Page 69 of Tempt Me

Pharaoh looked like a predator, his body poised over mine as he continued to listen to the sounds outside. His big body was sticking out of the broken area he smashed in his rage. Whoever was out there would see him sticking out. I didn’t buck him off, but I kept still so he could see what it was. Maybe a deer ran through. A popping sound rang out, and I squeaked in surprise.

His hand latched around my body and mouth like a viper, stifling my scream.

“Shh, Little Voyeur. We have company,” he warned.

He seemed like his old self. I still wanted to smack him. I could feel his hot breath on my neck, and I winced at the tickling sensation it caused. I tried to wiggle away, but he kept me down.

His green eyes shone through the mask in a warning. I glared back at him, but I stayed still. An undeniable scream echoed around us, followed by three morepop, pop, popsounds. Pharaoh smashed me to the ground, his body a steel wall of muscle. The crunched space took every inch of his body as he held me down underneath him, despite his freaking legs sticking out.

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but then a large object crashed into the coffin, the wooden boards breaking apart even more, and the splintered edges fell over his back in front of my eyes. I screamed as he shielded me, the explosion of wood leaving little wooden splinters falling around us like dust.

He pulled me up. I was coughing and trying to make sense of the strange popping and the smashing into the wood. We were free. I could run from him now. I didn’t look at him. I just eyed the way out of this hole and took off. My foot caught on something, and I smashed forward into a huge mud puddle.

My mouth and chest were soaked in the liquid.

I sputtered, wiping my face and trying to get my bearings.

The lightning above us struck, and the illumination showed my hands and chest covered in a deep crimson red. I screamed, backing up and falling on my ass. The object I fell over was a body.

Red pools of blood were streaming from the back of the corpse, and I was blindly trying to get away. I felt like I was drowning, unable to move. Pharaoh’s hands wrapped around me, pulling me from the river of warm blood.

Crying and shoving my face into his stomach, I sniffled. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Pharaoh. Oh god.”

He soothed me by running his hand over my hair, shushing me like an infant, and singing that song from when we sat in his hallway after the party. His low baritone voice calmed me. I felt like I could breathe again.

“W-we have to tell the police,” I sobbed.

Pharaoh nodded, kissing the top of my head and moving away from my grip. I felt cold without his touch. Reaching up to wrap my arms around myself, I watched him walk toward the body. I didn’t know if they were alive. The popping we heard had to have been…

“She was shot,” he said, confirming my suspicions and looking at the wound on the female’s back. He checked for a pulse and sadly shook his head.

“She’s gone,” he continued while fixing the dead woman’s hair, trying to smooth it.

He started flipping over the body. My adrenaline was running at an all-time high, and my inability to stop bouncing made me feel insane. I ran over to help him, reaching under her chest and flipping her in tune with my professor.

When her face came into view, I screamed. Vacant eyes stared out at me. It was Hannah. The female dead on the ground was my brother’s fiancé.

Nausea bubbled up, and I ran away to puke. Purging all my pain and fear into the soaked ground of the blood of my sister-in-law. A new fear surfaced…Xavier.

That monster murdered two people tonight—my sister-in-law and my nephew. I cried, dropping to my knees before her and putting my hand on her stomach.

Blood coated my fingers, and I looked down, confused. Her large belly was gone, her skin flared and deflated like a balloon.There was an eerie slice across her abdomen, and I paled when I realized. “They…they took my nephew.”

Pharaoh followed my gaze, putting together the puzzle in front of him. I cried, not knowing what horror my sweet baby nephew was meant to endure in his final moments. I puked again, my body emptying every part of my soul.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “No! You don’t get to take everything from me, you coward!”

I screamed my pain and raged out into the night sky. Pharaoh shushed me, his hand wrapping around my mouth again. I bit him, bucking out of his hold and screaming louder at the bastard who ended so many innocent lives.

We fought. My screams echoed around us, but then we both stopped. Our bodies were frozen when a new sound emerged from the darkness.

The chilling sound…of a baby crying.

Twenty Six

Mania: State of mind where everything is too fast. Unable to process, or comprehend anything around.

Ilived my entire life in slow motion.

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