“You can’t do that.” Oliver gasps, his muscles straining whilst he struggles to control himself. His skin is bristling in anger as Mr Breckt comes closer.
“I’m a vampire, Oliver!” Mr Breckt’s words screech from his throat as his anger reaches a new level. “I can do anything I damn well please, boy.”
“I trusted you.” Oliver yells back and tugs me further behind him.
“Why would you ever believe that you could trust me?” He’s laughing, screaming, and almost crying all at the same time.
I’m trembling with fear and hate and I realise how completely unhinged Mr Breckt truly is now. We are never leaving here. Not alive, anyway. Did I ever really think we would? Death seems like such a blissful escape right now. My eyes wash over Oliver. He’s in tormented agony.
I step forward from my coward’s spot behind Oliver, even as he struggles to pull me back behind him. but I won’t let him, if I’m going to die today then I insist on being heard.
“You’re a monster, Robert,” I finally say his name, watching as sweet satisfaction trembles through his body as I say it. “You disgust me. I will never, ever give myself to you!” I scream out my words. The pain and angst of everything that he has done to us finally breaks free. “I was his before you came here. You destroyed what we had, and you stand there like you are the one that has been wronged. How dare you.”
Anger visibly ripples through Robert and he lunges forwards, knocking me to one side with the back of his hand. I scream in pain and shock and crash to the floor, the air leaving my useless lungs in one great gasp. Mr Breckt shrieks in fury. He charges forwards, his hands finding Oliver’s throat. His fingers wrap expertly around it and squeeze. I see the fear on Oliver’s face as he kicks and hits out at him, desperate to be released from the iron grip.
“You touched my princess, and now you will be punished.” He’s shaking with rage. His grip tightens and his eyes glow red. His aura blazes—black and purple with sparks of yellow flashing through it. It’s like watching a giant electrical storm cloud erupting above him.
Even knowing that I should be running for cover, I turn and face my demons—this demon—head-on. I climb up from the floor and charge Robert.
“She is mine!” His voice breaks as he screams the words out.
Oliver stares at him helplessly, his veins throbbing in his arms, his hands clawing uselessly at Robert.
I barge Mr Breckt’s side but I bounce back off him, making no impact. I jump up on his back, tearing and scratching with all my might. My fangs bite down on his shoulders and my fists pound down to shake him off Oliver.
“Let go, please let go, please, please, please!” I repeat the words over and over. But Robert holds no love for us; he feels only hate towards us both right now.
Vengeance is what he wants from Oliver, and suffering from me.
He releases Oliver suddenly,and then turns to me, grabbing me by the scruff of my neck like a kitten from his back, and throws me like a rag doll across the room. I crash into the far wall with a cry. The wall crumbles in a cloud of dust, parts of it falling like splinters around me. My breath catches in my throat as I feel several bones crack. I freeze as the pain shoots through me in wild torrents and though I now I’ll heal straight away, the pain is just as intense as if I were human and keeps me frozen to the spot.
Mr Breckt looks at me, his eyes saddening. “Do you remember begging me, Mia? Do you remember begging me to take you?” His face softens at the memory, and I shudder in repulsion. “You didn’t even care that there were others there. You didn’t care about him then, did you? You only wanted me.”
My eyes widen with terror. He turns back to Oliver, reaches down, and lifts him up with one hand. I struggle to get to my knees, my body aching and burning with every movement. Both sets of eyes flash to me—brown and green—and I feel a deep pain worse than any physical pain I’ve ever experienced before. I watch the fear on Oliver’s face and the manic glee on Robert’s. Time seems to slow as I watch Mr Breckt turn his back on me. I finally stand with a sob of fear and pain and run towards him. But I’m running in sinking sand; my legs have turned to jelly. No matter how hard I push them, they won’t go quick enough. They can’t ever go quick enough for me—or Oliver.
I know what he is going to do.
“Please no, Robert. I submit, I’ll be yours. I’ll do anything, please!” I beg, but my words are ignored. “Please, anything but that.” I cry.
