Page 24 of Grave Devil
My breathing slows as he coaxes me into a softer rhythm. “Damn him…” His voice is fading, growing more distant. Quieter.
Liquid sloshes between my thighs. Am I underwater?Am I dead?
This is a never-dream… He whines as if something seizes him back. He claws at my legs until the second he fades away.
I scream as he inflicts fresh wounds on my skin. My voice sounds mangled, warped, feral. My lips tingle. I push my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and it feels like a cannonball, heavy and sour like soot and ash and metal.
There’s something in my mouth. Something fragile in texture yet powerful in intent. I gag as it rushes to the back of my throat.
“Mia? Mi amor? Stop fighting me.”
I know that voice. It’s solid. Safe.
Bones.
The whiskey rolls down my throat like water. Like salvation, quenching my thirst in a desert. I sit shivering on Bones’s couch, wrapped in a thick flannel blanket. The murky splotches of the Skelker’s fingerprints are fading but still visible. All while my ferocious lover looks as if he’s seen a ghost.
“I thought you’d died.” He stares in disbelief, his eyes wide, pupils dilated.
“Didn’t I?” I snicker. I turn my hands over and examine my sweaty palms. If I were a mystic, I might be alarmed that all the lines dead-end. But it’s just par for the course for an orphan girl who makes deals with the devil. I set one nightmare free, only to become enslaved to another. Sometimes I wish I had never come here. And on nights like these, I’d give anything to go back to sleeping in desolate parking lots with nothing to comfort me but dreams of Nox.
“Mia… I’m not scared of much, but I’m fucking scared for you right now. What is happening?” I’ve never seen Bones look so tired. His forehead is damp, his white muscle tee untucked and wet.
I can’t tell him everything. They will all think I’m crazy. “I-I don’t know.” My stomach knots and bile inches up my throat.
He arches an eyebrow. “Don’t fucking lie to me. Please…”
I swallow the acid down with another sip of whiskey. “I’m having nightmares again. This one isn’t as friendly as Nox. This one…hatesme.”
He jumps to his feet and begins pacing. “I will kill him, it, whatever the fuck is haunting you.”
I nod to appease him, all while knowing full well that he can’t kill the devil inside me any more than I can.
Both of our phones ring at the same time.
We lock eyes. “Dray,” he murmurs.
My caller ID shows the Harker Mansion landline. “Nox,” I say on a shaky breath.
Bones grunts in frustration and disappears into the kitchen in a fit of barely audible curses.
I take a deep breath before answering. “I’m all right.”
“Come home. Now. I need to inspect you,” Nox commands.
He knows. Of course, he knows. We’re connected. “Okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes. No. I was. I’m fine now.” I can’t even try to lie to him. Not about this.
“Come home, dark one.”
“Please don’t call me that anymore.”
He sighs. “I understand… Please come home to me, Mia.”
I cradle the phone to my cheek. “See you soon.”
