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“Have you stayed off the pills like Malachi said?” he asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
I move away from him, manoeuvring my dress around the bodies and feet littering the ground. “I have one night. I’m enjoying it,” I murmur. “The time for remembering is not yet."
One night. One more night and then I leave. He won’t take no for an answer again. I know that. I felt it in his words and then felt it in my body when I stared at myself in the mirror earlier. Faith said as much to me, regardless of her telling me I could stay as long as I wanted, as she dressed me. She said he was obsessed, infatuated, and that that was a precarious place to be with men like Gray.
I don’t really know what that meant, but I can’t deny the fact that unless I hide, or run, or ask Malachi to fight Gray for me, which I doubt he will, I will be going home after this.
“I just want to dance, Malachi. Lose myself again.”
A hand threads into mine, as I move into a new room without him, and I look up to see who it is. The sight makes me gasp slightly and trip over something, as the malicious face stares down at me. Black eyes, vivid red veins on a dark red background, and a cruel smile that seems as dead as it appears, imposing on the mask.
It twists in my vision, moving around and coming in closer to back me up to a wall.
“Veins,” puffs out of me, as I remember the dance floor, the fear.
My shoulders climb against the brick surface, grating and roughing, as my eyes flick sideways for escape routes. There aren’t any. Just this mask and the fear it emanates. I pant, deep breaths trying to calm me down. It’s only a mask. That’s all. There are no real demons here or any need to be scared. Something galvanises at the thought of that. No demons. Nothing to test my resolve when it comes to fun and laughter.
I reach forward for the mask, gently dancing my fingertips on the hard surface so I can feel the contours and ridges. Smooth, heatless. I smile and tilt my own gaze, enjoying the devilish eyes glinting behind the holes, and then move my lips forward to the black line that is slightly open. He can’t hide who is here. Shouldn’t either. Masks or none, Malachi is as Malachi should be.
A breath blows out of me into the slit, my own lips grazing what should be a mouth. “It suits you, Malachi,” I murmur.
“Are you tempted to let me use you instead of him?” he asks. Not with that on his face. He’s right. It’s definitely not something to fall in love with.
Not that anything is anymore.
“No,” I reply listlessly, waning under the thought, as he takes my hand again.
My hearts beats weakly under the torment of old wounds, unable to deny the floating sense of disenchantment I’ve fallen into now. But I stare off to the side and let more visuals collide with the slow burn inside me. He ignores them all and leads the way, cutting through people like an ocean that seems to part for him.
A woman stands perched on a table, her legs wide as a man pummels his arm inside her. I squirm at the scene, grasping my thighs tightly to get past that particular offer of torment.
“What are we going to do with him, pretty thing?”
I don’t understand the question, nor do I care now I’ve thought of love again, so I keep up as he leads me into another space and then downwards. Rough, stone steps clatter under my heels, even rougher walls grazing my arms because of the speed of descent. Eventually we break out into a small room and he points at a cave like tunnel in front of him.
“Where does that go?” I ask. “I wanted to dance.”
“Somewhere. Everywhere. Would you like to go?” My lips quirk, mind trying to keep up with his strange ways. I giggle and stare at the long malicious nose that sticks out from his face, my hands reaching for the covering over my own eyes. “I wondered if he might try to save you again.”
“From what?”
“Me.”
I laugh and keep staring at his mask of a face, unsure what I need saving from anymore. Maybe he did seem scary at first with his face full of veins, but he’s been inside me now, been gentle with me using feathers. That was before he beat me with something, but even that was sensual in some way I can’t process yet. Whatever fear I had of Malachi seems lost and meaningless now, perhaps deemed rash or impulsive because I didn’t know him. It’s not unlike how I felt for Gray at first. And that sense of distress has long since left me.
Gray.
My body turns back for the entranceway we just came through, a longing building inside me because of the thought of him. He’s not there, though. It’s only us and wherever I’m being led. I shouldn’t care. I am singular, alone. But I do care. I asked for him tonight. For him, not Malachi, and I can feel him inside me still, hear his groans and calls to me from the distance, feel his heat.
I sway slightly at the memories bedding into my skin, colours merging all around me, as the dull beat carries on above us. “Lead the way, Malachi,” I muse, picking up my dress again. What does it matter who I follow? They’re only memories. Not real. Nothing is here.
We travel swiftly, his hand still towing me. I remember the feeling of following him like this before. We turned, went upwards until we were on the roof looking out at the view.Malachi says.My head shakes, mind trying to find some resonance with memories I can’t quite grasp. His trick. He wouldn’t show me. Said he wouldn’t do it even though I won.
Swinging balls.
