by Kaia Bennett
If there hadn’t been news vans lining the street in front of my parents’ house and my brother hadn’t spent the trip peeking at me like I’d become a stranger, I still would’ve felt trapped in a surrealist play I titled Panic.
Cameras flashed and questions whizzed past my ears like bullets as I shuffled toward my childhood home.
I hadn’t expected anyone to care about my reappearance. Cold sweat dotted my upper lip and slicked my palms.
What if Jesse sees this on the news?
I broke into a shambling run. Dashing onto the porch, I clawed the door like an animal, until a hand dropped onto my shoulder. I shrieked.
“Let me unlock the door, honey.” My father’s eyes, would they swim with tears from now on?
Hurt flashed across their faces, but I dashed to my room and slammed the door.
“Evie?” My mom tapped, but I stabbed the lock, stifling my sobs with a trembling hand. “Let me make you a sandwich.”
“I’m okay, Mommy.” I forced out through gritted teeth. “Just gonna get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I clutched my stomach against the sharp pang of hunger, and dove into my bed to huddle under my covers. No matter how many blankets I dragged from the closet, I was forced to clench my jaw until it ached to stop my teeth from chattering.
Voices carried from the den, but I made no effort to hear their words. An hour passed, then another.
I relaxed when the television flared to life, knowing they would give me time, yet lamenting the saved space on the couch for me. I didn’t have the strength to claim that seat, to pretend for them.
I watched sunlight arc across the room one hour at a time, fading into darkness. The sun went down. The stars came out. The television went off.
Finally, the house grew still and sleep claimed me.
25
Blood, tangy crimson honey dripped over my lips. Slid down my tongue. Wriggled inside me like a welcomed worm, like a finger inside the slick, heated cavity between my thighs.
My taste buds exploded like bottle rockets, insatiable flames ignited in my depths. Nourishment. I pulsed, teetered on the precipice of orgasmic release, that luscious moment just before the fall.
I swallowed rivers of blood from a thick wrist. I gulped and begged for more.
I dreamed of hunger abated, but woke, dying of thirst.
Fuck you, Jesse.
I eased from the bed and tiptoed to the door. The creak of a hinge set my heart racing. I froze, straining to hear and praying no one woke. The silence reassured me. I crept to the kitchen.
I peered through the window over the sink, trying to see past my reflection. The tiny light over the oven burned my fingertip. Mom left it on whenever TJ or I went out at night. How long had it burned?
The muffled sound of a slamming door jerked my attention to the street. Dark shapes huddled into vans. News vans.
News vans.
“Don’t pay them any mind.”
I muffled my shriek. When Mom touched my back, I tried not to flinch. I could barely feel her fingers, because trepidation rolled off her in waves, hammering me with guilt. I peered through the blinds at the news crews. As long as I knew a touch was coming, I could prepare. Otherwise, I felt like a yowling cat, on edge and hissing.
I’ve only been back a few hours. It will get better. It has to.
“You have to eat something, baby.” Mom slid my hair off my shoulder, then caressed my cheek. I forced a smile and didn’t flinch.
“Okay.” I only let out my breath when she turned away.
“We talked to Detective Stark.” Mom grabbed a frying pan from a rack beside the stove. She opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs, some milk. The pale light revealed creases in her forehead. I smiled, knowing she’d make me pancakes. “He said… he said you were having trouble remembering.”
This wasn’t fair to them, the lies I had to tell. But neither would their suffering because Jesse found out I’d lived and told his secrets.
I shook my head. “I don’t remember anything. I know, it’s weird.” I couldn’t meet her steady gaze, but blessedly, she turned and bent again, searching for a mixing bowl. One by one she emptied the contents into the bowl while she heated a thin coat of oil on the skillet. I watched, forgetting to speak while I processed the normalcy, the old ritual of Mom making my favorite foods while I kept her company.
She grabbed a spoon and poured three perfect circles into the stainless surface.
“I’ll keep trying. The doctor said I was fine. Healthy. I was just overwhelmed yesterday.”
