Page 94 of Monster
“Essa,” I croak as I drop to my knees. I hear a splintering crack as my heart is ripped out of my fucking chest. “What the fuck did I do? What the fuck did I do?” I repeat over and over while shaking my head in disbelief. This can’t be real. Leo continues to move over Essa’s battered body, and I can’t take it anymore.
“Move!” I roar as I shove him out of the way. He surprisingly moves easily, and I shuffle over to take his place. I stare down at my beautiful girl and the deep, back and blue handprints covering the entire expanse of her neck makes me sick to my stomach.
Her face is lax as she lies on the cold, hard ground, unmoving.
“Essa, baby doll, wake up. Please, open your eyes. I’m so fucking sorry!” I scream as I flutter my hands across her entire body, completely lost on what to do. My hands move up to her face and I press my index and middle fingers to her neck and when I can’t find a pulse, dread creeps in. Fuckingrealitycreeps in.
I fucking killed her. I wrapped my hands around her throat and fucking killed her. My baby doll. All because of one single thing she did. Out of the thousands of ways she has hurt me over the last nine or so months, this is the one thing I couldn’t handle.
I’m fucking weak and this goes to show how I have never been in control—my monster has been controlling me all this time.
Wetness splatters across my hands and it takes me a moment to realize it’s from tears coming from me.
“Give her CPR, Vincent!” Fucking do something!” Leo shouts from behind me and his voice kicks me into gear. I fold my hands together and press them to her chest as I begin the compressions. After a few, I pause to breathe into her mouth and the moment my lips touch hers for the first time in months, I feel everything I never wanted to again.
Hope.
Pain.
Regret.
Fuckinglove.
A sob wracks through me as I pull away and begin the compressions again. Back and forth I go for what seems like an eternity. Time slows to nothing and the only thing I can focus on is Essa’s cold body underneath me, taunting me.
“How long has it been?” I hear myself screaming, but I don’t remember speaking at all.
“It’s only been a fucking minute, Vincent, but I don’t know how long she had already been like this before I showed up!” Leo shouts back at me and in my peripheral, I see him pacing back and forth, literally wearing a path in the fucking dirt. He runs his hands through his hair, yanking on the dark strands before he kneels back down in front of Essa.
“Fucking move!” He knocks my hands out of the way to continue the compressions. I sit back on my haunches as I watch him work over her.
“Give her mouth to mouth, you fucking dumbass!” Leo screams at me, and I jerk up to bring my lips to hers. For a moment, merely a split second, I close my eyes and imagine she was awake, kissing me back and giving me that attitude I hate to love—but that’s not real.
She’s fucking dead.
I breathe into her mouth and watch as her chest expands before deflating again. Come on, Essa. Just breathe, baby doll. Please.
Leo stops the compressions to check her pulse and I can’t even feel my own heart anymore. I can’t feel anything other than pure fucking terror. I have never felt this kind of fear before and it makes me wonder if this is how Essa felt growing up with Benjamin for a father. Or if this is how she felt when Holley died. Or maybe this is how she felt when she killed our baby…
“Fuck!”
“What? No, please, no. Don’t fucking say it. She can’t be.”
“I think I can feel her fucking pulse! It’s faint, but I think it’s there!” he shouts as he digs his phone out of his pocket and chucks it at me. I catch it on reflex, and he spits out, “Call the fucking doctor and have him meet us here—immediately. Tell him it’s a nine-one-one.”
I nod my head as I flip through his contacts as quickly as I can and find Doc’s number. I hit call before I press the phone to my ear and wait for him to answer. Hearing Leo say he felt her pulse has the tiniest bit of hope springing inside of me, like maybe this will all work out.
Wishful fucking thinking.
Doc answers on the second ring, and I tell him what Leo told me to. Right as I hear him acknowledge what I said, a sudden, horrific cough shatters the air around us. My gaze flies to Essa. Her body is moving although Leo’s massive frame is blocking most of her from my view. I immediately drop the phone from my grasp and dart back over Essa’s body to see for myself, to make sure my eyes are fucking playing the worst type of tricks on me.
Essa’s beautiful green eyes spring open and immediately land on me. I heave out a sigh of relief and move to pull her into my arms, but—still hacking her lungs up—she darts up and digs her feet and palms into the ground to push herself away from me. She scrambles and slips as she moves, but that doesn’t deter her.
Her frantic eyes stay locked on me as she scurries away from me. Dirt kicks up around her and I’m forced to watch with utter defeat as my baby doll scurries away from me like a frightened mouse. I have never seen someone look so fucking terrified of me—and that includes every single person I have ever killed.
Maybe this hurts worse because I actually feel something for Essa. All of those other people were merely a job, a means to an end, but her? She was always something more—from the very first time I laid my eyes on her, I fucking knew.
Now I destroyed anything good we could have had because the monster prowling inside of me knows no bounds. He was hunting for a reason to be set free and I fucking found one. It didn’t take much convincing either. I wanted it. I know I did.
