Page 129 of Pareidolia

I feel it now, creeping along the edges and telling me that if Aspen won’t stay, I’ll have him in the soil, in the ground, as food for the trees so their leaves turn to a sweet memory of his apathy on my tongue.

One way or another, he isn’t leaving this forest.

When I get to the fire tower, he’s pacing back and forth, mumbling under his breath in a nearly feverish, irritated tone.

“This fucking town. I knew better.” Aspen picks up a battery pack and throws it into his backpack. “I should have known better.” He pauses, holding his hand out in front of him before skating his fingers along the black lines that mark from tip to shoulder. His fingers clench, nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw out little rivulets of red. “I can’t be this.”

He looks furious as he picks up his laptop and slides it into his bag, dragging on a jacket to hide the marks I left on his body.

To hide my marks.

I’m not quiet this time as I land on the roof of the fire tower, and when I drop down to the walkway, he’s standing there with the door open. His ochre eyes are apprehensive.

“What do you want?”

I have no pretty words for him, no charm or seduction. The low, rumbling growl that tears from my chest is nothing more than an accusation.

“You left.”

The shadows at my back spill out, a dozen tendrils that writhe in agitated bursts of movement. They want to snake forward, to wrap around his throat.

To tear him apart so his blood soaks into the ground and lives forever in the roots of the trees beneath us.

“I did.” That apathy floods my senses and makes my body tense, and the hunger inside opens its maw like an infuriating, aching hollow that knows if I taste him now, I’ll have to live on that memory of it for the rest of my life if he leaves.

If I devour him whole, will he find a place to live inside my chest, in that empty place where I’ve craved him from the first time I tasted him?

“Broken…” It comes out low. “Broken little monster.” And then… “Break you until there’s nothing left.”

Aspen watches me with wary eyes—he doesn’t retreat, but he does very slowly lower his bag to the floor.

It isn’t enough. I take a step forward, and that part of me continues to spill to the surface, to well up until all I can see is streaks of color.

Red, crawling from beneath his jacket at his collarbone.

Red tattoo.

Red pulse streaked with black where my shadows crawl beneath his skin.

Red where my teeth left marks on his neck.

Red as he licks his lips and color marches up his cheeks.

“Are you hungry, Nox?”

Furious.

Hungry.

“Starving.” Another snarl.

Aspen swallows hard, and then nods once, twice… slowly, as he takes a step back. Two of the tendrils at my back whip forward, one wrapping around his throat, the other catching around his waist. It leaves his arms free to strip out of his jacket. I can see the tattoo on his chest, the marks I left on his arms.

Things that make him mine.

Mine, mine… and…

Aspen bites his lower lip and nods a third time. The shadow tendril around his throat squeezes, and he lets out a little moan as another taste peppers in with his apathy.