed, like a pair of pets crying for treats I do not have to give. Bobbing and weaving between my legs, their wails becoming louder until I finally cave and let them have my last slice of bologna.
Frantic for an anchor, I look around my room for something to tie myself to before I’m sucked violently into the darkness. It never works, but I keep trying; at least when I wake up I’m somewhere in the apartment away from innocent people.
My medication won’t be ready fast enough. I’ll end up losing my shit before I get the chance to go to the pharmacy—they never fill it in time anyway. Always takes a day or so before they send me a text to let me know they’re—
“GET OUT!” I scream, startling Liz who looks over her shoulder from where she has my pajama shorts hanging by a hooked finger—disgust on her flawless face.
Of course she’d judge undergarments; sorry they’re not pantaloons, your grace.
After a moment, she drops them to the floor and wipes her hands down the front of her floor-length skirt.
Scowling at her, I don’t see where Kate is but she lets me know immediately when her tongue slides through the gaps of my fishnets.
Turning, I swing at her, which makes the thready diamonds rip and tangle around her rough muscle. Fucking wonderful, another pair I have to buy.
Twisting to find her again, cold dead hands grab my ankles and yank, sending me falling backward onto my bed as she launches.
Kicking at her, I scurry across the crumpled bedding where Elias and I were for days—I’ve yet to tidy up.
Misjudging the distance to the edge, my hand misses the side and gravity takes me with it.
Plummeting off the edge, I hit the floor with a grunt before Kate is on top of me again.
“STOP!” I screech at her, but she’s as deaf as a doornail.
In, in, in, in, in, in, she growls, biting at me.
I swat at her again and she catches my hand between her gnarly teeth an chomps through the skin to the bones.
“Ahhhh!” I shriek when pain explodes across my fingers. Wrenching my hand free, it snaps back missing three digits.
Blood squirts over the both of us as it pours down my arm. Tears burst from my eyes from the agony pulsing up and down my bones. I kick and scream, shoving at the witch with my other arm as I cry for help that’s never coming.
She’s never hurt me like this, tormented me and broke me, yeah, but never this—she’s supposed to protect me. Not use me as a fucking chew toy!
This is what happens, girl. Take your punishment! Liz hisses from the chair Elias sits in when he’s watching me sleep.
“Fo…for what! What’d I do!” Grabbing my hand, it steadily bleeds, soaking into my shirt with heat and a sugary-stickiness.
Kate comes for me again. Her fingers dig into my cheeks to pry my jaw down. When the anguish won’t allow me to keep it shut any longer, I open. She pins it nearly to my chest and force feeds her hand behind my teeth—reaching for my soul.
Retching, I tense and lurch under her when she makes it to my throat—her fist bulging in my neck.
Speaking about us—silence is a virtue, girl. He will never believe you, no one will. It’s time you stopped resisting and trying to poison us. It only makes things worse for you.
Spluttering around Kate’s wrist, saliva and rancid taste of her flesh makes me want to hurl—sickness begins building low in my stomach as it tightens and forces bile up my esophagus.
Howling, Kate rips her hand from my mouth when the burning acid makes it to her raw skin. Slinging her arm around, she snarls at me, jagged teeth bared in warning that I do not heed.
Sadie!
She bellows—speaking with an unearthly rumble that sends the fear of death racing up my spine when she comes for me again. Liz does nothing to help. I swing my other arm, keeping the damaged fingers cradled to my chest while trying to fight her off.
“Sadie… fuck, stop!” her voice deepens.
Kate fists my hair with both hands and pulls me away from the bed.
My heels beat the floor as I kick, friction from the carpet tugs at my clothes, but fuck ‘em. They don’t matter when I’m fighting for my fucking life, and this deranged wraith is five feet away from hauling me into the bathroom to butcher me.
“Dammit, Sunshine, look at me!”
L…Lias?
My arms are ripped away from my chest by an invisible force, the curdled, gelatinous blood at my severed fingers is displaced enough to bleed again.
