Page 68 of The Darkness is Calling

Artem

I’ve always tried to stand against the monsters’ voices, fighting against their hunger for blood. It was all they wanted and all they demanded from me, and I couldn’t find peace until I carved into the raw flesh of some unfortunate bastard, or until I savored that final spark of terror in the eyes of someone standing in front of my gun.

With Ekaterina’s arrival in my house, the voices have grown even stronger. Beyond blood, they constantly demand that I feel her. Touch her. Taste her the way I did in the bathroom.

But now, they no longer ask me for her blood.

They ask me to paint her with my blood and make her mine.

They ask me to start a slaughterous war, even if it means spilling my brothers’ blood along with my own, as long as I’ll do it for her.

And the worst part is that I want it too.

“You’re not well,” my older brother tells me when Sasha goes to check why Ekaterina isn’t sleeping and is wandering around the kitchen at this hour.

He saw her on camera and suddenly remembered he was craving the chocolate I hid from him.

The bastard is turning into a Tasmanian Devil after one chocolate bar, and I have forbidden him from having any, especially at night. He doesn't care, of course...

But I know he actually went to see what is happening with the woman haunting the halls of my house like a ghost.

“I’m not?”

“I hate when you do that.” His jaw clenches. “When you answer with a question.”

“Is that what I do?”

“Artem...” he mutters, frustrated.

I slowly lean back in the large chair I’m sitting in and look at my brother. I was actually wondering how many days he would last before bringing this up again.

“Since Ekaterina moved back into her room, you’ve turned the city into a blood pool. On the first day alone, you ordered the attack on the Italians in the southern district without even giving them a chance to surrender.”

“It would have been a waste of time.”

“Maybe you’re right, but you didn’t leave room for negotiation either. Then you attacked the Albanians.”

“Well, they’re friends with the Italians,” I state the fact.

“Which led to another night just as bloody.”

“And was I wrong to save time and resources by acting quickly on both fronts, without giving them time to mobilize?”

He is a little thrown off, because he knows I’m right.

Even I know I wouldn’t normally have done things that way. I would have been more restrained and talked it through with my pravaya ruka before making a move.

But the decision came to me overnight.

It was that, or go to her room.

Difficult choice. Both options were equally tempting.

“You weren’t wrong,” he says, “but you usually don’t rush decisions like that. And let’s be honest, Artem, you’ve been on the edge ever since. The longer you go without seeing her, the closer you get to snapping, and I’m afraid you’re going to lose control completely.”

“On the edge? I like that.”

“Artem,” he warns me again.