Page 205 of Light Leech

I looked up at him. Memories of relief and anger over his death resurfaced.

“Come on, Pet,” Naoma said, running her finger down the edge of my chin. This was the Neon Idol not the Naoma I loved.

“What’s the problem?” Tevon asked. An urgent notification flushed in my periphery. I glanced at it. It was an article entitled, Former Fix-mogul Assassinates Republic President Delighty Liu.

“Petya, what is wrong with you?” Naoma shook me out of my neurospace. Her face might have been an illusion, but it didn’t soften the blow of her injured glare.

I had to end it, despite knowing the pain it would bring.

I speared Tevon in the throat. Blood sprayed over my face and the side of Naoma’s.

“You sick shack!” She slapped me. The look of hatred in her face burned itself into my mind. “He was–”

I pushed her out of the way. I couldn’t take care of her just yet. Knowing that she was an illusion didn’t help soften the impact.

I accelerated the drop of my foot and smashed Tevon’s head into pulp with a single stomp. A violet ghost of light flew out from him, back towards Kim’s body.

Keiro backhanded me. “You were always a failure.”

He removed a light pistol from his hip. His words were true to his character, but the part of me that knew this was all a lie recalled that he would never touch a firearm. Keiro would have wielded a blade.

I reached inside my body as I dropped to dodge a bullet. My agility mod had saved me, but I knew who powered it.

Zhu.

“No!” a voice replied. It was not his.

I burned the illusion out, feeling my Bite drain as a repressed voice came to the surface of my mind.

“I almost lost hope, bakuh.”

Let this be your lesson then. Black light covered me with a thin veil, deflecting Keiro’s shot into the person disguised as my mother. She dropped and my father roared like he had over my past failures.

I crouched, pointing my hands out like a swimmer ready to dive. Black light covered my hands as I dove through Keiro’s abdomen and into my mourning father’s legs.

The black light destroyed them. I decapitated my parents, trying my best to acknowledge the illusion, but I still shed tears.

Violet ghosts shot back from their bodies and into Kim, who started to stand. He spoke from the back of the room, but I felt like he was whispering in my ear. “Look at how many people you have failed. Your parents would see you as a disgrace to their name. Your ignorance killed Tevon, twice now. Prideful or not in his claims, Keiro’s disappointment for you is more sincere than Naoma’s love, which we all know is a farce anyway.”

She looked at me, the lust no longer compelling her as she stepped away from me. “Get away, you freak!”

Realty blurred with the illusion again. “Naoma, please–”

“How could I ever fathom loving something as sick and vile as you! Any love you ever felt from me was nothing more than a way to save my teeth from your hunger.”

“Please, Naoma!”

She shook her head and continued to pedal back to hide behind Kim.

“You really zegged up your one chance at happiness, didn’t you?” Boyband kicked his toe against the ground and shook his head.

“Piss off,” I said.

“Focus, bakuh.”

Boyband smirked. “You know, you could have let me go, right? You had a chance to free me before dragging me this deep into Deleon’s work.”

“No, you had to feed. You had a Bite that–”