Chapter Twenty-Eight Aria

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Aria

Pax scanned our items in the self-checkout lane.

Quick.

Efficient.

Gaze always, always scouring the area as the scanner continually beeped, never ceasing in his oath to defend. I knew that he would. He’d more than proved it last night.

But it was the promise of his words from a moment ago that had left me staggered. Shaken me so badly that I kept peeking up at him as I loaded our purchases into bags. What filled me with the urge to trace my fingertips over the spot where he clenched his fierce, defined jaw, to drag my nails through the stubble and return to whatever it was that we’d shared last night.

Push into it.

Into the place where I could fall. Just for a little while. Into his warmth and his safety and his touch.

I wanted it, even if it was only once.

That need got tangled with the constant impulse to reach out and touch the people who jostled around me.

To listen.

To heal.

To slay.

To free them of the chains. To loose them of the voices that haunted and howled, so loud that I could almost hear the snare of it beating through me.

It’d been bearable when we were in the middle of the store since we kept our distance from others as much as we could. Dim enough that I’d managed to resist the call, even though it made me feel sick to walk away when every fiber in my being told me it was my purpose.

The reason I was here.

It was harder here, where people crowded together around the registers.

Blurred intonations hummed around me.

A low drone that fizzled and curled through the air.

“ Take it, no one will notice. ”

“ Kick the little brat’s ass when you get home. He’s so spoiled. Rotten to the core. ”

“ Wouldn’t it feel nice to drag that razor across your flesh? To see the blood flow? Don’t you miss it? ”

“ Look at her. She wants you. Get her number. Your wife will never know. How long has it been since she’s let you touch her? It’s her fault, anyway. She drove you to this. ”

It was the first time I’d been around so many people since I’d been admitted to the mental hospital. Since I’d first touched Jenny and found a new way into the darkness.

Voices penetrated now.

Growing louder.

I squeezed my eyes like I could shield myself from them.

“Are you okay?” Pax’s rough words cut into the disorder.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Only it became too much when a wave of wickedness suddenly rolled over me. A dark, suffocating cloud. Black smoke that filled the atmosphere.

Consuming.

Overwhelming.

An infant wailed. Inconsolable.

Hopelessness coiled in the darkened mist.

I tried to squeeze my eyes against the assault.

“ Why would you bring him into this world? Why would you put him through this? Think of all the pain that is to come in this life. Why do you think he won’t stop crying? He already knows. Do it when you give him a bath. Put him out of his misery. It will be painless. ”

I gasped as my eyes flashed open. Drawn, they landed on a woman who pushed a cart into the store with an infant seat set in the basket.

She swiped at the tears on her face, and she reached out and rubbed the baby’s belly. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw what she said: “Please stop crying. My sweet boy, please stop crying.”

“ He won’t. You know what you have to do. ”

Grief filled her.

Harrowing. Devastating.

“ It’s okay. No one will blame you when they find you bleeding out. They’ll know you can’t live without him. ”

The compulsion to touch her was the strongest I’d ever felt.

With my hands tingling and my heart racing, my spirit was already there. Energy rushed to my fingertips, a bright, blinding light that lit the way.

We were only halfway through checking out, and I gulped around the disorder, barely able to choke out to Pax, “I need to use the restroom.”

A question marred his harsh brow, only a heartbeat needed to fully take me in. Concern immediately slipped into his features. “Let me finish, and I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t need to come with me to the restroom, Pax.”

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been subject to the same vile atrocities we witnessed each night.

It was that his purpose was different from mine.

His purpose was protecting me, and I couldn’t take the chance of him getting in the way of what I needed to do. I knew he would always put me first, whatever the circumstance.

“The fuck I don’t,” he spat, low.

Another swell of depravity inundated me.

Dark.

Disorienting.

Blinding.

My lungs squeezed with it, my body vibrating with the need to go to her.

I set my hand on his chest. “Don’t box me in, too. I’m not helpless or weak.”

He looked like I’d struck him, the man torn. Worry pinched at the corners of his eyes while understanding lapped through the chaotic gray. He both wanted to argue and also knew that I was right.

“I’ll meet you at the car. I’ll hurry,” I promised.

Dread curled through his expression. “Don’t trust anyone, Aria.”

I gave him a tight nod, then hurried away. I could feel the weight of his gaze burning into my back as I rushed toward the hall that led to the restrooms just inside the entrance. My entire body buzzed with the energy that skimmed over my skin.

