"I wanted you to see something good. I wanted to be the something good for you." He wears a lopsided smile that makes him look like a kid. "Pretty presumptuous of me, huh?"
I laugh, a real, heartfelt sound. "Miguel, you really are the first and only friend I've ever had. And for that, you'll always have a special place in my heart."
His smile is sad but understanding. "You'll have one in mine too, Evie. Always."
We sit there for a few more moments, the beep of the heart monitor bringing a weighted rhythm and gravity to our goodbye.
As I stand to leave, Miguel speaks up one last time. "Take care of yourself, Evie. And remember, some of us out here... we aren’t so bad."
I nod, holding back tears. "Thank you, Miguel. For everything."
Stepping out of the room, I feel a chapter of my life closing behind me.
The bus ride home is a blur. It’s twilight by the time I let myself into my apartment, and I don’t bother turning on the light. Instead, I make a beeline straight for the bed, falling back on it and letting out a massive sigh, purging oxygen from even my toes.
I’m not sure how I feel. Peaceful? Absolved? Is this what closure feels like?
Or is it sadness and regret that I couldn’t be what Miguel needed? That I failed my test of being normal?
Maybe. But I am what I am.
I want who I want.
Miguel will finish college, he’ll become the best damn immigration attorney and attract a girl who worships the ground he walks on and is worthy of his affection.
A shadow elongates out from under the bed. Caught by the moonlight from my window, I catch the silhouette of two long spiraled horns.
Pushing myself up to settle on my palms, my lungs seize. They’ve never been so long before.
"Evvviieeee…" a gravelly voice echoes through the room. Its tone is as deep as if it had been shoveled out from the depths of hell itself.
My fingers clench into the sheets.
"Ismellyou." The voice turns sharp, vicious. An ice cold sweat breaks out on my back and between my breasts. Panicked buzzing drones in my ears as every nerve ending screams at me to run, to get out.
Launching off the bed, I race toward the door. I don’t even clear the bedroom before a tendril of shadow snaps around my waist, yanking me back and throwing me on the bed.
Before I know it, Shadow is hovering over me, eyes black as coal. There is no recognition, no mercy, no remorse in them as his claws tear through the fabric at my chest, splitting skin and splattering my blood against the wall. White-hot pain—it’s too deep, too much for my brain as it explodes with fiery warnings.
I cry out in pain. "Shadow?—"
But it’s no use, because this isn’t my Shadow, and there is too much blood.
Out of Control
Ithought I died.
When Shadow came to me tonight, his horns were wildly long, eyes black as the space between the stars, and his violence pushed him past recognition of me.
When he tackled me to the bed and slashed my chest open, I submitted myself to the end. He’d eat my heart and come to his senses later.
But after a couple of hard blinks, the feeling returns to my shock-numbed body.
Instead of tearing my heart out from a carnage of broken ribs, Shadow licks hungrily at the blood of my wounds. The sensation of his warm, dexterous tongue wars with the fiery pain of my split flesh. The cuts are too deep this time. This is not the attack of a lover trying to hold himself at bay.
Shadow is completely feral, driven by bloodlust.
"Shadow," I gasp, the pain turning my voice raw and tight. "It’s me. Please remember."