Robert lifts Oliver from the ground, staring deep into his eyes. “She is mine.” He says it firmly, and with finality, and snaps Oliver’s neck in one swift movement. The sound echoes off the walls. A reverberating crack as the bone snaps.
I drop to the floor mid-run, wishing with every ounce of me that it had been my neck that he had broken, my life that was ended and not Oliver’s.
I am suffocating. I close my eyes against the black tide of angst that is threatening to wash over me. Blinking furiously against it, I crawl forward. Robert reaches for the leg of a chair, snapping it off and holding the piece above Oliver’s heart.
“Please,” I beg. But my pleas land on deaf ears.
“Say goodbye, Mia,” Mt Breckt hisses with a smile, and plunges the weapon deep within Oliver’s chest.
Oliver’s body crumples into dust before my eyes, his face turning to grey and white ash from a nonexistent fire.
“No!” I scream. My body stops crawling and curls up into a ball. My hands cover my ears. My head swims wildly and I block everything out, squeezing my hands tighter to my head. I can still hear Roberts’s footsteps coming towards me. I can feel the air around me moving. Tears burn behind my closed lids. I am frozen. Every part of me is frozen to this moment in time.
My lips purse, not allowing a sound to escape them, not a breath to enter them. I know once something enters my senses, the pain will destroy me.because then I’ll have to admit that Ollie is gone, and I am alone with this monster. Silence encompasses me, stillness and emptiness wrapping themselves around me like a protective blanket, and I brace myself as my muscles began to ache from the strain. Every one of them taut against themselves, waiting.
I feel Robert coming closer. He is being cautious, but knows he has nothing to fear from me. I am strong, but I will never be as strong as he is. His shadow falls over me, as he stands above, contemplating his next move—my next move, even. I can feel his rage. He isn’t finished with his fury. He still has lessons to teach.
“You will never be mine, will you Mia?” His voice is empty as he reaches down for me. In that one moment, I let everything go.
I breathe. I see. I hear. I feel. I dive for him as a sledgehammer of pain hits me, turning me inside out.
He’s gone. Oliver is gone, forever.
I grip his hard torso with my legs and arms, wrapping myself round him like a limpet on a stone, and bite down. Snapping my jaw into place, I shake my head from side to side like a savage dog. I release the beast that lives within me and I rip a huge lump of flesh from his shoulder. He screams and his vile blood fills my mouth; I feel its sticky warmth splattering my face and body and trickling down my throat. He shrieks out in pain and tries to grab me off him, but I roar with vengeance. Every ounce of my being holds on to him, biting and snapping, pulling and tearing. I am blind with the agony of losing Oliver again.
I will never see him again.
My beautiful Oliver.
He is gone.
The anger falls from me as suddenly as it had come, when I realise that I truly will never see him again. I drop like a rock to the floor.
I cry out in sorrow. I don’t feel the kick to my stomach, or when he punches my face, making my jaw crack and my lip bleed. He picks me up with a warlike cry and throws me through the air, and I smash through the wall on the opposite side of the room. The stone crumbles around me. I don’t have time to contemplate my injuries as his hand grips my hair and drags me through the hole my body just made. My body bumps and scrapes against the rubble and dirt, and I collapse o
ut the other side. I open my eyes back up with some resistance, my lids sticky with blood tears.
Robert’s face looks down on me, his shoulders slumped in resignation. His eyes are unfocused and his tears match mine, his chin trembling.
“I’m not used to coming second, Mia. I’m a very sore loser.”
I snort my indignation at him. Pain shoots through my side and I flinch.
He’s shaking his head at me. “You will never love me, will you, Mia?” I barely hear him say it. But I do.
Even as the pain rattles in me, I shake my head. “Never.” Blood pools in my mouth, and I spit it into his face. He doesn’t flinch, but stays poised in his position, rocking back on his heels as the blood spit trails down his face.
A quivering breath leaves his mouth as he stands. He looks both ways, clearly surmising what to do next, before reaching down and gripping me by my hair. I scream out loudly from the pain. My hair tearing from the scalp as he drags me down the hallway, streaks of blood leaving a trail of red behind us.
