I loosen my grip but don’t let go, thumb brushing her pulse like I need to remind myself she’s real and alive and not bleeding because of me.
“You don’t know.” My voice cracks. “The things I did—what she?—”
“I don’t care. I don’t. Fucking care.” Her hand’s on my cheek, and I lose my words, sucking air through my teeth because she’s so warm, so soft, so fucking human and tender, and my insides can’t take that kind of kindness without buckling.
I kiss her.
It’s a mess of teeth and salt and desperation, nothing like pretty or gentle, mouths crashing together like we’ve both been held underwater and need air from each other to survive.
Her hands tangle in my shirt, and I don’t pull away. I don’t want to. Because kissing her is the first real thing, the first true fucking thing I’ve felt in weeks. It’s not broken or bloody or distorted. It’s perfect, and I sweep my tongue through her mouth, needing more of it.Deepening the kiss like I’m trying to pour every broken piece of myself into her so she can see how much I don’t deserve this but how badly I need it anyway.
She tastes like salt and home and everything I thought I’d lost, and for the first time in?—
Something crawls along the back of my neck. Sharp. Wrong. I shrug, wanting it gone. Kiss her harder. Crawling. Then shrug again. Tremors start in my right hand, and I let go, shaking it.
Sophia breaks the kiss. “Are you okay?”
It’s in my arm now, and I look down at my hand. The crawling spreads fast, like fingers dragging over my skin—long, possessive, the exact way she touched me when I was?—
Fuck. I can taste her blood in my mouth. Her ear. It’s metallic and vile, teeth sinking into cartilage.
I jerk back, breath coming fast, the room tilting again. “I can’t?—”
“Reth—”
“You need to leave.”
“No.”
“Please, Sophia.”
She doesn’t back away. “Don’t do this, Reth. Don’t push me?—”
She’ll never forgive what you did.
“Fuck!” I press my palms over my ears, needing her fucking voice gone.
“Reth, you need to breathe through it.” Sophia’s voice. Firm, panicked at the edges. “Take a deep breath.”
She’s going to smell me on you.
“No.”
“Reth, whatever it is, it’s not real. Okay? You’re safe.”
I open my eyes, and Sophia’s there, watching me, and I don’t want her this close whenhervoice is inside my head.
“Please. Leave,” I beg, struggling to get air.
“No. I won’t leave you.”
“Jesus Christ. Goddammit!” I rush past her, straight into the bathroom, slam the door and lock it.
My back hits the wood and I slide down until my ass hits the cold tile, knees drawn up, head in my hands. Valeria’s laugh echoes in my skull, low and satisfied, the way it did when she watched me come apart against my will.
I can still feel her fingers, her breath, the way she praised me like a good dog while my body gave her what my mind screamed no to.
The guilt is worse than the crawling. Sophia’s out there, loving me, and I’m in here with the ghost of the woman who ruined me still riding my skin, smelling of sex and evil.
