Page 8 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

One thing they never mention about killing someone is how heavy the body is after death. It’s a truth I’m learning the hard way as I pull this man by the feet around the outside of my home.

My lungs burn and feet ache as I stumble backwards. The cold air makes it nearly impossible to breathe. It feels like hours of tugging, but thankfully, my backyard comes into view.

Dragging him just a few more feet until he lies near the middle, I drop his feet and place my hands on my knees. I’m doing this all wrong, I know I am. Frustration eats at me, and all I want is for him to be here.

Thatcher would know what to do. He would have shown me.

He should fucking be here. Why isn’t he here?

A sob breaks from my mouth, and I feel my chest tighten unbearably. All those emotions that went hiding away when the knife was in my hand come flowing right back in.

I miss him.

They could have taken anything from me, anything at all, but not him.

Lightning strikes across the sky, the clouds crying with me as thunder rattles the trees surrounding my home. Tears blend with the rain, and exhaustion hits me hard.

The snap of a branch brings my attention upward. I lift my watery eyes, expecting a tree to come tumbling down due to the storm, but they’re all intact.

He stands there.

A dark figure just across from me, dressed in black, hands tucked inside of his pockets, and the rain forcing his hair in front of his pale face. The cold air has nothing on the look in his eyes.

Drips of water slip from his mouth, sliding across his angular jaw.

My mind tells me it’s a ghost. A coping skill my PTSD caused in order to deal with his loss. But my heart, my addictive heart, she beats for the first time since he went missing.

It’s you! It’s you! You came back, you came back!

The blood rushes to my ears, thrumming as my heart pounds violently against my chest. The world seems to spin a little slower, and I feel my throat constrict around the sound of his name.

Neither of us moves.

We only stand there staring at one another.

He is devastating. A quiet, morbid god amongst humans.

I almost let my mind win. I almost believe he’s a ghost.

Until—

“Hello, darling phantom.”

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

THREE

Thatcher

I’ve never been particularly fond of Lyra’s clothing choices.

Tonight, that is not the case.

She is a vision in black.

That color might’ve been created just for her.

Grim’s lovely bride with a dead body at her feet as her wedding gift. The temptress of light. My one and only mistake, the girl who’d cheated death.

---