Page 7 of Haunt

I have erected walls. Solidified my foundations. Dressed myself with impenetrable armour and armed myself with deadly weaponry. But I fear that will all fall apart the very second I know if this is real or not.

I am lovesick.

It hurts and it burns, and I am unable to temper it, control it. It consumes me, thoughts of him. It is as though something infected my brain, back when we first met. He left a scar on my heart that is threatening to burst open, blood flooding into places it should not be.

The back of my skull collides with the wall, and I squeeze my eyes closed once more. My chest trembles, heart threatening to crack, because IknowI cannot do this if it is all just inside my mind.

So I do it.

I am going mad.

Nobody isreallycalling my name. And yet…

I am brave.

Steeling my spine, and taking a strong, solid step forward, I call out for my God in the dark.

“Billy?”

Eyes instantly closing, I drop my head back, a real smile curls the corners of my lips, heavy breath of relief slowly draining out of me.

She knows.

Remembers.

She is it for me.

I can see okay in the darkness, practised eyes adjusting quickly to the blackness. I turn my head in her direction, a dark figure splayed against the wall. I want to pin her there, smash my much larger body into hers, bite and suck and fuck. It is an incessant need to stake claim. Not that anyone, even her, can,willever question it.

It is written.

“It’s me,” I finally respond, nostrils flaring with the compulsion to sniff her out.

“You came for me,” she speaks softly, breathy and unsure, a whispering need for reassurance.

“I promised you I would.”

I lick my lips, keep my hands clasped together in my lap. I stare at them in the dark, think of how beautiful they will look locked around her neck.

“That was a long time ago, Billy,” she swallows loudly, a desperate, dry gulping. “I thought you forgot about me.”

I hear it then, the tremble of emotion in her voice. The uncertainty. Something like pain is sharp in my chest and I am suddenly on my feet, but I keep them planted as though they are cemented in the floor. Keep myself away from her. I fear if I am too close too soon I will not be able to control myself.

There are ways we are supposed to do things. I do not want her to be punished for my foolishness. My impatience. But I have been patient for twelve long years and even in my youth, something which is not lived the same as others,normalchildren, of that age, I longed to have her by my side.

“How did you find me?”

She means here.

In Italy.

A remote orphanage.

Somewhere very far from home.

“You have my heart,” I confess simply, my words are as brutal as my fists, the way passion slices through the rawness of my truth.

Something that the other Blackwells, the ones we do not align ourselves with, their morals as pure as any Blackwell’s in their line of work could be, they see truth as their God.

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