Page 290 of Ominous: Part 1
“Sometimes I forget.”
The emptiness of his words shreds at my heart like claws. He knows he’s a god, after all. But benevolence is beneath him, and old, dangerous gods speak with quiet voices. If Eli wasn’t always so indifferent, keeping his temper mostly in check, who knows what he could do?
“Sometimes I don’t think of her at all. Then, sometimes, I do.”
“How does it feel?” I ask softly. “When you do?”
His lips are pressed together.
I think, for a moment, he won’t answer.
The ghosts are here. The ghosts have always been in you. They just traveled to Virginia with us. This place loses all its terror without you.
“I miss her. I hate her. I want to kill her. I never want to see her again.” His tone is flat.
My heart aches. Blood is squeezed out from its chambers. His pain is mine, and I think of leaving next fall. I think of walking away.
I don’t want to. Make this work, make this work, make this work.
You can’t stay here. Get out. Get out. Get out.
“Do you ever…” I have to clear my throat. He’s still as a statue. A myth. A god. “Have you ever spoken to her? Since she left?”
His eyes darken. I have to force myself to stay exactly where I am. I forget about his strength, sometimes, until the smallest things remind me. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
It’s a brake. Full stop.
A train coming to a screeching halt.
“Eli, I—”
He drags his gaze to me, and it looks wholly black. “Please,” he says, but there’s nothing pleading in the word. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
Fear, or something like it, wrapped in reverence and want andneedforms a knot in my lungs. I don’t want to, but I force myself to nod. “Okay,” I whisper.Okay.
“Why do you flinch when I touch you?”
I don’t want to talk about this.It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I won’t do that to him.
“Is ithim?”Eli pushes. Giving me an out.
“I don’t like the way skin feels on mine.” It isn’t really a lie.
Eli frowns.
“Suffocating,” I try to explain. “I need… space to breathe.”
He tilts his head, his gaze focused on me. “It isn’t him?”
“Sometimes there isn’t an origin story for horror.” The words sound colder than I mean them to be.
His expression doesn’t change as he watches me without blinking.
“You were killing animals before your mom left you.”
He doesn’t shy away from his own truths. But he studies me, eyes searching for a hint of something. Fear? Revulsion? A lie in my answer? “It doesn’t bother you? The shit I’ve done?”
I don’t look away from him. “No pets, remember?”