I watched the bubbles on the batter prickle to life. Let the smell of sweet breakfast food tickle my nostrils.
My stomach churned in protest.
I didn’t want pancakes. Part of me did, but another part wanted to knock the skillet to floor in a fury.
Fuck your human food.
Hunger twisted talons in my gut, but not even the plate of pancakes Mom prepared seem appetizing. I took a bite, chewing slowly. A perfect blend of butter, fluff and syrup sat on my tongue but I might as well have swallowed ashes. I forced the bite down my throat, feeling like I’d retch any second.
I grabbed a glass from the overhead cabinet, filled the glass with tap water and tried not to gulp. The lukewarm drink refused to slake the dryness.
“Here, honey. This is cold.” Mom placed a pitcher on the counter beside the sink. Her concerned gaze felt like a brand.
I refilled the glass with shaking hands and doused my dry throat. Again. And again. The liquid in the pitcher sloshed over the counter and onto my legs and feet.
The tears started somewhere near the middle of the fourth glass. The bubble of hysteria floated up from my sloshing gut. Nothing cooled the lust for a drink. The single bite of food sat in my gut like a stone.
I clutched the glass, fighting my panic.
Mom shrieked when the glass burst, crumbling like a prop in a sketch comedy scene. The glass didn’t dissolve like sugar, though. The shards pierced my trembling palms. Glittering splinters dissected the life lines, stretched the love lines, jutted like tiny architectural triumphs in my flesh.
I laughed. The ping of glass in a metal bowl chimed in my mind.
Moats of shadowy crimson liquid surrounded the shards, and in a distant corner of my mind, I heard Jesse’s seductive laugh. The rumble of his voice in my ear, the memory of him, became so real. I felt the sound slide against my skin like a tongue. I felt a lick of bloodlust on the back of my neck.
I spun expecting to see Vaughn in my delirium, but only shadows greeted me.
“I killed him. He can’t hurt me.”
My stomach seized and contracted so strongly, I imagined claws scraped my insides. I stood, rigid and mesmerized by the blood coursing from my hands.
“Evie!” Mom pushed me aside to turn on the faucet. “Rinse the blood. I’ll find the tweezers.” She rushed from the room.
I didn’t feel glass under my bandaged feet as I stumbled aside and landed on the pieces that had hit the floor. I didn’t feel anything but the gnawing in my gut. Tears coursed down my face, salty pearls falling to mingle with their ruby cousins in my outstretched palms.
I pulled the shards from one palm, and then the other, with dazed precision. Glass clattered into the sink—ping—coated a pretty ruby red that shone even in the dark. They held no interest. What came gushing to life once the pockets of skin were free captivated me instead.
I cupped my palms. When they filled with blood, I lifted my hands to my lips.
I licked, sucked, laved, coated my tongue, drowned the back of my throat with the flood. My eyes fluttered closed and my pussy clenched.
The taste. God, the taste. My body hummed in thanks.
I turned, feral and trapped, when a hand touched my back. I’d finally found some peace, some truth amidst the lies, and my peace had been disturbed? A growl sounded low in my throat. A warning.
Mom covered her mouth in shock, a terrified mockery of the way I pressed my blood-
soaked hands to my lips.
Like waking from a dream, my shoulders uncoiled. My spine straightened with recognition of the sight I made, and the animalistic noise still vibrating in the quiet kitchen.
With reluctance I pulled my throbbing palms away from my mouth. The pain of the cuts couldn’t rival the ache left unfulfilled inside. I’d caught on to the taste I needed but my own blood wouldn’t do.
“Evie. My God, what—”
How I must look? I dropped my hands like a guilty child. The sticky aftermath of my depraved gorging dripped from my chin and lips. I didn’t dare lick them now, though I wanted to so badly.
Two drops of blood hit the floor. I wanted to drop to my knees and lick them up.
What’s wrong with me?
Who am I now? What am I?
