behind me to steady himself. His black hair lay in damp spikes against his forehead. His eyes looked dark and tortured. He was so beautiful and sad that it hurt to look at him. God…he deserved so much more than this.
“You don’t want me.”
“You have no idea what I want,” he said.
“You don’t need me,” I whispered. “You need something any other girl in this town could give you.”
His thumb brushed the side of my face and he swallowed. “I don’t want them.”
Something inside my chest began to pound. Or maybe it was just the memory of what my body was supposed to do with a boy this close.
He leaned in closer and I closed my eyes.
How could he make me feel like this? How could he ignite sensations that had been dead for a thousand years? I couldn’t lose myself to this, no matter how good it felt. Not now. Not ever.
I exhaled, letting go of the corporeality, to step through him, but he stopped me just like he had in the car. Panic flared to life in my chest as my gaze traveled down to his fingers wrapped around my waist. I focused, trying again, but under his fingers, I was solid. Flesh. Every brush of his skin on mine was pushing the death out of me and filling me with artificial life.
“I want
“I want your taste in my mouth. I want your heat in my veins.” One of his hands came up to cradle my jaw as he gently kissed my top lip, them my bottom, lingering there the longest. I whimpered into his mouth and every part of him shook with what I could only guess was restraint. He pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “I want it to erase everything that’s inside of me right now. Say it’s okay, Anaya. Tell me you want me, too.”
His thumb traced my bottom lip where his mouth had just been and I swayed into him. Some part of me wanted to give in, but I knew he didn’t really want me. He was too good at this. No matter what he said, he just wanted what every other girl he sought out gave him. Escape. A way to forget. I let the taste of him linger there for an instant, then broke away and gently shoved him back. I couldn’t do this. Tarik. Tarik was so close. I’d waited a thousand years for him! I couldn’t let myself ruin everything now.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Cash pulled back and stared at me, his jaw set into a hard line. He raked his fingers through his hair and backed away.
“Why’d you have to save me? Why couldn’t you have just done your damn job at that fire and taken me!”
“That wasn’t my decision. I just did as I was told.”
It sounded so cheap. So awful on the heels of the intimate moment we’d just shared.
“I hate this, Anaya!” He backed away shaking, pulling at the tie around his neck as if it were choking him, fighting the tears glistening in his eyes. “I want my life back!”
Cash’s eyes searched my face, pleading. The desperate look in them sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
“Take me,” he said.
“What?”
“Take me,” he repeated. “If I need to die first, just tell me what I have to do. Then you can take me to be with my dad and all of this will be over. Right?”
“I…I can’t do that.”
“Why the hell not?” His hands slammed against the door, caging me in.
“Because I care about you,” I said, trying to catch the breath I didn’t need. It wasn’t a lie. I did care about him. But it wasn’t the truth, either, and the words tasted awful coming out of my mouth. I should have told him the truth. I was trading his misery for my redemption. His torture for my chance to get through the gates that had taunted me every day for the last thousand years. I took away his chance at eternal happiness so that I could get back to Tarik. But I couldn’t say that. Not after he’d just kissed me.
“There’s more.” He stood frozen in place, refusing to let me free. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I slipped out from under him and stilled. The dead were calling. So warm and sweet. The scythe in my holster wasn’t as patient. It burned my hip through the leather and the thin white barrier of my dress.
“I have to go,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry if they come back. Really, I am…but I can’t stay here. Just remember what I told you. Keep calm. Keep control.”
Cash sagged against the Bronco, watching me. “This isn’t over, Anaya. Not even close.”
Chapter 13
I was done. Huddled in the corner of Emma’s bathroom surrounded by shadows, so thick I felt like I was sitting in a cloud of ink, I’d never been more sure of anything. I pressed my head between my legs, trying to block out the stench and the sound of them. It didn’t work. They were too close, all around me, all over me. A hiss sounded next to my ear and I reached out to bat it away.
“Fuck!” Pain flared across my arm and I jerked it back against my chest. As if it sensed the weakness, another shadow pounced, wrapping around my other forearm, and a matching pain blazed across my skin. The burn was so at odds with the chill running through me that I bolted to my feet.
Two long red burns marred both of my arms, the skin blistered and stinging
Anaya said they couldn’t hurt me. She lied to me. Why the hell would she lie to me about this?
“Break it up!” a voice boomed across the bathroom. Shadows scattered and escaped through the cracked window. They slipped and slithered across the cream-colored tile until they found refuge in the dark bathtub drain. Noah grabbed one by the neck as it reared up to take a bite out of his throat.
His eyes were glassed over and cold as he squeezed it until it wiggled and screamed, tore and twisted under his fingers. A black, glittery ooze melted across his wrist and he cursed before dropping it onto the tile, allowing it to scurry away.
Noah watched it spiral down the drain and rubbed his wrist. “Well…that was fun.”
“You’re back,” I said numbly, not really caring. It didn’t matter if he was back. I was done here. So, so done. I pushed away from the bathroom wall and Noah backed up a few feet to give me space as I rummaged through the medicine cabinet.
“I’m a man of my word,” he said, his voice trailing off as I popped open a few pill bottles.
There wasn’t much to choose from, mainly just leftover antidepressants and pain pills from Emma, but it would have to do. I just hoped Anaya was ready, because it was time to fix this black hole of an existence that had become my life, whether she was ready for it or not. If ending it was the only way, so be it. Anything had to be better than this. Who knows, maybe I’d see Dad again. Maybe I’d get a chance to make things right with him.
Noah stepped up beside me and examined one of the pill bottles. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing?”
I shrugged my jacket off and rolled the sleeves of my white shirt up to my elbows. I braced my palms on the counter and stared at my pathetic reflection in the mirror. Black hair that usually stuck up in disorderly spikes lay damp and limp across my forehead. My skin looked ashen against my white shirt and red tie. Dad’s red tie. I didn’t own one, so I’d had to raid his closet. Even now, hours after I’d watched them lower him into the ground, it felt heavy and wrong around my neck. And those eyes, dark and dull, full of pain, who the hell did those belong to? I didn’t know who this kid was staring back at me. I just knew that I didn’t want to be him. Not anymore.
“Sorry, Em,” I whispered, then brought one of the opened bottles of pills to my mouth.
“Whoa!” Noah slapped the bottle out of my hand, only allowing me to get a couple down before he raked the spilled pills and the rest of the bottles off the counter. “What the hell are you doing, man?”
