Page 11 of Shattered In Darkness

Sweat needles down my spine. If she pulls away or turns off the light, I’ll lose her. If she keeps looking, I might explode—implode, collapse inward, black out the sun with all this filthy wanting.

Her mouth opens, closes, and I see the fine tremor in her hands.

My lips curl. She’s scared, but almost smiling. There’s something broken and hungry in her, too. I know it. I can smell it through the glass. She’s not like the other girls who laugh at my cold stare at school, the girls who think I am beneath noticing.

Bambi is different.

I decide at that moment that she will be mine.

She finishes wiping her window and vanishes for a moment. A flash of movement, then nothing. My body twists with disappointment. How quickly I’m addicted. Is this what normal boys feel? This gnawing, this sick obsession? Or is this already warped, something uglier than love?

I let my hand drop from between my legs, just enough composure to steady myself, and then I inch forward into the blue-lit shadows until I can see her room again. Hungry, desperate, already plotting ways to make her come back.

She doesn’t.

I hate how empty it feels; the taste of her vanishing lingers, teeth sinking into the tender place beneath my ribs. My mouth is dry. I want to kick the fucking wall, howl through the screen, tear something apart until my head is blank and there’s nothing but her face floating in the darkness.

It takes a week and a half of watching her through the window until I find the courage to talk to her. Sophie—like I suspected—became her friend. She’s more desperate than I am to have peers in this new town.

My heart begins to race while I stand at the top of the stairs, watching as she walks inside with my sister. Her legs are long and tan, and I wonder how it would feel to have them wrapped around my waist.

Her doe-eyes flicker back and forth, observing her surroundings. She takes in everything, as if she feels like she needs to.

What are you afraid of?

Before I can ponder that, my sister sees me. Shit.

She waves at me. “Brody! Come down and meet our new neighbor. She’s really nice.”

I don’t doubt it. She looks nice. And sweet.

I stalk down the stairs, body thrumming. I have to steady my grip on the banister, so I don’t shatter the cheap wood under my palm. Control. Always control.

Bambi. Closer now. Flesh and breath and nerves, not a fantasy projection spliced with city light.

Sophie’s eyes meet mine, soft and desperate for approval. She’s always looking for a sign I won’t explode. Little mediator, little shield. She doesn’t know how easy she makes it to be human. I nod at her, barely, which makes her brighten in the hall-light.

The girl looks even prettier up close. Skin spiced gold, scattered with faint stripes of sun, tinged wild and alive. Lips plush, cuter than any girl I’ve seen. Not that I’ve cared to look before.

And her eyes. Fuck. They’re a captivating shade of blue.

I’m inhaling her.

“Hey,” I say, letting my voice carry. I keep my eyes trained on hers, catching the flicker of uncertainty, curiosity, maybe a shadow of the fear she tried to hide last time she looked through the glass at me. Her scent’s already floating in.

Her lips part. She stares for one heartbeat too long, pupils blown wide. “Hi.” Breathless. Almost a gasp.

Sophie, sweet idiot, beams between us. She wants so badly for this to be normal. “Brody, this is Lola. Lola, Brody.”

“Nice to meet you, Lola.” My voice comes out low. Intimate.

She tugs the hem of her shirt, fingers restless, unreadable. “Nice to meet you too.

Her gaze lingers on my jaw, then drops, then flickers up again. A moth learning what it means to find a flame. I want to pin her to the nearest wall and press my mouth to her pulse. I want to see how she trembles up close, how she sounds when she breaks between threat and pleasure.

I’m not sure what else I should say. I haven’t talked to many girls, at least, not for too long. But I want to talk to her, I want to dive in deep and bury myself in there.

“It’s nice to have some new neighbors who are my age. The last owners were old.” Lola turns to Sophie as she speaks, but she side-eyes me.