Page 243 of Ominous: Part 1
“But you aren’t too far gone.”
I laugh. A cold, wicked sound. “You are delusional.”
“Maybe,” she admits. “But would you ever hurt me?”
I give her a look.I already have,it says.
She smiles. “In a way I didn’t like?” Her words are seductive as she dips her chin.
“Do you want to know the truth?”Do you want to know what I wasjustthinking about doing to you?I glance at the fireplace, only for a second.
She pauses for a moment, not moving, not speaking. Then she walks around the table, fingertips of one hand still gliding along the wooden surface. She approaches me, but I back up. We do this dance until I’m against a shelf, book spines digging into mine.
Her fingers come to the choker around my throat, her head tilted up to meet my eyes. She splays one hand over my chest, fingers wide. Her index finger slips under the leather band, grazing the shallow cut on my skin.
“Would you ever hurt me, Eli?” she asks again, our bodies so close, I can feel her warmth. I can smell her as well, the peach scent of her shampoo, and her own fragrance, soft like violets, and wild too. She scrapes her nail against the scab of my cut.
My hands are by my sides as I stare at her, thinking about her question.If you left me, maybe. Because you can’t walk out like Mom did. I learned from that mistake. The worst part is knowing Mom is still alive, happy and thriving, somewhere without me.
I think about ash. The fireplace.I don’t know what I would do to you, sometimes, nightmare girl.
“No.” It’s a lie.
She knows, and her bland smile shows it. “Would you try to stop yourself?”
“Not if you walked away from me.”
“That isn’t love.” She doesn’t sound angry about it, and she’s still touching me, her hand over my heart, the pulse in my throat.
“I don’t care. It is for me.”
“This is the type of relationship they write books about,” she says, glancing at my mouth as she steps between my feet, her breasts grazing my core. “It never ends well.”
I clench my hands into fists as she keeps her eyes on my lips. “This isn’t a fucking book.”
“You can learn a lot from stories.”
“Write a different one. Just for us.”
“You’re so obsessed with the idea of me never leaving you,” she lifts her eyes to mine, peering at me through her lashes, “but have you ever stopped to think you’ll grow bored of this soon, and leaveme?”
My mouth goes dry. No. I never have, although it’s a possibility, I guess.
“You said I’m a high. But I’m not an adrenaline junkie like you. I like dangerous things, but I cling to people, Eli.”
I glance at the bracelets along her wrists. I want her to tell me he was different. I’m not him, because if she’s to be believed, she hasn’t spoken to him since she moved, which means she easily forgot about him and moved on to me.
Could she do the same with us? Out of sight, out of mind?
“What happens when I become less useful for fulfilling your craving for excitement?”
I don’t answer her immediately. Instead, I reach for her wrist, the one at my throat, and watch as she startles, just slightly. One day, she’ll tell me the story about her brother’s stupid fucking friend, and I’ll get a name, and I will murder whoever it is who hurt her.
For now, I wrap my fingers around her wrist and press my thumb to her pulse point, feeling how rapidly her blood pumps through her veins.
I swallow down the dryness in my throat before I start to speak. “My mom used to run the bath water, after a fight with Dad. It gave her some kind of peace, drowning out the noise of her thoughts, maybe.” I bring her hand to my mouth, sucking on her index finger, then her middle, her ring. I lick a line down that one, biting the top of her knuckle lightly.
Her eyes are fixed on my mouth, and I keep her fingertips against my bottom lip as I keep talking.
