Page 20 of Haunt

Please, let us have this, Little Lamb.

Don’t make me take this from you.

Words breathy and soft, demanding, Billy says, “Kiss me back, Nellie.”

My lip is bleeding, stinging, pounding with my pulse where he tore into it like an animal. I feel it trickle down my chin. I am stunned. And I don’t really know why as I stare into his light eyes, grey more than blue in the shadows we find ourselves cloaked in. Because he is a brutal, savage boy, I have known this for so long, more than half of my life, nothing about this first kiss should have surprised me.

And yet…

I lick my lips. Copper thick on my tongue. I swallow hard, staring up at him. His hands sweeping up and down my arms, an attempt at soothing. Bruises beneath his palms, from where he held me to him so tightly. I swallow again, my mouth feeling as though it is on fire with the burst pressure in my lip. I keep staring up at him, something like panic dancing across his face, even beneath his pinched features, it feels like genuine concern. Perhaps it is more so for his benefit than mine. But even still, I feel something like guilt clog my throat.

“Please,” he whispers the words, dropping his forehead to mine, closing his eyes softly.

I don’t close mine, staring at his face, a faux peacefulness in his features.

I see the tightening at the outer corners of his eyes just before he says,“Nellie.”

My name cracks like a whip against my spine, I breathe hard against his lips, slanted over mine, his hands leaving my arms, splaying over the wall at my back, either side of my head. His body comes closer, elbows bending, lowering himself to me. Caging me in, hips pinning me down, his weight too much and not enough as he presses me in further against the cold stone.

I think I have romanticised this kiss,our first,in my head for so, so long that no matter how it happened,if,it was never going to be like I imagined. Something soft and gentle and warm.

None of those things represent us.

I don’t know why I would even want that.

Knowing the brutal things, he, and I, alike, can do.

We are not soft.

All hard, jagged edges, white noise, split skin and deep puncturing wounds. I feel him in my bones, in my soul, an imprint of him in every organ. I would cut myself open just to offer him my parts, rip my insides to my outsides, decorate him in my pieces, but I expected this to be different.

Somethingelse.

Something not like them.

Vicious and cutting and violent.

I swallow hard, breathing harder and white spots dance across my vision. My legs feel weak, and my head is spinning, the ground feels like it’s about to fall away from my feet when his hands fly up from the wall, grabbing my cheeks, his nose on mine.

“Breathe, baby,breathe,” Billy’s voice drums through my head, but my eyes squeeze shut, my lungs shrivel, and my blood feels like it’s on fire.

No one has ever been gentle with me.

“Penelope.”

I blink. Breath punching out of my lungs, my hands come up, clinging to his sides, his thin shirt balled in my fists. I stare at him, wide eyed, my vision blurred where he is too close. But then his lips come to my cheek, the arch of my cheekbone, messy and sloppy, he drags his lips down the side of my face. Kissing, I realise, along my jawbone, the tip of my chin, stopping a hair’s breadth from my mouth.

“I am not like them,” he breathes into my mouth, the words settling on my tongue taste like truth.

I know they are, in my heart.

But Billy and I, we are both such beautiful liars.

My skin crawls, prickling like insects running over my flesh. I feel dirty and ashamed, and I want to hide my face. But I learned a long time ago, there is no hiding from Billy Blackwell.

My eyes drift low then, his barking command pulling me back, “Look at me.” His eyes flicker over mine, and I am captive in his gaze. “I’m always going to hurt you, Little Lamb,” another thing he needn’t confess, but it feels strangely good to hear it all the same. “I am going to devour every inch of you, Nellie.” His forehead lifting away just enough that I can see him clearly. “I will have to do things to you,” he swallows hard, but he doesn’t look away, it feels worse that way, like there isn’t really regret there. “Horrible things,” he whispers, goosebumps razing across my skin like wildfire. “Maybe like the thingstheydid to you,” I squeeze my eyes shut then, tight, so tight, the backs of them burning. “You are going to hate me, even when you want to love me.” It is cold, the way he says it. “But, Penelope,” he whispers lower, deep voice soothing me like a gentle lullaby.

He is a predator.

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