Page 30 of Splintered
He’d never been less turned on in his life, never been more limp. Never been further from any hint of sexual thought or activity. He ripped away from Evan, tugging his boxers up. His chest was smeared in blood, his belly covered. “Where is all this blood coming from? Where are you bleeding?”
Evan grinned. He spread his legs. Pointed to his hole.
Ben could hardly look. But it wasn’t true. He’d hurt himself, but not to the point where there would be this much blood, so much that it coated Evan—and now Ben—and spread on the floor.
“What would be better for you,” Evan hissed. “Turning Evan into your perfect little doll, your fucking doll in your fucking house? Or having Evan disappear forever? If he can’t be your perfect fucking partner, should he just go the fuck away?”
“Why are you saying this?” Ben’s hands fisted as his arms shook. “Why are you fucking saying this?”
“This is for you!” Evan bellowed. “This is all for you!” He pushed off the floor and sailed at Ben, fingers outstretched, mouth open in a scream, blood-soaked body flying for him. Ben lunged away, scrambling, but he slipped, fell to his stomach, the air punching out of him in a gasp.
Evan landed on top of him, the slick slide of his wet skin warm on Ben’s back. Ben felt Evan’s hard cock throbbing against his thigh. He screamed through gritted teeth and tried to pull out from under Evan. Evan grabbed his hands, pulled them over his head. Pressed them into the tile floor.
“No!” Ben shrieked. “No!”
Evan’s teeth closed around his ear. He spoke, his words hissing, his teeth gently pressing like a warning. “You should have fucked him,” Evan said. “You should have fucked him because it’s the last time you could have.”
“Evan!” He screamed.
“Evan already told you,” he hissed again, his teeth digging into Ben’s ear. “He’sgone.”
I don’t know if I’m here or not. I don’t know where I am.
“Evan, you’re in there,” Ben wailed. “You need help!”
“He needsyou!” Evan barked. He reared back, straddling Ben, his hands wrapping around the back of Ben’s neck as Evan squatted on Ben’s back. “He needed you and you weren’t here!”
Evan’s hands squeezed. His fingers dug into his throat, pushing his face into the bloody tiles. “You swore never to leave him, didn’t you?” Evan hissed. “Now, you never will!”
Gasping, Ben struggled for breath. Evan’s fingers dug into his trachea. Pressed against the arteries and veins in the sides of his neck. Darkness closed over him, narrowing the world. His legs scissored, kicking wildly, but Evan had him pinned on his stomach. He had no leverage. Ben’s palms and his cast slipped on the blood-stained tile, unable to grip. But he had to. He had to, or Evan was going to kill him—
Roaring, Ben planted his palms and heaved, pushing himself up and bucking Evan off his back. Evan tumbled, rolling until he slammed into the bathroom cabinets. He came up in a crouch, teeth bared like a wild animal.
His eyes were black, that same black Ben had seen three times now. Black like the end of the world. Black like Hell.
Could the Devil trick you so well you can’t tell if someone is who you love or not?
Ben tackled him, throwing his arms around Evan’s waist and shoving him into the cabinets. Evan scratched and clawed, bit and thrashed and kicked, screamed at the top of his lungs. Nonsense, gibberish, sounds like a voice going through a garbage disposal. Then cries of hate, promises that he hated Ben, that he hated everything, that he wanted to die. Ben held him down, pinned like a butterfly, and let him rage.
It seemed like hours passed. Evan’s shouts grew hoarse. His voice faded, turned to a broken, destroyed thing. His thrashing weakened, turned to jerks and then shivers. He slumped against the cabinets, his black eyes rolling back in his skull until only the whites of his eyes were visible through his slitted gaze.
Ben backed away until he hit the bathtub. He covered his mouth with his bloody hands as he took in the bathroom, the devastation. The carnage. Blood was everywhere. They were covered in it, from head to toe, stained on their legs and chests and arms. The floor, the walls. The cabinets. It seemed like someone had been murdered there.
His gaze flicked back to Evan, lying on his side on the floor. Maybe someone had.He’s not here anymore!
Ben grabbed a towel and ran hot water in the bath, then crossed to Evan, kneeling carefully beside him. He still didn’t know where all this blood was coming from. It was too much, far, far too much. He could taste it between his teeth.
He wiped down Evan’s arms, searching for cuts and his shoulders, his chest. Nothing. His face, his hairline. The blood seemed thickest over his abdomen. He rewet the towel and came back, holding his breath as he stroked down.
On Evan’s lower belly, above the line of curly hair over his crotch, he wiped away the thickest smear of blood.
Fresh blood oozed and spread upward and downward, to his belly and his groin. A slash gouged his skin across the top of his crotch and marks that looked like runes were carved into the tender flesh of his hip joint, almost to his thigh.
He was using his own blood as lube. Ben sat back, trying not to puke.
Carefully, Ben carried Evan to bed, his battered and bruised body screaming under Evan’s limp weight, his broken hand wailing inside its ruined cast. He laid Evan down, his blood-soaked body violently out of place against the purity of their white sheets, their endlessly puffy comforter.
Ruination. The end.
