Chapter 18

ChapterEighteen

Ophelia

Bring Me to Life - Evanescence

Sweat glistened on my skin, my chest heaved as I fought for my every breath with increasing difficulty. Sensual flutters still caressed my skin. I craved more, my body ached but my soul protested, still in shock from being drawn from my body as I danced above it at the hands of a fuck that was out of this world.

Despite the rawness of it, I had never felt more appreciated and desired. More taken care of like a delicate flower tenderly held even with the prospect of it harboring poisonous petals.

When I was around him, I never knew if I was the cure or the disease. He made me want to be so bad, even after I spent my whole life being moderately good.

Blake was a special kind of man. A man that pushed me to my limits and never failed to bring me back from the edge with wanting more.

With begging for more.

He stole my essence and infused it with his own. I was obsessed and I knew that at this very moment in time I would do anything that he asked of me.

I would become all that he needed me to be.

Because he was now my everything.

The air I needed to breathe.

I would never let go of him or the things he has taught me. I’ve become dependent on the rush, on the adrenaline that coursed through my veins. When he looked at me, I felt like the only person in the world that mattered. That if the world was to burn to ash, he would stand amidst the flames still staring at me with those intense, soul-deep eyes. It was out of this world, something no words could ever even touch. The constellations danced in my vision and after a moment, they all began to look like him.

The dead man who saved me from a boring and tedious life of rules and morals.

Bloody mutilation and orgasmic desire are a lethal concoction and I’ve been contaminated with its hazardous smoke.

I ran my hands through his damp hair, riddled with the sweat of our combined heat and I moaned, the feel of him against me sensational. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for tonight.”

“I thought the taste of you would be better than killing you,” he murmured and I could hear the smirk in his tone. “I’m glad that I was right.”

“Hmm, hmm,” I hummed.

“The night isn’t over yet, love. Close, but not quite.”

“What? Blake, how many more people can we kill?” I asked sleepily, spent from the night’s activities and fading fast into a deep sleep.

“Just one, sweetheart. A special one.”

He had me intrigued, but I was too tired to protest or ask any more questions. He moved to my side and pulled me into his arms as we crawled back onto the steel table. The number of people who had probably been slaughtered on this very table, was not even a vile thought in my mind when I cuddled closer to him and laid my head on his chest as I stroked my hands over his smooth skin. The effortless feel of his perfect core acted like a black silken hypnotism that had me drifting a sea of dreamily content. “Blake.”

“I know, sugar. Sleep now, I’ll protect you from every dead thing, other than me.”

I smiled against his cool skin and did exactly that, falling into a deep sleep.

When I woke up, I was cradled into the crook of his arm, his dark eyes stared down at me as he smoothed the hair back from my face so he could caress my cheek. “The more I watch you, the more beautiful you become.”

I clear my throat softly and smile up at him, “I never knew a serial killer could be so sweet.”

“Then you’ve never met the right serial killer.” He winked before he shifted to sit up and pulled me with him. I threw my leg over his waist and sat on his lap as his large hands stroked over the expanse of my back. “You ready to finish the night, love? Dawn is close.”

I nodded, then narrowed my eyes, “You keep talking like you’re going to leave.”

He frowned, then looked away. “I might have to. I’m not sure how long you summoned me here for.”

I never thought of that and it stabbed fear into my heart. Fear encased with a deeply penetrating sorrow that I might lose this. I opened my mouth to say just that when he placed a finger against my parted lips. “No, sweetheart. Let’s not think about it. Let’s just enjoy our next kill.”

I fluttered my eyes, batting away the tears that pooled within them. I wouldn’t cry and I wouldn’t lose him. I summoned him once, I’d summon him again if I had to.

Because this serial killer was mine.

And even though I was sure of all of that, I still couldn’t crawl from his lap without uttering the words that have crept into my heart and held it in a vise ever since.

I held him closer, my hands curled within the thick strands of his hair, a desperation to never let him go, a demon clawing at my insides. I felt that if he withered away and faded from my hold, I’d fade with him. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” I whispered, my eyes on his as I hoped he could see the devotion there. I couldn’t shy away from this, I couldn’t hide away from the fact that this was my heart sitting on the end of my sleeve. I had to tell him, I needed him to know.

