He laughs bitterly. “I’m not saying any of this is normal rabbit. I’m just trying to tell you that I get why you did it. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer. Because I do want him to and trust me I wish I could have been the one to do it. But that doesn’t matter, I trust you, and that’s all that’s important.”
“No, it does matter, because I don’t trust myself, not when it comes to not hurting you. So if I think we should back off a little, I don’t think I’m asking for much. Do you?”
“Yes!” He moves close to me again, but stops before being close enough to touch. “It is too much. We’re so freaking close to understanding all this bullshit that has been building for months. And now all of a sudden because of one accident, that I don’t think is a big deal, you want to just hide. That’s messed up rabbit, and you know it. Can’t you just give this a try? Please? I’m begging you here.”
His chest rises and falls in rapid succession, but I don’t have to see it or hear him gasping to know it. I can feel it. As if it was me feeling it for myself. That alone gets me on my feet and putting as much distance between us as I can. It doesn’t stop the feeling, but it certainly makes me feel better, even if it’s only an illusion.
I’m clear across the room, when I have to close my eyes. “Chance stop, please, just…enough…I can’t…”
Chance is so quiet for a minute that I think maybe he’s left. But then I hear him let out a heavy surrendering sigh. “So that’s it then rabbit? After all this time, it’s going to be you that runs away now. That’s what you want right? To run from the truth until you can’t anymore and all you have left is to face it?”
Without opening my eyes, I nod.
“All right, okay, that’s fine.” I hear him get to his feet. “But know this. I’m not going anywhere. So when you’re ready to let me in, just let me know okay? You can trust me rabbit. And I know I can trust you, I’m not afraid.”
He starts for the door, that’s when I allow weakness to slip; I open my eyes to watch him.
With his back to me, all I can see is his large lean frame walking away. There are no perfectly clear blue eyes to mourn, just the softness of his dark waves that I wish I would have touched one last time. In a matter of seconds he reaches the door, opens it, and disappears from my view. Tears form in my eyes, because even though I can no longer see him, I can still feel him.
Our hearts beat a little irregular, almost like they’re breaking.
Epilogue
It’s a while before I move, and when I do, I can’t help wondering if maybe I just made the biggest mistake of my life. Is he right? Am I just being afraid and irrational with wanting him to not be around me right now? I’m sure I am, but it’s still true. There was a moment when what I took from him felt too good to be right. If that’s what I feel when I feed, then I have a problem, because I liked it, like really liked it.
Just maybe, I think I should have taken my family up on their offer. Clearly I’m no better than them.
Tears form in my eyes then, but I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, to keep them from falling. I can’t break. Not now, not when I have to be stronger than ever. Whether I like it or not, I’m in this alone. I have to be. The alternative is feeding on the one person I actually love, be it accidental or not. If I know anything now, it’s that Toby probably won’t be the last to try and come for me. And if Riana had it right, then Hell will be right behind them. It’s me against everything else and I’m not even all that worth it.
Sighing, I finally move and go straight to my bed and crash on it. Reflexively, I curl into a fetal position and wrap my arms around my legs and squeeze until it hurts. I’m considering letting the tear fall regardless when something moves out of the corner of my eye. It’s a shadow and it’s not mine. No. Wait. It’s not a shadow.
Its shadows, as in more than freaking one, and moving without a body – well, that’s just fantastic.
I quickly sit up and search out where they’re coming from. They lead me to the big bay window just right of my bed. I reach it just in time to witness the shadows converging into an undistinguishable form, a human like form – floating several feet off the ground – at my window. Chills suddenly rush along my skin as warmth spreads within me. It’s familiar. A heat like the sunshine on a mid-summers day fills me at my core. My soul answers its call for the second time tonight. And for the second time, my ability comes to me without my having to reach for it.
It’s just suddenly there.
Vibrating like a churning living and breathing fog that sends tendrils of static electricity to the tips of my fingers and toes. The rush of it sends every hair on me to stand at attention. There is a pulling sensation at my center that has me wanting to press myself to the window. Press into the shadows that linger on the other side. Unlike before with Chance, this time I hold myself back from connecting to anything. But I feel it though, the pull that wants to transform into something stronger.
Then right before my eyes the shadow form changes again. It becomes less shadow-like and more fleshy and real. I’m able to make out that with its lean and long muscular frame; it’s bound to be male – if shadows even have a gender. My assumption is confirmed when his face comes into focus. He’s young, my age or a little older, young. His eyes take my breath away. They are so large, tilted in an odd way that’s not completely human, and so very green. His pale and narrow face is practically covered by thick flowing blonde curls that reach his shoulders.