My mother pleaded silently for answers. I couldn’t make sense of myself enough to explain. I started to sob outright. I whimpered in frustration and confusion, standing in my own mess like a parody of a helpless child.
I knew the tragic irony of it all. I’d become far from helpless. I cried because I feared I’d become irreparably dangerous.
Mom approached me slowly, wary of the glass on the floor and me, her own daughter.
“Evie?”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t see her through the glaze of tears even if I could lift my head from the shame.
“Evie, baby. What’s wrong? What did they do to you?”
She didn’t know who they were. For all she knew they didn’t exist. But she sensed something sinister at my back, something that followed me home even when I lied and said I didn’t remember. My mother knew better.
Tears ran down her ashen cheeks, but my tears were falling for one reason I couldn’t share.
I couldn’t pretend to be normal after this.
I’d clearly become unhinged. My belly churned. Danger coursed in my veins and crackled in the air. Nothing but blood existed. The need for the sweetness went beyond a craving for Jesse’s blood during a hard fuck. This went beyond anything I’d known, except the vicarious bloodlust when I’d swallowed the essence of three vampires at once.
I’d become something else.
I woke up wrong.
Though I wanted nothing more than to feel my mother’s arms around me, I couldn’t stop staring at the pulsing of the arteries in her creamy brown throat. She came closer and I could think of nothing else for a moment but the way her throat would open under my teeth.
When I ran my tongue along the edge of one of my fangs, the sharp point sliced my tongue. My mouth filled with my blood once more.
I took several steps backward, putting space between my mother and me.
“Mom. I need help.”
The End
Doing It To Death
Shivers and Sins Volume 2
I savor my life of blood and power and I’ve never wanted more.
Until the night a witch forced her pathetic human needs into my mind.
My prey made me want her, made me relish her pain, and ensnared me with pleasure. Made me want things I didn’t understand.
I couldn’t break her. I failed to kill her.
Now, I can't hunt, can't feed, and can't sleep for the bitch whispering in my head.
Did baby witch cast a spell on me? My stomach howls with the answer.
The only way to break this curse is to kill the witch who cast it.
I'm coming for you, baby.
This time, I'm gonna do you to death.
Author’s Note:
The light at the bottom of this rabbit hole is tinted obsidian, and I put the characters in this story through the ringer. Not for the faint-hearted, this read explores the dark side of obsession, in all its forms. Adults only from this point. Strap in and buckle up. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times. Because the teeth lurking ahead are razor sharp and the blood they seek might be yours. Please, do not attempt to exert your human morals on the fictional beasts you will meet. They'll just laugh while they rip you to shreds.
1
I dragged my feet down the stairs leading to the basement. Despite the freezing lake water saturating my clothes, I felt nothing. Moments before I’d felt everything—through Evie, a whole world of pain. I’d begged for mercy with her lips, drowned with her lungs. I’d held us both down with my own hands and killed her, along with a piece of me.
I knew my knees bent. I heard the thud of my boots on the steps. Under the numbness of my fingertips, the fortified walls bracketing the stairwell barely contrasted the buttons of the keypad as I tapped in the code. An echo of Evie’s voice howled in my chest like the wind I’d just escaped outside the house. The ghost of her fingernails still dug into my arms. But I felt nothing. Just an empty space I hadn’t expected.
I’ll be waiting for you in hell, Jesse.
She’d promised I’d never be free of her. I wanted to laugh at her accuracy.
I’m already in hell. You’re dead, but you’re still in me.
A dose of venom released by my fangs in a moment of delirium might’ve let her deliver on her vow, but the second she stopped struggling, I felt the fight go out of me, too. I’d been stupid.
She drowned. I walked away.
I think I drowned us both.
“What’s the verdict, then?” Cai’s question shook me from my reverie. I tossed a look over my shoulder to where my father’s errand boy lingered in the doorway I’d failed to close. I returned my attention to Vaughn’s brutalized body without an answer.
One brother gone, dead at my hands before he could succumb to disease.
