Page 188 of Poison Aches

I eye her, feeling like I’m being led to jump over a steep cliff. Again.

“And the third one?” I ask her.

“The third?”

“Yes. What do you want, Angel?”

The girl looks up at me and almost abruptly, as if a frightening round of lightning just struck, I can’t breathe anymore.

The park disappears.

The rain is nothing but background noise.

Everything becomes gray… and doesn’t make sense at all.

All I see is her.

“What do I want?” she whispers in a daze.

I jerk my head in some kind of nod, but I can’t peel my eyes off of this girl… and then I see them. Two large teardrops trailing down each of her cheeks.

The pace is the same.

The size, same.

But where one goes all the way to her chin and disappears, the other teardrop just stops midway and doesn’t move at all.

That imagery fucks me up so bad, I look away from her face.

But not for long.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers, almost brokenly… too damaged and raw to handle.

“What?”

“Don’t abandon me, Emmett. Especially you. You can’t do that to me too.”

But before I can move or say a word, a sharp, almost electrifying zap shoots through my chest.

Without a second to realize what’s happening, I’m going down…

CHAPTER 25

Ivy

The Present

Later that night, I’m tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

My heart feels like it’s been torn into shreds.

I can’t even cry anymore…my tear ducts have dried up.

I can’t think… my stream of consciousness is now lethargic and weak.

I feel like I’ve been sucked into a world full of nothing and everything all at once.

There’s silence, well, it's as silent as these paper-thin walls will allow.

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