I felt like I always would.

“Good, because I think I fell in love with you the moment you tried to drown me in holy water,” he husked in a deep honey-coated tone. I expected him to smile at me with that brooding, dangerously lethal smile of his, but instead, he stared back at me with such seriousness, that my heart skipped a beat and a breath caught in the back of my throat.

The devil take me, I never wanted that look to disappear.

“Okay,” I whispered, then he finally smirked at me with amusement in those dark eyes. “Okay, one last kill.”

“Just the words I love to hear coming out of the mouth of my woman. So damn sexy, love.” He smirked as he yanked me in closer and I yelped before I laughed at the exciting energy behind it. “Let’s go then.” As he did that ghostly shit again, I never felt as sick as I did the first time and I smirked at the thought I could get used to the craziness.

We ended up on a residential street. My clothing stitched back to my body and I assumed he did that when he teleported us here. He never seemed to stop surprising me and that was one of the things that had me hook, line and sinker. I was a goner the first moment he ever touched me and every cold moment he had touched me ever since.

The street was in darkness, every suburban home shrouded in an abyss that we could hardly see pass under the low lighting of the street lamps. He took my hand and together we stalked down the sidewalk like reapers of the night. Following his lead, I watched each house and searched for any kind of movement.

I listened for any kind of sound.

There.

It was a whispering sob that was making its way through the silence. The soft sound of a quiet cry for help drifted from a person who tried to conceal the devastation with a pillow. Her soul was crying for a hand to help her, but her mortal mouth kept her from screaming out and capturing the help of those who surrounded her, those who could actually help her.

I turned to Blake, confusion creased the lines of my face, and had my eyes hooded with furrowed brows. “What’s that?” I asked quietly.

He turned us, wrapped his hands around my waist, and pulled me back into his cool chest. He settled his chin onto my shoulder and whispered, “Inside that house is a mother and a disabled child. The mother abuses her. Uses half of the medication to sedate her daughter and the other half for herself. She isolated the girl. In the quiet moments of the night, that’s the only time she’s free to scream.” A chill skated down my spine, and I shivered at his words. “She knows if she cries too loudly, if her mother knew there were moments of reprieve, it would be worse. That she would kill her. During the night, it’s the only time she can be free from the walls of her mind. She keeps herself quiet because she has lost all hope that anybody would be able to save her.”

I was horrified, enraged even. I had just had my power stolen from me. Strapped down to a table by a madman that wanted to eat me. I was weak, helpless, and needed saving. Blake saved me, even though it was his damn fault that I was there in the first place. This whole night has been showing me what it means to walk on the other side of darkness. To be a vigilante doing deplorable things to another human being and in turn saving countless others.

Everyone that we killed tonight deserved it.

There was no justice behind the iron bars of a cell.

They would still get to see the rising of another sun.

It didn’t matter that they may have moments of misery, somebody alive and able to laugh at another joke, even one told by another inmate, was too much of an injustice to sit right with me.

Justice? It was in the slashing of a blade wielded by an even worse man who put those evil talents to good use.

Now, I was faced with more than just watching and learning.

Observing what it meant for another human being to commit such vicious acts to another living soul.

Now I was pissed and I didn’t know what to do with that manic feeling that brewed inside of me.

Blake tightened his hold of me in his arms, and we were in the hallway of a quiet suburban home a second later. Quiet except for those small sobs I could still hear ringing in my ears like the echo of a war drum leading me into battle.

“Blake,” I breathed.

“Yes, Soul Raiser?”

“Make it fucking hurt. Nobody who does this to an innocent child should be allowed to know what a peaceful death feels like.” The unfeeling tone in my voice would have startled me if I wasn’t already lost to the violence and bloodshed of tonight.

“Uh-ah, love,” he rasped back and my back straightened as I turned to look up at him from over my shoulder. “This one is all yours, sugar.”

For a moment, all I could do was stare at him.

A war waged within my mind.

Then, a short second later and lighter with less of the weight that came with the burden of great turmoil and conflict,  I stepped into the mother’s bedroom with a feral grin on my face.