As I assess him, I realize he’s smiling at me. No. He’s smirking at me. A blush rises up into my cheeks as I’m caught. Yes, I believe I was checking him out. It’s not every day that shadows appear at a girl’s window and turn into a hottie. Too bad shadow-boy probably knows the effect, hence the smirk. I reward him with a glare and a step away from the window. This wipes the smirk of his face entirely, and instead he watches me with an eerie interest that leaves me a little scared. But when he drifts closer to the window and places both of his palms against the glass, I can’t keep my eyes from drifting to said palms.
They leave the perfect indentation, as if he’s actually real, and not just shadows only moments ago. Against my better judgment, I find that I’ve moved back towards the window. Much closer than I was the last time, and what’s worse, is that my own hands are raised in preparation to reach outward. I want to stop and pull away, but the pull in me to touch the glass is so strong. My entire being is urging me closer to it and to him, making my vision spin in dizzying circles. Then I’m there, at the glass, hands pressed and aligned with this shadow-boy’s.
My back arches and a gasp rips from my lungs as the purist most intoxicating heat rushes through me.
It spins and churns, leaving me breathless, making me quiver. Then it shifts. A pulling sensation starts in my middle and works all around me before centering once more, and in another rush of warmth it’s ripped from me. As it does a sharp pain stabs into my right shoulder, practically in the arm. I barely have the breath to scream, but it finally comes when I lock eyes with shadow-boy. He’s smiling again, teeth all bright and shiny, but then it’s gone. His features slip away and return to a dark moving shadowy mass. My hands are alone on the glass.
Then in a blink, the shadows shoot out into the window and straight at me. They strike me right in the chest, making me gasp and curl forward, but the hit is strong and I fall backwards. When I land all the breath is knocked out of me, and my head slams onto the carpeted floor that feels like pavement instead by the pain that takes over me. I lay frozen as the strangest sensation radiates inside me. And the whispering starts.
Sweet little Paragon. We’ve been searching so long, waiting, watching, and now we’ve found you. So perfect you are. Soon little Paragon. We’ll see one another very soon.
The whisper leaves me paralyzed as the every sensation in my body tingles and burns, it makes my own ability cry out in either ecstasy or fear – I can’t tell which – and that scares me. Then it’s gone. No
more whispers with strange sensations, no churning warmth, and no newfound ability of my own that makes me question everything. I’m just me again, alone, lying on my bedroom floor.
But there is pain. Oh yes, there is that.
My head pounds as I struggle to sit up, but it’s not what worries me, though that list is getting longer.
It’s my right shoulder. It stings.
When I place a hand on it, I find sensitive raised skin beneath. Jumping to my feet I dart over to my mirror and push back the sleeve. There, on the skin where my arm meets my shoulder is the perfect dark outline of some type of curving vine that twists into a clover-like flower. The skin around it is pink and a raised, almost like I just received my first tattoo. And that’s exactly what it is. A permanent part of me now too and that can’t be anything good, at all.
A gift from Shadow-boy?
Something comes back to me then, a memory, of shadows hovering over me as I lay dying in the snow. Could that have been shadow-boy and not what I feared was a still alive Toby? If so, then what the heck just happened? Unfortunately, I think I have a pretty good idea. That feeling of something being ripped from me, like something being taken, I think it might have been my contribution to mandatory Hell feedings. And it came from what I took from Chance earlier. I know it was.
That means Hell has found me and knows what I can do.
And They are coming back.
Turns out I am going to need a little back-up, if my reaction to shadow-boy in any indication, and I think I might have to rely on the people I swore I never would – my family. But I’m not running. It wouldn’t matter now I don’t think, as if it would have helped before. All I have to do now is avoid Chance and keep him in the dark so I don’t feed on him accidently again. That will be a hard feat to achieve; I can still feel him as if we were one.
Goodie goodie gumdrops.
As if my life wasn’t already filled with crazy sauce.
To Be Continued…
***
Hell Games (Daria Pigwidgeon, #2) Coming March, 20th 2013
A demon with a soul is a demon of the worst kind.
I'm that demon and this is my adventure.
I just hope that I can run, because They are coming...
Daria's misadventures continue into the vast world of demons as she's the only one with a soul. This time Hell is nipping at her heals and the only people she can rely on is the family she’s been running from her whole life. But she’s not as alone as she might think, Chance refuses to leave her side, and would literally follow her to Hell in need be. As the games of being one step ahead of her enemies climax, Daria finally comes face to face with what she really is. And it’ll change everything.
***
About the Author:
Amy Lunderman is a stay at home mom, with a passion to write paranormal romantic thriller's whether they be adult or young adult. She lives in Rhode Island with her fiancé and their beautiful daughter. She enjoys writing, reading, being a mom, watching movies and television, having dance party, youtube, and status updates on facebook.
***
Connect with Me Online:
My Blog: http://amylunderman.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/AmyLunderman
***
Cover Art by:
Razzle Dazzle Design
http://razzdazzdesign.com/
The Misadventures of Daria Pigwidgeon Page 33
