Page 21 of His to Fear
But his grip, clamping around me and holding me as if he’s ultimately claiming me, and the scrape of his teeth against my throat, causes a low rumbling through my body I’ve never felt before. It makes me feel so fucking alive. Max never made me feel like this.
Though equally terrified, I’ve never felt as alive before.
“I can feel your fragile little heart beating,” he whispers menacingly. “It makes me want to steal it, savor it in a glass jar.”
I let out an involuntary whimper. His chuckle vibrates through his chest, guttural and low, pushing his heated body even closer to mine.
“By the way, I’m 6’4”.” I hear the smirk in his voice, and immediately recall how I asked him how tall he was in the circus. He’s a fucking giant compared to me.
It’s not long before I hear his footsteps retreating through the darkness, leaving me all alone in the chaos of the slaughterhouse. I take a collective breath, steadying my nerves.
Somehow, I don’t feel as terrified anymore.
Chapter 6
The Stranger
Fucking hell. I shouldn’tbe here.
Instead, I should’ve stayed at home back in my quiet lodge on the outskirts of town, perfect for solitude and keeping my sanity. I never should have let myself be persuaded by my friends to get here for an evening offun, in this rotting haunted fair with the stinking burnt of corn and the sickly sweet smell of cotton candy.
They wanted to get away from their responsibilities at their offices, thought it was a good idea to bring me with ‘em.
“You’re not getting out of your house enough,” they’d said.
“I’m outside all the time,” I’d retort.
“You get what we mean.”
If it weren’t for the fact that we had known each other since high school, a bunch of guys doing everything they should not have done, I would have thrown them in a lake long ago. Hide their bodies so the cops would never find them. But oddly, and annoyingly enough, I enjoyed their company when they weren’t pain in the asses.
So, here I fucking am. But they weren’t the only reason: seeing my long-lostfoster dad,who neglected and abused me years ago working here as a scare-actor… that was my chance to finally get retribution.
And there she fucking was, an angel dripped in sin, stained with the horrors of the world like a blanket surrounding her in its warmth. Standing behind me in the queue to the circus, of all places. ‘Hellcus,’ in big, bold neon letters blazing at the front ofthe tent. Surrounded by people but appearing to be somewhat of an outcast, she stood close enough for me to talk to, but not nearly enough for me to touch her. Every nerve inside me hummed with the urging itch for contact, just a fraction of a touch that would satiate the smoldering lava lying dormant like a volcano in my rotten core.
I never claimed to be sane. How could I? Growing up with the childhood I’d had, parents who abandoned me on the cold doorsteps of an orphanage when I was only five years old, a home that was never stable enough to truly feel like one—such things would allow anyone to spiral into the darkest depths I haven’t been able to crawl out of yet, even twenty-six years later.
A child needs stability and love; otherwise, they grow up like me and my friends, rotting on the inside while fighting to stay afloat on the outside. At least they got themselves somewhere in life. I prefer staying in my lodge, the only place I’ve ever called home, even when it feels like just another place to sleep at.
Now, here I am, prepared to take on this ridiculous night at the hands of my annoying friends.
But seeing here there…
Something inside mesnapped.The threads keeping my sanity intact splintering apart, fracturing the mental image within me until it grew to nothing but a consistent, poisonous toxicity I could not for the life of me ignore.
Seeing her there, in the queue, was my final fucking doom wrapped in golden ribbons.
So fucking fragile and delicious, arms curling around herself and her shoulders hunched, as if trying to make herself as small as possible. Not even that would have kept my eyes away from her.
I couldn’tnottalk to her. Was that flirting she resorted to, answering to my own?
“Oh, you’re trouble,” she’d said, her cheeks flushing in adeeper pink that tinged her skin into something delectable.
I wanted to touch her.Neededto.
The distance between me and her felt like a goddamn blade cutting me open—fucking absurd, if you ask me—but I leaned closer, feeling the distinct sweetness of her perfume.
I have known from an early age that there is something wrong with me. And fucking hell, I am the epitome of doomed.
