Page 71 of Deviant

This can’t be fucking happening.

“Nora!”

But there’s no reply.

Not a spark of life.

Nothing.

With her head still resting in my lap, I stare at the lifeless corpse that was once my best friend.

Time stands still as I stare at her barren expression, her blue eyes no longer holding that sparkle that they once did.

She’s gone.

I killed her.

I…killed…Nora.

Time ceases to exist, like something out of a movie where the world continues to turn, yet you stay exactly in the same spot.

When I hear my father’s panicked voice call out my name faintly in the background, I’m pulled back to reality, straight into the nightmare of my own making.

“Oh, my god! Nora! What happened? Rowen? What happened?” he says, going to his knees to check for a pulse.

“Don’t bother. We both died last night,” I whisper, holding onto Nora’s cold body in my arms.

“What?” he asks, panicked. “What the fuck happened here, Rowen?!”

But I don’t have any more words to give him.

Because the truth…is far too ugly for my father’s sensible ears.

Last night, there were two deaths that occurred in this house.

Two deaths that I’m responsible for—hers and mine.

But while Nora’s soul has already found peace, mine will forever live in despair and torment.

Chapter 13

Elias

“Not to your liking, Mom?” I ask when my mother makes a face at the soup. “Tough shit. You know my cooking skills will never get much better than this, no matter how hard I follow those damned YouTube videos you keep sending me.”

Her eyes light up in a laugh, my tight chest easing somewhat that the ALS hasn’t stolen her sense of humor yet.

“How about this? I’ll make little airplane sounds like you used to do when we were kids and didn’t like our dinner?”

She rolls her eyes at me in defiance, but the glimmer of laughter is still present in her clear, blue eyes.

Nora and Aidan lucked out in that department. They got her eyes, whereas I got the dark blues of that asshole of a sperm donor. Aside from my name and the bastard’s eye and hair color, that’s where our similarities end.

As promised, I fly a half-filled spoon of pea soup into her mouth like an airplane, making the engine sound along the way. Her nose scrunches again at the taste, but she doesn’t turn her head this time, allowing me to give her another bite.

Fuck this illness.

She could still feed herself not two weeks ago, even if very poorly. But now, she can barely put two words together, much less do anything else.

---