Page 29 of Splintered
Silence. Evan began to snore.
Around him, the house settled, deep creaks that echoed down the stairs.
* * *
Chapter Nine
The next timeBen woke in the middle of the night, he didn’t have to guess where Evan was.
The sounds were stomach-turning, instantly setting his molars on edge. His skin prickled, all at once too small for his bones. Wet sounds and slapping. Like blood being spilled, or a carcass being carved. Like he’d landed in the middle of a farm on slaughter day.
Lowing. The bellow of an animal, furious and filled with hate. A wail, the shrieking of a hyena on the prowl. The sharp screams of a pig washed in fright.
He bolted upright and stared at the bathroom. The sounds were coming from behind the door. It wasn’t closed, not all the way. A dim glow pulsed around the frame. It seemed menacing. It tried to suck him in.
He wanted to stay in bed. He wanted to stay in the darkness.
“Evan?” Against every fiber of his being, Ben slid out of bed and went to the door. His hands gripped the frame, and he closed his eyes, took a breath.What do I do? What the fuck do I do?
What am I about to walk in on?
Could the Devil trick you so well you can’t tell if someone is who you love or not?
Ben pushed open the bathroom door. “Evan, what’s going—"
His world froze and fractured.
The image he saw turned solid, a freeze frame before the world seemed to shift abruptly to the left, reality canted three degrees off center. In an instant, nothing, not one single thing, made sense any longer.
Evan kneeled on the ground, their small collection of dildos and sex toys spread in front of him on the bathroom floor. Blood stained the majority of the toys, smears of red slashing across the white tile. He grunted, howling, bellowing, snarling, as he fucked himself roughly on a dildo and jacked himself off with a blood-covered hand.
“Evan!” Ben screamed. Every muscle was locked. His joints wouldn’t move. His eyes burned, searing the scene before him into the cellular membrane of every one of his optic nerves. “Evan,stop!”
“No!” Evan bellowed. “I want to feel you! Want to feel you fuck me!”
The times he’d topped Evan were few and far between. They were versatile, but they had their preferences. This was not one of them, not even close. “You’re hurting yourself!” Ben finally managed to pitch forward, half falling, half scrambling to the towel rack. He grabbed every towel.
“I need it,” Even hissed. “I need to feel you. Ben…” His eyes rolled back and he fucked himself harder, faster, ramming the dildo deep into his hole. Ben saw blood drip to the tile beneath him.
Fuck, how long had Evan been in here? How many times had he done this? There was so much blood, too much.
Ben couldn’t take it all in, his eyes glazing over as he tried to count the smears and the spread, the way the blood covered Evan’s hands and thighs and his stomach, rose up in trails to his chest, his neck. Copper and iron filled the air, a liquid taste that made him retch.
He crawled to Evan, holding out a towel. “Babe, let me help you. Babe—" His voice faltered. “This isn’t right. This isn’t you.”
Snarling, Evan ripped the dildo out of his ass and flung it at Ben’s head. “You haven’t helped me at all!” he roared. “You pretend to care! You pretend to love me! But you won’t fuck me!”
“Babe—"
“That’s all I’m good for to you!” Evan shrieked. “Fuck me!” His hands moved furiously over his crotch, blood flying in spatters up his chest, into the tile, into Ben’s outstretched hands.
“That’s not true!” Ben choked back a sob and lunged, tackling Evan. He landed on him, pressing Evan to the bathroom floor. They slid, crimson smearing beneath Evan’s body.
“Yes,” Evan grunted. He thrust his hips up into Ben’s boxer-covered crotch. “Fuck me! Take me! Own me! You want to, I know you do. You want to keep me like your little pet in this house! Make me an accessory, a perfect fixture for your perfect little life!” He snarled, a feral smile, all teeth and hate. “Fuck me! Do it! Make me your little pet!”
“That’s not what I want!” Ben hunted for Evan’s hands, sliding through the blood on the tiles. Evan wiggled free and grasped him, fingers digging into Ben’s shoulders, the muscles next to his spine. Evan’s fingernails bit Ben’s skin like claws. “You’re hurting me!”
Evan’s nails scraped down Ben’s back to his boxers. He grasped the waistband and tugged, trying to strip Ben.