Dropped like a sack of rocks, my back collides with tile. Pain shoots down my neck and spine when my occipital bone smacks the floor. Then the crazed woman is on me, her mangled hands coiling tight around my throat—punishing me just like Liz said—preventing my lungs from receiving precious air.
“Shit. Shit, don’t…don’t do this.” The same deep timber from before floods my ears.
I can’t stop her, she’s too strong.
Light flashes across my vision; the train is racing down the track, here to cart me away just like I knew it would. Its roar is loud, vibrating my chest, and all I can do is lie here and let her deliver me.
“Fuck, Sadie!”
Kate fills my sights, her nose pressed to mine when I surrender.
If I keep fighting, I’ll die. Crashing her mouth to mine, we convulse on the floor—her violence shaking the Earth as she sinks inside of me.
My throat works around the boulder in my throat where she disappears until everything that makes me who I am slips into unconsciousness.
Elias
“Fuck, Sadie!”
Her face is already turning blue and I can’t get her hands away from her damn throat.
She’s squeezing so damn tight her fingers have drained themselves of blood.
And the blood? Fuck, it’s rich and coming from where her nails have dug into her neck.
Fighting her, my fists cuff around her wrists where I tug and tug but she’s so fucking strong.
Time rushes past as she struggles to breathe at the weight of her own hands. Her lungs labor, sucking her diaphragm deep under her ribs for a single gasp of air. Over and over, her stomach sinks to aid as she suffocates herself.
When her movements become sluggish and body goes limp, my fucking heart drops.
“No… no no no!”
Finally able to wrench her hands away, they fall to the floor when I let them go. Immediately I pinch Sadie’s nose and cover her mouth with my own—blowing hard enough for her chest to rise. Once, twice, three times before she sucks in air and her eyes shoot open.
Pools of obsidian lock onto me while her chest stills, not quite rising but not caving for oxygen either. I don’t dare move as I hold my hands up in submission. The empty ominous stare of those darkened eyes give me the fucking creeps, looking through me like I’m made of glass.
Imagine my worry when I heard her screaming the moment I stepped off the elevator—her manic screeching drowned out the string performance. My keys were in my hand, twisting the lock and discarded on the entry table in a matter of seconds before I rushed down the hall.
I nearly had to break through her bedroom door to get to her. When I saw her, though, I didn’t know what to think. She was thrashing halfway inside of the bathroom—heels shoving at the carpet but there wasn't any sound and that’s when I found her strangling herself.
I’ve seen her do terrible shit—slice her arms open, sit in the gathering snow on her patio, and starve herself—but never has she tried to rip the voices out of her throat.
At least that’s what I think she was doing.
It wrecks me to find her tearing herself open, as I’m the one who patches her delicate skin and listens to her raspy sobs through the night.
“Who’s driving?” I grunt, slapping her hands away when she reaches for the shredded skin of Sadie’s neck.
An unsettling grin splits across her face—I already know who’s in there, the distressing silence gives it away.
Easing back, I put distance between us by getting my ass off the floor.
Her body lifts, sitting up like she didn’t just strangle herself into unconsciousness.
If this were the battlefield, I’d have her on her face, zip ties wound around her arms and ankles—hog-tied to keep both of us safe and any backup that arrives. Sadly, I don’t have that luxury.
I could call her dad, tell him I need help, but she’ll fuck me up before he could hit the highway. I’m alone with this devil and her sights are set on me.
“Easy Kate.” My tone’s low, feigning softness.
Backing into the larger space of her bedroom, she’s follows—prowling—looking for a chink in my armor. She won’t find it, not this time. I know better than to let my guard down when she’s riding Sadie. When my girl doesn’t have control.
Lately she hasn’t, which means I sleep next to her like I’m living in a hole I personally dug into the desert sand. Where I lay and wait for artillery to strike and hope I’m not already in my grave.
That’s one way to describe Kate—a ticking bomb. No, a nuclear reactor. Unstable and unpredictable. One thing’s for sure—when she’s here, you’ll pay in blood. Looks like she wanted Sadie’s today and that’s un-fucking-acceptable. How the hell does she expect to survive if the body she possesses dies?