Caroline watches in wide-eyed terror, my bedside table the only thing supporting her trembling weight. She screams and screams and screams.
Shadow rips away my restraints. I’ve seen him angry, upset, and furious, but right now he is unhinged. Raw, explosive fury born of hell itself
I’ve only seen him this way one other time in my life—right before he disappeared for four years.
"Shadow," I breathe. Suddenly, the cuts don’t hurt. They only intensify the feelings I have in Shadow’s presence. Lust. Power. Need. A need to be near him, to be touched by him, wanted by him.
Still screaming, Caroline makes a run for it, but a tentacle snaps out, wrapping around her foot. She slams to the floor, fingers clawing at the carpet even as he jerks her back into theroom. He lifts her up by one ankle, her cigarette falling to the ground as she’s held prone.
Satisfaction swells inside me so intensely, my breath comes in ragged heaves.
Shadow’s claws grip my arms, yanking me up. My head jerks as I’m pulled against his hard body with a possessive force that makes my chest ache.
"You’re bleeding," he snarls.
For a moment, there is no one else there but me and my Shadow. Two monsters united.
I grip his hard shoulders. "Taste it," I command in a raspy voice.
Shadow’s mouth splits into a fang-filled smile, surprising me. "My little animal." Then he licks up my throat, the snake split of his tongue tickling my cut flesh. I close my eyes and tip my head back, offering him anything and everything.
Caroline’s cries surround us as she dangles helplessly along next to her red-faced husband who squirms and snorts as blood leaks heavily from his nose.
The violence, the screaming, Shadow unhinged. It all transports me to another time.
The last time I saw my monster before he disappeared.
The Night My Monster Left Me
17 Years Old
The door creaks open at midnight. I click off the flashlight I had trained on my book. I could use the lamp, but it’s a habit I can’t break from sharing rooms for so long.
Expensive black shoes cross the threshold with a barely audible creak, and I hold my breath.
David. The smell of alcohol accompanies him, mixing with his cologne.
He closes the door and crosses over to my desk, settling down into the chair.
"Evie," he says quietly. I can’t make out his features in the darkness to ascertain what he’s doing here. "You were a beautiful child when you came here, but as you get older," he lets out a low whistle.
The hairs on the back of my neck and arms stick up like needles. Alarm rings in my ears, or is that my heartbeat?
He never does this at night. It’s always during the day between when he picks me up from school and when Jean comes home.
"I dream of you when I’m at work," he says in a faraway voice as if he’s dreaming of me now. "How perfect, how innocent you are, packaged in such a perfec…" he doesn’t go on. David never says much during our alone times. He’s not vulgar like that. He always shows me what he wants with his hands and body, directing me.
Then he pushes out of the chair and stands in the middle of the room. I hear him unzip and know what he wants. It’s hard to breathe.
Nighttime is when I’m safe. To have him come in here and ruin that, it hurts. It shreds my insides and I almost want to fight back.
But I’ll be eighteen in a couple months. Is the fight worth it, when the end is so close I can taste it? David and Jean plan to help me get into college. I have the grades, even if I don’t have the extracurriculars.
Pushing back the covers, I slowly make my way out of bed and cross over to him. David’s hand tangles in my hair, touching me with reverence before he gives me a small push. I drop down to my knees. My mind has already stolen away to think about the book I’m reading. Jane Eyre. How her friend Heather Burns had her hair cut off in front of the entire orphanage and Jane had hers chopped off as well, in solidarity.
I wish I had a friend like that.
My mind is completely occupied while I go through the motions that have now become as automatic as brushing my teeth.
