So without hesitation, my hand reached for the bottle, but I stilled.
Something was different. The color. There was something off about the color. Most wouldn’t notice it. But that was the problem. I wasn’t like most. The world I lived in was built on details, the smallest of shifts, the tiniest of tells. And I happened to know my whiskey like the weight of a gun in my palm.
This whiskey was not quite right.
Yet, I lifted the wine glass to my hand, bent the bottle, and poured. The liquid swirled into the glass, releasing its scent into the air; smoke and oak, but something else lurked beneath. Faint.Wrong.
My fingers tightened around the glass, lifting it to my nose, slow and deliberate. I inhaled.
Yes. Definitely, something wasn’t quite right. My eyes flickered to her. She was watching me now. Fear had tightened her features, and her breathing had gone shallow.
I saw the way her hand twitched as if she wanted to reach for me, to stop me, but she didn’t.
She watched me move the glass to my lips, and it wasn’t until I took a sip that she lurched forward, hand thrusting to snatch the glass.
“No!” she shrieked, her fingers merely brushing the glass as I swallowed.
This girl had no idea how obsessive I had become. I would even take her poison just to prove a point. That not even death would set her free from me.
“No.” Her voice trembled.
Well, too late.
The burn of whiskey coated my throat. But there was suddenly something else, something bitter. Something that sank its claws into my stomach the moment it hit.
The pain was slow at first, curling low in my gut like an ember waiting to catch flame.
Then it began to spread, twisting, writhing, clawing through my veins like a living thing, like a thousand tiny knives slicing through me from the inside.
My breath hitched, her words doubling over and distorted, the image of her blurring.
The fire erupted, my stomach knotting violently, a sharp, tearing agony that had me doubling over. My fingers spasmed and a distorted shattering sound echoed when I hit the floor.
My blood turned molten, burning, breaking me from the inside. Then came the choking. A cough wrenched from my throat, pressing, as a splatter of blood dribbled down my chin.
Like a mighty king finally falling, my knees hit the floor, my body rebelling against me, every muscle seizing, twisting a pain so consuming it almost ripped a laugh from my lips.
Almost.
Through the haze of agony, the suffocating fog closing in, I felt her arms wrapped around me, pressing me against her body, laying my head on her lap.
My blurry gaze lifted to catch what she looked like when she finally succeeded in pushing me to kneel before her.
And there it was.
Wide-eyed.
Frozen.
Beautiful.
So fucking beautiful.
And mine.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Epilogue
