AllFreeNovel
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No slowing down.
“I’m everywhere, Ellie!” The Divine One’s feminine voice echoes off every wall, bouncing around me like a pinball. “I’m in your school, in your home, in your life. You can’t escape me.”
I turn a corner, and The Divine One’s there. Her hand wraps around my throat. She squeezes with an almost primordial strength and then lifts me from the ground. My feet dangle helplessly as I claw at her hands, trying to get her to release me. Panic beats like a war drum in my head.
“I told you. I’m everywhere.” She brings her masked face up to mine, and as I watch, horrified, the gold begins to melt away. Suddenly, I’m staring at my brother’s burning face, his skin red and blotchy, flames dancing across his brown hair, his eyes crazed.
“You can’t escape me, little sister,” he growls.
His grip tightens.
Darkness consumes me.
I jerk upright in bed, my heart thumping faster than a rabbit running from a wolf.
My nightmares have been getting worse since we learned that Fischer was a part of POP. He’s been calling me repeatedly, having arrived back in town a few days prior, but I haven’t responded to any of his messages. To be honest, I wouldn’t know what to say.
He’s a murderer and, more than likely, a rapist as well. He has probably participated in a whole plethora of crimes that would make my stomach twist and revolt if I were to discover them.
Pain slices at my skin like a million razor blades. Pain…and grief.
Grief for the brother I once loved.
Grief for the brother I never truly knew.
Grief for the brother who’s nothing but a dead man walking now.
Can I kill my brother? Would I even be able to? I want to believe I’m strong enough, but the truth is…I’m not.
A part of me is still the preteen girl who worships the ground her brother walks on and seeks solace in his embrace.
Something stirs in the corner of my room.
I instantly grab the knife I keep under my pillow at all times and inwardly curse my decision not to have one of the guys spend the night with me. They’re still only a room away. All I’ll need to do is scream?—
“It’s just me, kitten.” Landon’s exhausted voice reaches me a moment before he flicks on the lamp beside him. The dim lightbulb illuminates his silver eyes, making them appear almost like two pools of molten mercury.
“Fuck, Landon.” I slowly lower the knife and then place it on my bedside table. “You scared the crap out of me. I almost stabbed you!”
His lips quirk into a microscopic smile. “I’d like to see you try.”
I huff and rearrange my pillows, so I’m now leaning against the headboard, watching him. “I totally would be able to stab you if I wanted to. You should be lucky that I don’t want to.”
“Is that so?”
“Yup. Zane’s been teaching me some things.” I pantomime stabbing the air. “I’m a stabbing expert.”
“Don’t let Zane hear you say that.” Landon chuckles. “He’s very possessive of his title as the stabbing expert.”
Silence descends, but it’s not the uncomfortable kind. Landon focuses on his long fingers, currently gripping the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in, while I focus on the taut planes of his face. The grooves between his eyes have never looked so noticeable before.
“Why are you in my room, Landon?” I blurt when it feels as if the silence is taking a physical form and strangling me.
He doesn’t look up from his long, slender fingers, which have begun to tap against the armrests. “Honestly?”
“Obviously.”
He doesn’t immediately answer. Instead, his silver gaze flits to the guitar in the corner of the room. A frown touches his pillowy lips. “You don’t play anymore.”