He yanks hard, and when my hair snaps from the roots, he grips another handful of it. His strength is returning, and I pray he is going to kill me soon. It doesn’t matter how—I don’t care. I just want to see Oliver again. Waves of grief wash over me like the tide on the beach, destroying everything in their path. I think I might lose my mind with the hopeless pain of it all.
I am crying. I hadn’t realised I was crying. Great sobs escape me, wracking my body.
Robert stops pulling and reaches down to me. He lifts me swiftly and throws me over his shoulder. He has healed already, but the blood colours his upper body. We are in the kitchen, and I loll uselessly over his shoulder, still crying. My red tears leave an imprint of grief behind us.
He flings me and I hit the inside of the huge chimney that stands against the main wall in the kitchen. The sound of my bones cracking echoes loudly in the hollow space, and I flinch from both the pain, and the sound. Soot and ash fall down from above and cover me, sticking to my wet cheeks and my clothes where his blood has soaked through to me. I sit up, looking around for him. I hear crashing and breaking, but can’t see him anywhere. I shake violently, clasping my knees towards me. My mind races with the same frantic name on a loop.
Oliver, Oliver, Oliver.
Robert is unexpectedly in front of me, his arms loaded with wood. Bits of chairs and tables, from what I can make out. He stares in at me blankly, his eyes still ringed with red. My arms hug around myself and my sobs descend into nothing. The tears still trail silently down my cheeks. There is a moment of understanding between us as our eyes meet and we see each other’s torture, the pain that we are causing one another.
The agony of losing Oliver again is too much to live with, and I welcome death to make the pain go away. Perhaps I might just see him one more time.
Mr Breckt’s infuriation is that his constant endeavours to make me want him have failed time and time again. His own narcissism is his downfall. I will never love him. He won’t even be a close second to Oliver, and he can’t live with that one simple fact.
He wishes for death. As do I. He knows this, and he’s going to take me with him. I embrace his final gift to me.
Death.
Thirty-Six
Mia
He throws the wood into the fireplace. It crashes around my feet, but I stand unmoving. He turns away from me, going back to wherever he had been a moment ago. He is going to burn me to death; he is going to kill us both. I am not even fearful of such a horrendous death. I cannot imagine anything more painful than having to live without Oliver.
A smile flicks at the corners of my mouth, and I breathe in. I don’t care. Soon it will all be over, that is all that matters to me. I know that I should be petrified, but a sudden calmness has enveloped me. Its warmness caresses my mind. I rub the tears from my eyes in satisfaction.
He returns with another armful of firewood, launching them in at my feet again. We look at each other. He is waiting to see some sort of remorse in my actions, to see me beg and plead for my life. To promise to be his faithfully for all eternity.
I raise my chin in defiance. “Never. I will never be yours. Ever.”
My eyes narrow at him. I know he feels my hatred for him. I watch him pour a liquid around our feet—it smells like lighter fluid or something similar. I smile as he steps inside the fireplace and abruptly lights a match, dropping it at our feet. With a great gust, the wood ignites and flames erupt around our feet.
A banging booms from somewhere within the house and I try to place a memory with the sound, but nothing comes. It is getting closer, but so are the flames. They lick up the side of the walls, scorching our feet and ankles. A quell a sob in my throat. I will not cry.
His arms close in tight around me, holding me firmly to him. So this is it. This is the end. If he can’t have me in life, he would take me in his death.
It doesn’t matter. I’m not sure whether my soul is damned or not, but surely wherever I go after this life, Oliver will be there waiting. Surely that piece of justice will be done. And at least Robert will be dead.
I smile at the thought. Yes, his death is all that matters right now. The flames begin to burn up my legs, and I want to scream out. The heat is wrapping itself around us. Melting us together. I feel his shoulders heaving as he sobs against me. I hope it is because of fear. I can only pray. The pain is worth it if he receives my retribution.
