Page 23 of Traps and Gretchen

“Indeed. I wrote it for a particular… special obsession of mine.”

“Hold up, I need to record this,” Spar chuckled, pulling his phone out as Neelo moved to the center of the floor. He suddenly faced Gretchen, holding both hands out to her. He flicked his fingers at her and she hurried to him, getting captured in his gaze and monster hands. The usual fear of being watched in a crowd lost to the intensity of love in his hot stare.

“Your beauty is a darkened form,” he began, his voice shooting sparks through her pulse. “Wispy strands within a crippled storm.” He slid his finger along the hair near her face. “Weaving its way into every thread… that protects my soul and keeps me dead...”

Her heart clenched and seized her breath at those words.

“Decayed fibers guard your heart…

By terror’s strings, you dance the part…

My hidden masterpiece in dark so dark…

I see the rosy glow upon your scars...”

She gasped as tears flooded her eyes.

“Down to the marrow of your beautiful soul…

I’lltrapevery shadow in your broken bones…

I’ll find you in your hellish maze...

And set a snare with my binding rage…

Oh, I'll set a snare, of blinding rage...

My love....

My heart.…

My soul….”

He covered her gasping, astonished mouth with his while the room applauded and her emotions sky-rocketed and turned her public-panic up to a thousand.

As the threat of a full-blown panic attack descended upon her, Lacy swooped in with a bright, cheery, “We were making ice cream! I’ll hurry so our guests can enjoy dessert after your wonderful dinner and dancing.”

Gretchen spun away from Neelo as her very own social arbiter took over the task of doing and thinking before things could fall apart.

“I’ll help!” Scarlett hurried next to her in the kitchen. “Tell me what to do.”

Gretchen snatched up the glass mixing bowl and set it on the counter. “First, we’ll…” She paused, eying the golden eyes suddenly blocking her path.

“Allow me,” Handy said so very quietly, his gaze inviting pools of sparkling warmth. He covered her hands along the bowl, his hot, electrical touch seizing her breath and ability to move.

“She’s doing this,” he whispered, sounding amazed and alarmed. “Kaphas. I cannot stop her.”

Gretchen wasn’t sure what his words meant as she stood in a dark corridor in her mind where the walls seemed to warp under the hot and cold breath of time. Years passed in seconds, each filled with hundreds of whispered fears, layers, and layers of familiar dreadful darkness.

“Release her.”

Gretchen recognized the voice of Fetch even though she couldn’t see him while staring into that darkness, but the power in his command shattered the hold.

She stared down at the glass bowl in pieces at her feet as all those secret whispers screamed in her blood.

“Bee-shjoo?”

The careful call of Neelo dragged across her fears like a serrated blade while the voices became louder, forcing her hands over her ears.

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