1. Chapter 1 #2
I choke on a breath, my body shaking as the walls seem to close in. “I’m not—” My voice breaks. “I’m not okay—”
But there’s no one there to hear it.
The words are swallowed by the silence pressing in. The only other sound is my uneven and shallow breathing. My chest feels heavy, like something is sitting on my lungs and refusing to fucking move.
I squeeze my eyes shut, doing my best to avoid the blurring shadows along the walls. And after a few beats, my eyes open slowly. They’re dragged toward the far side of the room like something is pulling them there. A dresser sits against the wall, and on it is something that makes my stomach drop.
The mask.
Him. Me.
It’s sitting there, propped up like it was placed carefully, facing the bed. My nails dig into the blankets as a cold, crawling sensation spreads down my spine. He’s staring at me.
“No.” The word comes out hoarse, and I shake my head hard. “No, you’re not—”
My vision warps, its eyes darkening until they feel depthless. They’re too aware of all of my inner thoughts and demons. They know everything about me.
He does.
“Stop looking at me.” My voice cracks, louder now.
The mask doesn’t move, but I know he can see everything we’ve done.
My hands twitch, fingers curling like they’re remembering the shape of her throat, the pressure, the—
“Shut up,” I snarl, even though he hasn’t said a word. “You don’t—” My chest tightens, breath hitching hard. “It’s your fault.” Spit flies from my mouth like I’m a feral animal.
A brutal stabbing pain hits me somewhere in my head.
“Alright,” I pant, wincing.
Her face. Her eyes.
The way it all changed the moment she realized I wasn’t going to stop.
“No!” My back hits the wall behind me as I try to get away from it.
From those horrible, staring eyes that won’t look away.
“What did you make me do?” I scream, panic clawing its way back up my throat. Choking, suffocating me. I slam my head against the wall, stars bursting behind my eyes.
But the mask doesn’t move. He just sits there like some cruel, taunting asshole. He told me that I’d be okay if I let him take over. I did. And I’m still hurting.
“You still don’t get it.” The voice slithers through my skull in a warped version of my own, rough and distorted.
“Leave me alone.” My voice cracks on the words.
The laugh that follows isn’t loud, but it seeps into my bones anyway. “I didn’t make you do anything, Jude.”
A pulse of nausea rolls through my stomach.
“I just stopped you from looking away. From running from what you are.”
My breath catches in my throat as something deep inside me splinters. “No.” The denial comes immediately, desperately. Because if he’s right, then none of this belongs to him. It belongs to me.
“You begged me to take over.”
My head shakes as if I could will him out of my goddamn head.
“You were drowning.” The voice is almost gentle now. “You wanted the pain gone. You wanted the guilt gone. You wanted the memories gone. You wanted everything gone.”
My entire body is shaking. I can still feel and smell the drugs and the blood. The endless ache hollowing me out until I would’ve agreed to anything if it meant feeling nothing for a few hours.
“So I helped you.”
“You lied.” The words leave me as a whisper, my eyes burning. “You told me it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”
The silence stretches. “And it wouldn’t,” the voice murmurs. “If you’d stop fighting.”
“No.”
“You keep trying to separate yourself from it. Pretend there’s a version of you that wouldn’t have done those things.” The laugh that follows is soft. “But there isn’t.”
I slam my head against the wall again, my heart now putting up a desperate fight because it is screaming at me that hurting her is wrong and that I don’t want that. But the pain…
“Go away.” My voice trembles. “Please.”
The shadows seem to lengthen around the room, creeping across the floor toward the bed. Please take my soul now. After everything, just fucking take it. I don’t want it anymore.
“You keep blaming me because it’s easier.”
The words settle over me, sticky and heavy like blood.
“It’s easier to pretend there’s a monster sitting on this dresser than to admit the monster has always lived under your skin.”
My heart feels like it’s being crushed inside my chest. Tears blur my vision. “I’m not a bad person,” I sob. “I don’t want to do these things. I never did.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he hisses. “I know the spark in your eye, the pulse through your veins when you rip someone’s soul from their body. You like it. You crave it.”
“No,” I repeat, refusing to listen to that thing.
But he just laughs. I already know what he’s about to say. I know because the voice belongs to me.
The mask’s empty gaze never leaves mine. “She wasn’t afraid of me, Jude.” The darkness seems to lean closer. “She was afraid of you.”
My breath comes fast and shallow now, my body trembling as I press back into the mattress, as far from him as I can get, even though there’s nowhere to go.
“You’re wrong,” I whisper, the word barely there. “You did that. I didn’t. You hurt her—” My heart shatters, because I can’t stop seeing it. The image…the moment right before her life started draining out of her eyes because of me.