Page 24 of Haunt

You don’t get to justleavea cult.

I think about what happened to Gore.

She would never be safe and she’s not eveninyet.

“You aren’t going to let anything happen to me,” she trembles, heart racing faster, my arm like an iron bar across her back.

“I’m going to do what is necessary to keep you,” I tell her quietly, calmer, my own heart beating strong and steady where her chest is flush with mine. “I know you’re scared,” I say then, and it is real, my understanding, she is blindly trusting me, and I don’t take that lightly. “But I’m scared too, Nellie,” I confess, hearing chains rattle in the pit at my back. “I’m scared because if we don’t do this, I won’t get to keep you, you will be taken from me, because you’ll have seen too much. You’ve already seen too much and we haven’t even made it down there yet.”

I know everything is cryptic, but trust me to keep you safe.

“You have to follow through now,” I glance away, finding her sad eyes too much to look at.

But this is the way for us to be together.

For me to be able to keep her safe.

The only way.

I drag my gaze back, finding my resolve, clinging onto the love I have for her even though I find myself unable to voice it.

I am lovesick.

“We’re in this together, you can’t turn back.” I stare into her eyes, a million silent words shielded behind them.

Please do as I ask.

I wouldn’t do this if there was another way.

We don’t get to be like others.

This dark world is different.

You’re my pair.

My whole entire world.

Please don’t let them take you away from me.

“Don’t make me have to force you, Little Lamb.”

I watch the words take hold, a tremor tearing its way through her limbs. I know she has been forced before. But this... It isn’t a threat, it’s just a fact, a warning.

I will do anything to keep you, even if it means I have to hurt you.

She doesn’t pull away, sucking in a sharp breath, the inhale inflating her lungs. I will do it. No matter what. This ritual is for survival. Hers. Ours. And she doesn’t even know it.

There are not enough hours left in the year for her to contemplate how this all works.

The Obsidian.

It is something so much bigger than any of us.

Especially we two.

I am Two.

She swallows, closing her eyes. I listen to her breaths, feeling them, too fast, on my skin. My grip on her jaw loosens, finger and thumb caressing the reddened skin.

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