I knew the second Pax looked away, could feel it just as I reached the hall, and I turned course and gave myself over to the lure.

To the tether that pulled and pulled.

I quickly wound into the racks and displays, keeping myself concealed as I went. I followed the far wall before I ducked into an aisle stocked with dishes and kitchen utensils; then I cut across the store, following the wails of the child and the bleakness that seeped out like wisps of poison curling through the air.

She was up ahead, turning right down an aisle.

I followed her, tracking, keeping far enough behind that she wouldn’t feel me. So I wouldn’t incite more fear when she was already riddled with it.

So close to breaking.

She took another turn, this time into the baby aisle. She stopped at the diapers, pulled out a pack, wavered, then put it back.

The whole time, the voices howled, and the baby screamed.

“ Do you hear his misery? You did this to him. Only you can give him the mercy he deserves. ”

Agony radiated from her as she wound back around until she was in front of the dressing rooms. She unbuckled her son, brought him to her chest, and whispered, “Please.”

There was no attendant, and she disappeared into the rooms. I followed her. Energy crashed, and my limbs twitched with the intensity that coiled in my being.

She was on the floor when I turned the corner, her back to the wall and tears streaming down her face as she rocked and rocked the child.

Her eyes widened when they met mine.

“He wasn’t meant to be here.” She mumbled the confession. Her grief. Her torment.

I dropped to my knees in front of her and took her face in my hands.

Cold streaked through my veins, the air ripped from my lungs, while the connection burned.

A fire curled up my arms.

So hot I might as well have been consumed by flames.

A chill raced down my spine, and flickers of darkness encroached at the edges of my sight.

A barren plane. Vapors and mist. Shadows rose and lifted and swirled through the wiry elms. The night thick, the sky low. Evil prowled across the lifeless ground.

Thunder cracked, a whip of wickedness, the force of it strong enough that it nearly tossed me back. I had to fight to hold on to her. To keep the connection as a dark shadow raged and tore and thrashed.

I held firmer, and a rush of images and emotions battered against my mind.

The pills. The paranoia. The voices that had haunted her since she was just a little child.

Hidden under her covers.

Shaking.

Shaking.

No joy. No peace.

End it now.

End it now.

There’d been a flicker of joy. Her hand on her belly as she’d looked at the positive test.

Maybe she had something to live for.

But the child had cried and cried.

“ You knew better than to bring him here. You should have killed yourself before you got into this situation. How could you be so selfish to think a child would change anything? You’re a fool, because he is cursed, too. ”

Poison dripped from the slithering voice.

“ If you love him, you’ll end it now. What’s waiting for him is so much better. You’ll see. You’ll see. ”

Gasping against her pain, I tightened my hands on her face.

Her eyes blew wide open as I tried to push my mind into hers.

I leaned up high on my knees to get closer, squeezing my eyes closed so I could see.

And it was there. A shadow that thrashed and writhed, forever trapped in her mind. An aged Kruen of great strength. Its face contorted by the evil that made its shape. Its mouth gaping, a blackened hole of nothingness as it howled.

It hissed when it saw me, and a fiery tendril lashed out. It struck me in the chest.

At the contact, agony splintered through my body, but it was different from when asleep because I was already awake. And I held on, focusing with everything I possessed.

An orb of light swelled.

Glowing from the depths of me.

From a place that shouldn’t exist.

I pushed it out, through my middle, where the energy raced down my arms and to my hands.

Propelling it, urging it toward the Kruen that lashed against the chains.

The bindings that surrounded it.

It screamed and screamed, as loud as the infant who wailed.

But I didn’t let go.

I poured everything I had into destroying the beast.

An electric current rushed.

A bolt of lightning that lashed.

I felt it streak from my hands, and it struck the Kruen in its abdomen. It wailed in torment, the demon thrashing on the lifeless ground.

And in a flash of glowing darkness, it disintegrated into dust.

Gasps raked from the woman as the voice was silenced, and I knew the only thing she felt in its place was a hollow ache. She slumped back, still clinging to her son, who now only whimpered.

The two shackled by their shared spirit that the Kruen had tormented.

They are freed. They are freed.

Dizziness blurred my mind, the pain so great I couldn’t see. Wheezing around it, I tried to stand. To climb onto my feet. But I had no strength left. Everything I possessed had been given to them.

They were worth it. They were worth it.

I stumbled backward, and somewhere in the back of my head, I heard a scream as I crumpled to the ground.