Was he…serious? He had to be bipolar. His dueling personalities were giving me whiplash.
“So, you’re trying to kill me now? Way to get back at me,” I scoffed, nearly sprinting out of the lake. The water clawed at my legs like tiny hands, dragging me backward as I fought to move forward.
I grabbed my towel, wiped my face, and looked around for Max. I needed him. I didn’t care what had happened with Heather. Ineededhim. I was terrified, shaking with fear. And I just fucking needed the one person I knew who would make me feel safe.
But he was gone.
Where the fuck was he?
Probably fucking Heather,my subconscious thought.
A fury like I had never experienced consumed me. I turned away from Jackson, who was now glaring at me with such coldness that the hairs on my arms stood straight up.
“You’re mine. You know that? You’ll always be mine. Wherever you go. We’re blood-oathed.”
His words catapulted me back to a memory of myself when I was five.
The hallway was really dark.My toes felt cold when I walked, and the floor was slippery. I wanted my Mommy because I had a scary dream. I walked to the bathroom. I saw Daddy’s room. The door was open just a little bit, so I peeked inside.
Daddy was in his chair, looking at the wall. He had a big shiny knife on his lap. He talked to it in a whisper. I froze, but Daddy saw me anyway.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said, smiling at me.
I wanted to run to Mommy, but my feet just kept going, so I went to Daddy. If I didn’t, I’d get in trouble.
He touched my hair, and it felt weird.
“You’re mine, you know that?” he whispered. His breath smelled bad. “No matter where you go. You’ll always be mine.”
I didn’t cry. I knew I wasn’t allowed to cry with Daddy. Because that was bad. Really bad. So, so bad. I wasbad.
I turned back to Jackson.
“What did you just say to me?” I stilled.
Jackson smiled, the black centers of his eyes widening beyond the honey brown. “Kenz, don’t be like that, come on. You know you’ll always be mine.”
“I’m not yours, and I never was.” My entire body was frozen with fear.
“Yeah, alright. So, all those times we fucked, you weren’t mine then?” He tsked his tongue, wringing his hands in a move I recognized as anxiety. “Why did you stop talking to me?”
I couldn’t believe him.
“That’s what happens when you break up with someone. You generally don’t speak again.”
I was trying hard not to hyperventilate. The lake water was still inside my chest, and I felt like I was about to puke.
“We were together for eight months, Mackenzie,” he said, upset. “I can’t believe you’d let all that go away.”
I stared at him. Jackson was the kind of attractive that made people look twice. He was tall, with rich, tan skin that glowed golden in the sun, and a chiseled jawline that looked as if it belonged on a magazine cover. His eyes were deep brown, almost black, intense, and unreadable. But when he was sweet, the Jackson I had loved, his eyes were honey.
His hair was cropped close, neat, and always styled just enough to look effortless. He smiled easily, the kind of smile that could charm a room while hiding something sinister. I had fallen for it, too. Jackson was so precarious because he could make you believe he was a good person with good intentions, then turn everything on its head with a single look or action.
I should’ve known back then that he was evil. The problem was that I never knew what he was thinking. He had always been so closed off.
He gave me whiplash, and I didn’t know what was real with him. He lived in a different world from mine—a fractured realitywhere he was two beings. And I spent most of our relationship wondering which version of him I would end up with.
The human version, or the demonic entity that had consumed his soul.