The banging is louder now, and I can hear yelling, and shouting. But the flames are high, and so hot, and I can’t contain my chokes from the grey smoke as it enters my lung.
I can feel my skin melting away from me, the smell of my hair burning. He grips me tighter, searching for comfort.
“My Mia.” His lips kiss the top of my head as the flames caress the side of my face. I shudder and try to pull away from his touch. “Mine,” he whispers hoarsely.
I look at his face. Red tears stream down it. Flames silhouette him as the fire burns away his hair. I realise that his death—our death—is close. I smile, my lips splitting even more painfully when I do. Shame clings to his features.
“Never,” I snarl.
His face crumples in self-pity. The flames engulf us both in a burst of heat, and a scream erupts from me. My skin blisters and bubbles, the lesions bursting upon contact with more heat. I recoil and pull away from him, his arms too burnt now to hold on to me, and he cries out. The fire crackles and pops around us. Oranges and reds come alive as the flames leap higher, until they are far above me, reaching up into the chimney-breast. Our soulless bodies are engulfed by the golden glow of the fire. The inferno is all the more impressive because of our inflamed dead bodies.
Hands gruffly grip the tops of my arms, and I screech at their contact. They pull me from the flames, and powder and blankets are thrown over me. Limbs snap, screams erupt, but it’s too late. The pain is inconsequential. Everything blurs, my hearing from my left ear has gone. What’s left of my skin sticks to everything it touches, diseased and melting.
A scream echoes savagely in the background. I think it’s me. I close my eyes to it all, and pray to die.
*
There are plastic sheets underneath me. I feel my skin sticking to them when I move, the skin slowly peeling away from my body. I pause in my movements, my body humming with pain. I sting and burn everywhere.
I’m burnt from head to toe, I presume, since the pain is radiating from every part of me. I look through hazy, unfocused eyes, and know my body is trying to heal itself. Knitting itself back together as if nothing has happened.
I want to scream—to cry and shout out—but my voice won’t come to me when I try. Just a strangled noise gargles in my throat. The world blurs around me as my eyes close and then open back up sluggishly. My eyelids are gluey and transparent when I move them.
A distorted face hovers above mine. “It’s time. She’s nearly awake.”
A hand paws at my face. It turns my head painfully from side to side, examining me. I c
an smell again, although only faintly. Something smells strange. Like burnt meat from a barbeque. I realise with horror that it’s me. The smell is burnt hair and flesh. My senses tingle when a door opens and closes, and a breeze wafts over me, sending fresh agony across my healing wounds. Footsteps retreat, and the hand lets go of my face.
“So close, sweetheart. So damn close.” The voice rings in my ears unbearably loud and I close my eyes to the pain, opening them once I realise it makes no difference. I turn my attention to begging them to focus properly. I push myself up with useless arms, and then collapse back down flat. There is no strength in my body; it feels like it has been sucked dry of all its strength. My bones feel like dry twigs, weak and brittle.
I have a vague memory of being pulled from the fire, but I was alight by then. I had felt the flesh on my face crackling as the flames licked higher, my hair ablaze around me, the skin on my back peeling and sliding away. I couldn’t survive that, could I? Because if I could—then so could Robert, I realise with anger. My throat cracks as I try to use my voice again.
A door opens and closes and footsteps come closer to me.
“Everything ready?” A voice speaks softly above me.
A shuffle, but no reply.
What now? What more can they do to me? Take from me? Beat from me?
My fangs unsheathe unexpectedly as the smell of blood fills my senses. A faint whimpering from someone, a crack, and then silence.
“Mmmm, yummy.” The voice is still too loud, still too tinny in my head. But then none of that matters as warmth spreads over my body and blood fills my mouth. My teeth snap unwillingly as they try to find purchase onto something—the flesh of a neck, a wrist. Anything at all. I gulp greedily on the never-ending liquid, my body repairing itself with each swallow. My ears stop ringing, my sight is clearing, and my smell is sharpening. I feel what little is left of my skin, which hasn’t already repaired itself, knitting back together. A tingling passes over me as my flesh is healed and revitalised.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 205
