Page 138 of Stutter

He's blaming me for Dean Whitmore’s death, but I don’t care. I’ll take it. I’ll take it if it means Damon is safe.

He kisses the scar on my temple. I wish I could say that his breath is terrible, that he stinks, that he’s ugly. But it doesn’t, he doesn’t and he’s not. “You’ll have to tell me how you arranged for that to happen, Butterfly. The campus cameras show you were in class at the time of my old friend’s death. If I’m honest, I don’t think I want to know. I like a woman with a little mystery. It makes her that much more alluring; wouldn’t you agree?”

I don’t answer, just watch him with narrowed eyes I hope resembles a glare.

He pauses, reaching into his sports coat to the inside pocket. “One beautiful thing I did get to keep from my contract with the royals was a merger with just one company.” He pulls out a vial and a syringe. “Apharmaceuticalresearch company.”

He stretches his arm up, shaking it into the light, the liquid tinted with yellow, and plunges the shaft of the needle into the rubber part of the vial. “Thisis a synthetic paralyzer and anesthetic. Neurosurgeons use this while conducting craniotomies when they need the patient awake. Isn’t that fascinating?”

I’m filled with foul dread, making bile rise to my throat once more as he injects into my arm. Only to pull out a second vial as my limbs grow heavier by the minute.

“Andthisis injectable psilocybin with a side of methamphetamine. I heard you suffer from hallucinations – from your mother no less… and unable to move from the anesthetic but unable to sleep from the methamphetamine… let’s just say you’re patient zero.” He plunges the needle into my arm again with the second drug and I spit at him.

“I…” His eyes flare with excitement at the sound of my voice. “Will kill you.”

He grins, the fucking psychopath and kisses my forehead. “Of that, I have no doubt you will, Butterfly. Until then… let’s have somefun,shall we?” He flicks off the light, and it swings, glowing red, his features turndemonic as he makes it up the stairs and all my nightmares come to life.

________

The light flickers between red and white above me, gently swaying and the shadows in the corners of the already dark room I’m in, move with it.

“Stars shining bright above you…”

He steps out of the corner of the room, dark boots with mud on the sides, dark jeans, black zip-up pullover, the hood is up. As he steps carefully closer, spindly arms drag across the ground, fog like, and I see he has no face. Not even the whites of his eyes are visible.

I kick my legs but it’s futile. I can’t even turn my head away from the grotesque form encroaching on me.

I’m paralyzed. A prisoner in my own body.

The hood comes down and the mask comes off.

Autumn eyes I’ve lost myself in distort and melt, pouring out of his eyeballs like hot wax down his cheekbones.

Not real. I blink rapidly but Jonas’ features morph and now I’m looking at Maverick. My devil. And that’s what he morphs into – a demon come to torture me.

Bile once again rises in my throat, and I swallow it down, so I don’t choke on it.

Please!

My moth mask sits heavy like a boulder on my abdomen, sinking into me. I can feel it coming alive and burrowing into me.

Not real, not real.

It squirms.

“Tongueless… all tied up and nowhere to go.” He reaches out, his touch feather light on my skin but it feels wrong. “Worthless little thing aren’t you?”

“Amourette!” Damon’s voice is loud and rings in my ears from the far corner of the room, fading in and out with every flickering sway of that fucking light bulb. He runs at me and Iswear, I swear he crashes into me, the bed shakes or maybe it’s me. Damon looms over me and my heart sails through the concrete ceiling. “I suppose I always knew you were weak. Years of therapywasted. As useless as a flightless bird.”

No! I blink, tears escaping and running down the corners of my eyes and into my hair. This isn’t real.

I close my eyes, my breathing erratic. It’s freezing but I’m hot all over. If I close my eyes, I can’t see them.

“Look at me, baby.”

No.

“C’monnnnnn Raven.” He growls low and dark. “Look at me… look at me, baby… I said LOOK. AT. ME!”

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