Page 6 of Requiem
“You begged me to take over.”
My head shakes as if I could will him out of my goddamn head.
“You were drowning.”The voice is almost gentle now.“You wanted the pain gone. You wanted the guilt gone. You wanted the memories gone. You wanted everything gone.”
My entire body is shaking. I can still feel and smell the drugs and the blood. The endless ache hollowing me out until I would’ve agreed to anything if it meant feeling nothing for a few hours.
“So I helped you.”
“Youlied.”The words leave me as a whisper, my eyes burning. “You told me it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”
The silence stretches.“And it wouldn’t,” the voice murmurs. “If you’d stop fighting.”
“No.”
“You keep trying to separate yourself from it. Pretend there’s a version of you that wouldn’t have done those things.”The laugh that follows is soft.“But there isn’t.”
I slam my head against the wall again, my heart now putting up a desperate fight because it isscreamingat me that hurting her is wrong and that I don’t want that. But the pain…
“Go away.” My voice trembles. “Please.”
The shadows seem to lengthen around the room, creeping across the floor toward the bed.Please take my soul now. After everything,just fucking take it. I don’t want it anymore.
“You keep blaming me because it’s easier.”
The words settle over me, sticky and heavy like blood.
“It’s easier to pretend there’s a monster sitting on this dresser than to admit the monster has always lived under your skin.”
My heart feels like it’s being crushed inside my chest. Tears blur my vision. “I’m not a bad person,” I sob. “I don’t want to do these things. I never did.”
“Don’t lie to me,”he hisses.“I know the spark in your eye, the pulse through your veins when you rip someone’s soul from their body. You like it. You crave it.”
“No,” I repeat, refusing to listen to thatthing.
But he just laughs. I already know what he’s about to say. I know because the voice belongs to me.
The mask’s empty gaze never leaves mine.“She wasn’t afraid of me, Jude.”The darkness seems to lean closer.“She was afraidof you.”
My breath comes fast and shallow now, my body trembling as I press back into the mattress, as far from him as I can get, even though there’s nowhere to go.
“You’re wrong,” I whisper, the word barely there.“Youdid that. I didn’t.Youhurt her—”My heart shatters, because I can’t stop seeing it. The image…the moment right before her life started draining out of her eyes because ofme.
Chapter two
MICAH PRESCOTT
The house is too quiet despite the chaos unfolding in that fucking bedroom. It’s two in the morning, and the only light in the basement living room comes from the bluish glow of the monitors in front of us.
I haven’t sat down. I haven’t been able to.
My hands brace against the back of the couch, fingers digging into the fabric as I realize that he’sawake. A few hours after we saved him, he finally woke up. My eyes are locked on the screen, even though my body is desperate for some rest.
But I don’t, because that’sJude. And I don’t recognize a single fucking thing about him.
On the screen, he slams sideways again, his head cracking hard against the wall behind the bed. The sound comes through the speakers a second later.
My stomach twists. “Jesus.” I push off the couch like I’m about to move, like I can do something, anything—
