Page 64 of Ominous: Part 1
She stiffens. “I told you, I don’t do things like that.”
“What if I told you to?”
She looks away, glancing at the metal grates beneath our feet, her arms still crossed over her chest, like a shield. “I don’t want to become someone else for your sake.”
“If it’s still you, is it really someone else?” My heart beats faster in my chest, and I couldn’t even say why, if someone asked. My eyes go to her mouth, and she runs her tongue over her cherry-red bottom lip as she peers up at me.
I bite my cheek, stopping a groan. I was physically turned on by Luna. But I wanted Eden mad. She was hurt.
It’s almost better.
“I would do it,” I tell her truthfully. “I would’ve broken Dom’s neck if he did that to you. Maybe I would’ve let you touch him, if you asked me to. I would do anything you told me to. I would wear any mask, be anyone, I would—”
“You do that with everyone, Eli. Even with Luna, back there.” She falters, but I have to bite my cheek to stop from smiling.She saw through it.“You are always wearing a mask. What I want…” She lifts on her tiptoes, until our mouths are a breath away. “Is for you to take it off.”
Nothing she says is wrong. “Do you want to know what I want?”
“Only if it’s me.” She isn’t smiling at all.
“This is the part where I say,let’s get out of here.”
She licks her lips, letting her eyes roam over my face. Her anger has faded. She wants me as much as I want her. But she drags the decision out, to punish me. Finally, she says, “If you promise me two things.”
“Anything.” My heart pumping too wild in my chest, my breath labored, I’d do it, too.Anything but stay here.
“Don’t ever do that to me again. I don’t care what you’re trying to prove.”
I nod once. “I won’t.”
She seems to believe me, that easily. Or maybe she just doesn’t trust anything I say, and this is no different. She meets my gaze again, the smile back on her full lips. “We’re going to run in the rain.”
“Funny.” Nothing is funny in this moment, but it’s the only word I can think to say. “I’ve always wanted to see you soaking wet.”
Eden
It’spouring.
Lightning strikes overhead, violet and violent, and a second later, thunder rolls loud enough to make me flinch. Everything is a blur of gray and rain and giddiness all around me, and I don’t care anymore that Sebastian didn’t pick up when I called.
I have to stop running, splashing into a puddle that soaks my pant leg, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts. We’re at the side of Dom’s house, no one else is out here with us in the darkness, lit only by solar lights dotted throughout the garden lining the paved driveway, and a motion light positioned just over the bottom of the stairs.
I spin around underneath the orange cast of it, my smile an ache on my face as I struggle to breathe.
Eli has his shirt off, clutched tight by his side.
He rakes his hand through onyx, dripping hair plastered over his forehead, smoothed back by his fingers. He lifts his head, gazing up at the clouds above us, the moon long hidden. His arms come to his sides, palms facing me as he rolls his shoulders back.
His chest is heaving, I realize as I step closer, shivering from the cold of the rain, my clothes stuck to my body, the surprising chill of the night.
I trace the bruises over his body with my eyes.
I can’t make out the details, but I see the red has darkened, a color with purple undertones, even more jarring than last weekend. And it’s not the only wound.
He has three others, the size of…the size of fists.
The rain roars in my ear and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Lightning strikes, and I realize I could be its next target, but as I stare at Eli, water dripping off the sharp planes of his face, a smile pulling on his beautiful lips, and those ugly, ugly bruises decorating his body like a glimpse of the darkness inside his head, manifested over his rib cage, I don’t care.
If I’m struck, it will only be a literal exhibition of my hazy mind, the goo of warmth in my brain. My face is numb, my mouth still stretched into a smile, and my limbs are heavy, and if I knew better, I’d go home. This messed up, I’d call Seb over and over until he answered. I’m not falling all over the place. I’m not in any danger of throwing up or blacking out.
