Page 7 of The Blood we Crave

I knew coming out of that dark space while they were still here would mean my life would be ended. I wouldn’t have to know what it’d be like to live a life without my mother in it. I would never need to worry about the uncertainty of life if they killed me.

This isn’t about not wanting to live in a world without her.

“You made me bleed.” His voice rolls across my skin like fire, and it burns. There is shock in his tone, as if the idea of someone hurtinghimis so peculiar.

“What did you—” I glance down at her face, pale, lifeless, and still just as beautiful. Except I can’t see her eyes. They’re covered with two matching coins, shielding me from the green irises I know so well—my eyes. “What did you do to her?”

“You made mebleed,” he repeats once again. Does he think he’s invincible? Had his father convinced him that they are divine in some way and only they are capable of killing others?

I look over at him where he sits on the ground a few feet away, holding his fingers out into the moonlight, staring hard at the blood that coats his digits. Blood leaks from his lip, dripping down his chin and sliding onto the fabric of his sweater.

“What did you do to her!” My voice is raised louder this time. I’m losing my patience and my ability to care about who hears me scream. Including his father.

It takes only a split second for him to react, and it’s not enough time for me to pull away. His hand reaches out and curls around my wrist, pulling me towards him on the floor. I shut my eyes, waiting for the pain of slamming into the floor to echo through my bones, but it doesn’t come.

What does happen is the feeling of his frigid arm wrapped around my back as he encases my body in his grasp. Gently, he lays me on the ground with his body resting partially on top of me and partially on the floor next to me, keeping his weight from crushing me.

My eyes widen as one of his hands presses over my mouth to keep me quiet. His smell attacks me from all directions. Dark, deep, wood. Just like the forest after it rains.

It soothes me somehow and reminds me of the tall trees and the happiness I felt inside the woods. My last sense of peace. Because this is it—this is the moment he came here for. To kill me. The pendulum of death swings closer and closer to me with every second we lie here.

Tears return, and I feel them skate down the side of my face. Although my mind had accepted this fate, my decision to not leave this room ever again, to die alongside my mother, my heart has not.

My heart refuses to accept this. It beats so hard in my chest I know the boy sent to kill me can feel it—he has to.

I tilt my head, looking over at my mother. Pain accelerates through my soul, and I feel like I’m experiencing every single stab wound as I lie here staring at her. Wishing she would turn her head and meet my eyes. Wishing I could see her smile one more time or hear her say my name. My body shakes with the force of my tears, and I can hear my muffled cries.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

“Don’t look at her.”

I ignore him, which only makes him press his hand onto my mouth a little harder, trying to grab my attention.

“Don’t look at her,” he whispers again, his breath frosty against my warm skin. He’s moved so close that I can feel every single exhale from his nose. “Look at me.”

Look at him?

“Scarlett.” My name slides out of his mouth like water. Fluid, smooth. “Look at me.”

I feel this string pull me. A string that he is holding and has somehow wrapped itself around my gut. It tugs, tugs, tugs, until I give in and pull my eyes away from her corpse.

Meeting his eyes is like diving through a sheet of pure ice. They are incredibly light, frozen Alaskan waters, blue. Looking at them feels like chewing on spearmint gum and taking a breath. It feels so cold. It knocks all the air out of your chest.

He doesn’t shift his gaze from mine, not even for a second, not even when he pulls his hand from my mouth and I begin to speak.

“Are you going to kill me?” I say, the feeling of frostbite spreading across my lungs. “You are, aren’t you? So why don’t you just do it? Just get it over with, I mean—”

“They’re coins.” He interrupts my ramble before I can start, nodding his head in my mother’s direction. “I put coins on her eyes. That’s what I did to her.”

“What—”

“You asked me what I did to her. I just told you.”

I stare up at him with a blank expression, trying to understand what this has to do with him killing me. Why telling me this will do anything to stop the inevitable, but I can’t help but ask.

“Why?” I breathe, feeling my heart slow and the weight on my chest release just enough to let me know that I’m not suffocating.

---