“I don’t like her,” he mumbled from his cracked door.
I sighed. “You don’t like anyone.”
Chapter 32
Fallon
The wooden floors creaked,the night air rasped, and the cold darkness licked its lips before lapping my skin, a forewarning all pulling me from my sleep. I tossed and turned onto my back and faced the opened balcony doors where the topaz moon hovered over the Atlantic in the matte-black sky. The house whispered another faintcreeaaak, and I darted my gaze to the sound, seeing nothing in the dark corners of my bedroom. Not even Casper, who was probably sleeping with Gramps.
I trained my heart to calm, kicked the rest of the blankets off my slick body.
Then a shadow emerged from the dark corner and lunged at me! The weight of him bound me to the bed. My eyes bulged with fear and confusion as I swung my arms out in front of me, pushing against him.
Against Julian! It was Julian!
“Julian!” I cried, but with all his strength, his hand gripped my throat, and he choked me, digging my neck into the mattress.
In an instant, oxygen vanished! I clawed at his chest, his shoulders! I couldn’t breathe!Julian, I can’t breathe!JULIAN, IT’S ME! I wanted to scream, but my words and voice were all trapped in my frantic mind.
The blue vein in his neck popped, and Julian’s silver eyes, empty and hollow, stared blankly down at me with every intention to kill me. Inside them, all the lights were out. The dead zone, empty rooms, uninhabited planets. The same look I’d seen before.
I clawed at his shoulders, dug my nails into his straining neck. I pierced his skin, and blood seeped down his throat as his grip tightened around my neck!
Julian, please!My wide eyes burned, tears frozen, blurring my vision as he held me there in a locked grip, blacked out and cold, so cold! My body thrashed against his, but it was no use, for his legs had straddled me, pinned me in place.
JULIAN, STOP!My mind became hazy, my limbs going numb. I didn’t know what to do!What do I do?!
All I saw was silver, two icy silver slits above his black mask as my lungs ached for air.
I stopped fighting, for it was useless. He was killing me. He was trapped. I couldn’t make sense of it.
He wasn’t here. In Julian’s mind, he was somewhere else while I was dying beneath him. I felt every last second tick by, and I cradled his head in my hands, placed my fingers against his slamming pulse.
He was lost, so lost. Killing me, and I loved him.
Then Julian blinked. Once, twice, three times.
He’d blinked, and now his confused gaze was scanning my face, his hand around my neck, the body it was attached to. Recognition kicked in. I noticed the change in his eyes and how they shifted from cold to something of twisting injury.
“Fallon,” he gasped and released his grip, his chest starting to heave, his body starting to shake. “No … Fallon … no,fuck!”he cursed.
I choked on the abundance of air, feeling it slide down my throat and fill my lungs. I couldn’t catch a solid breath as tears rushed from my eyes, my chest wheezing for oxygen. Julian lifted his shaky hands from the mattress, yanked at his hair as he pulled away from me.
I felt his distance, his pain. I felt it as real as I felt his hand around my throat, and I couldn’t breathe all over again. Under his tight skin, his muscles flinched as if it were a command to bolt from me. My head shook as the tears finally were able to fall.
“Julian, don’t,” I pleaded, gripping the collar of his shirt, tearing it as I tried pulling him back to me. Every muscle in his neck clenched when I grabbed his mask-covered jaw so he would look at me. “Julian!”
He pinched his eyes closed, then opened them, and his eyes were strung out, confused, seeming as if he were bouncing between what was real and what wasn’t.
“Oh, god, what is wrong with me?!” he shouted in anguish. Sweat covered his forehead, his hairline. His pupils were dilated, only a silver outline around them now.
He scanned the room, drifting and shaking his head, and I went to grab his face again. Julian shot up a hand, blocking my every attempt before he jumped to his feet.
Desperate, I fisted his coat, and he doubled backward. “Julian, I know it wasn’t you. I know you, and that wasn’t you. It’s okay, let me help you.”
“No, Fallon, you don’t know! You have no idea. Don’t say that. Don’t pretend you know me when you have no idea. You don’t know me!Please! Let me go!”
“No!”I cried, sounding senseless and pathetic. He yanked from my grasp. Panic cut every dreadful second in two with each step he took to the balcony. I followed after him. The cold wind rushed around me from all angles, freezing the tears against my cheeks. “Julian, stop!”
