Page 107 of Sick Bargain

But since Krypt, I relish the sensation of being so afraid because it doesn’t make me weak anymore. It strengthens me because I can cope. It turns me on because there’s still a part of me that gets a rise out of the simplicity of an accident. One little shove and I’d fall to my death. One wrong move and I’d be lost to the abyss down below. To sit on the precipice of life and death is an aphrodisiac so strong my cock hardens again, digging into the stone and gravel beneath me.

I’m addicted to fear, but I’m a junkie for the way Krypt delivers it.

I laugh. Because I’m crazy. “Love me, Krypt.”

“Jesus,” he groans, pulling me back a little and flipping me onto my back. Only my head hangs over the ledge, and when he looks down at me, my stomach flutters. Because I see his obsession that means love, but I also see something new. The mingling of sick and silly in the way he’s smiling at me. I’ve never seen him playful before, and to be honest, I didn’t know he had it in him. “What scares you more, hero, me, or that fall?” He nods to the ledge.

Relaxing my neck muscles, I let my head fall back. It hangs in the dark air, and I close my eyes to see if the sensation of falling heightens. I feel the sturdy ledge under my back, the deadly fall beneath my head, and the strong grip Krypt has on my arms.

“You,” I answer.

He slides me over the edge a bit more and I sweat all over. Sitting on my shins, he relaxes his hold on my arms until I’m bending backwards, hanging with my whole upper body over the open space. I breathe harder, my eyes opening to see the path to death.

“Still me?” he asks. He lets go of my wrists altogether, and I cry out in fear, scrambling to latch onto him again. He laughs. Fuck, I love it when he laughs. “Backwards, Remiel. So, you’re scared of me, but hold on to me for safety? Which is it? Am I your danger or your safety net?”

“Both.” My abs and the mostly healed slice on my stomach burn when I pull myself up by them, sitting right on the tipping point with my back to the blackness. “You’re my sanity and my insanity.”

He hums at that. “You know what I think?” he asks, pulling me up a little more. “I think you’d be three times more afraid if I wasn’t here. Everything is more terrifying when you’re alone.”

I panic. “Don’t leave me.”

He backs away, and when I try to scramble after him, he kicks out, planting his foot on my chest. My bony ass is unsteady, sitting right on the edge. “Sit there. Alone. Don’t fucking move. I’ll be right back.” He lowers his foot. “If you aren’t here when I get back, I’ll jump down there to follow you.”

Then he walks away. Leaves me here. Sitting on the lip of the underworld. If I lean back, I’ll fall straight down its throat and end up in Hell’s belly. Now that he’s gone and not taking my attention, I hear things I hadn’t heard before. They’re the same sounds I heard in The Mad House. Whispers and secrets. Drips and echoes.

They turn me cold and set off my goosebumps. Phantom, imaginary fingers brush up my spine, tickling me, teasing me,trying to entice me to tip back and surrender to the fall. It’s honestly tempting, but… my will to live is so much stronger now.

I’m fortified here in this new life of mine. I smile at the taunt of death but turn my back on the promise of it. It’s within reach if I ever need it, but it’s not the thing I turn to anymore. Krypt is. That makes me smile. In the middle of a black cave, all alone, with a lethal fall at my back, my naked, dirty, cum-slicked body sitting on jagged stones, and a maniac somewhere nearby, I smile because I’m happy.

Happiness isn’t an emotion I’m too familiar with, and the way it warms my core but flutters my stomach is comfortable. Wanted. It makes me want to laugh during dangerous games with Krypt, then end up in bed together and have a night that depends on his mood—gentle and close together when he’s calm; painful and sinister when he’s not.

“Still in this world, hero?”

I startle when his voice doesn’t come from one clear direction. It travels up my spine, but whispers against my lips, too. “Yes.” My teeth chatter.

Bright light blinds me, coming closer. I shield my eyes, trying to squint past the beam to see my monster. “You need to learn to make the danger fun,” he tells me, his voice not as jittery as usual. “You’re allowed to be scared and happy. Terrorized and laughing.”

“Am I?” I ask, still squinting. “Since when do you know so much about fear?”

“I cause it for a living, Remiel.” He bends down in front of me. “You know what I like about you?” He lowers the light, shining it on my wet cock.

“What?”

“That you see one threat. The one behind you.” He nods at the drop.

“And the one in front of me.” I nod at him.

“What about that one?” The flashlight’s beam goes up, and when my eyes follow it, I gasp. “You forget to assess your surroundings, hero. Same as the night Ophelia died. You were so focused on her, you didn’t even know I was watching you.”

Above me, a large and very heavy stalactite hangs from the roof of the cave. The mineral formation has formed from water dripping from the ceiling, and this particular one is so long that it’s less than a foot above my head. And it doesn’t look stable. He’s right. Despite having that sixth sense, I don’t always pay attention to my surroundings. I would never have noticed the one above me if he hadn’t pointed it out, and now that he has, I realize I’m surrounded.

A deadly fall at my back.

A madman at my front.

A crushing death above me.

Trigger Mountain all around me, ready to swallow my soul.

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