Then the witch, who’d gotten so far under my skin I could still feel her last breath caged in my lungs.
Finally, in this torture chamber, glowing white and red, lay my last brother. A decision waiting to be made. I wanted nothing more than to shut off my brain, but staring at Vaughn stirred something restless within me. I latched on to that crawling sensation, relieved to feel anything at all as I stared at Vaughn’s lifeless form.
Evie had carved Vaughn’s throat up like a turkey. She hadn’t spared an ounce of her hatred on his chest, either. If she were still alive, I’d have to give her props for getting over on a sadist with a knife. Mid-fuck too, judging from Vaughn’s naked state and his jeans tossed a few feet away from the bloody mess she’d made of him.
A vague smile twisted my lips. If Cai hadn’t been standing behind me, if the prick hadn’t forced me to kill my toy, I’d have dragged her down to this room. I’d have stood behind her, laughing.
And, if she’d been alive, I’d have told her she’d been close to killing my brother, but not close enough.
She’d stopped short of severing his spine and tearing his brain stem from his body forever. He’d live. If I didn’t kill him myself. I’d have told Evie as much. I’d have fucked her raw and made her tell me everything my brother had done, and how she’d overpowered him. I was curious about how she’d managed to get inside his head when he’d been so singularly focused on fucking her to death.
Then, I’d have told her, while making her come on my cock, how she’d failed. I would’ve let her live. I would’ve made Vaughn wish he was dead when I finally decided to revive him.
Between the stab wounds and his open throat, he’d lost too much blood to heal more than a cut or two on his chest, even hours later. At this rate, he’d be limping towards a full recovery in a month. A lifetime of healing for even a turned vampire like Vaughn. He’d be too helpless to hunt and starving the entire time. But, he could live—if I decided I wanted him to.
Unlike her. Unlike the girl floating in the lake with my useless venom in her veins. I’d wanted her alive a little longer. I wanted my toy.
Just a toy, huh? Just a witch?
I’m full of shit….
She hadn’t been a toy. She’d been my pet. I could admit that much. I could admit I’d wanted to play with her just a little longer before I killed her.
Right. Because we always cr
y over pets and try to turn them.
Evie’d stared up at me beneath the surface of the water just moments ago, daring me to leave her there, when all I’d wanted to do was drag her out. Pull her close. Make her cough up the water flooding her lungs. Our lungs. Using prey for companionship wasn’t how I’d treated the few pets I’d had before I grew bored. At the end, I’d treated Evie more like how I treated my brothers. Someone I cared enough about to joyride with.
“Might as well put him out of his misery.” Cai glided up beside me and took a deep whiff of the room. His flared nostrils suggested he smelled what I did. Witch. Vaughn. Come. The other vampire slid his hands into his pants pockets and shrugged. “There’s worse ways to die. Better one last fuck and feed than V-Sep. Nasty business, from what I’m told.”
I could’ve sworn I heard a hint of laughter in his voice. I hadn’t mentioned Liam, but he must’ve known. I’d had to call in clean-up for my little brother’s body. Cai had been keeping track of my footprints across the country for the last fifty years or so. A long leash, plenty of distance, but still a leash nonetheless.
“I’ve never seen how V-Sep works up close.” His words sliced me with a surgical flourish Vaughn would’ve appreciated. “I hear your insides become your outsides. Is that true?”
My lips curled, making room for fangs that itched to extend. My chest rose and fell as I took a deep, calming breath. Liam’s body, oozing black blood, and his last screams filled my mind.
Please! I’m so hungry! I’m starving, Jesse! I’m starving!
I shifted, and drove my fist so deep into Cai’s gut, he spat blood onto my shirt. He lifted his arm to block my punch to his face and struck me square in the nose with his palm. I felt the gush of blood down my lip, but could barely taste the substance or register the broken cartilage. Only Cai’s laughter penetrated the haze in my mind, the ringing in my ears that faded into the rush of water.
“Touchy. But that’s my bad. I forgot all about Liam’s untimely end.”
