Page 31 of Executing Malice
Thud.
The door jumps.
The boy grunts.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The hinges scream.
The frame rattles.
The boy grunts with the effort. With the weight of protecting me slamming into his back. His feet dig into the carpet, an anchor against the inevitable.
It doesn’t help.
The banging never stops. The rage roars like a wave rising up from the ocean. The voices on the other side howl with fury.
“I’ll kill you, you little bastard! I’ll fucking kill you this time.”
“She’s mine, youpiece of shit. Give her to me and I won’t use the curling iron again.”
“Let me in or you won’t eat for a month!”
The boy roars through his teeth. He screams back words that jumble and dissolve. There is nothing but the hollow howl of his pain as he fights to keep them out.
Still, despite all his efforts, his feet slip. That momentary give is all the monsters need for the door to splinter. The boy is thrown to the ground and a boot bigger than a ship catches him in the gut. Another in the head. Something hisses and the long slash of leather unfolds. It swings and the snap rips through my very soul.
I scream and thrash to reach him.
To grab any part of him and drag him under with me.
To climb over him and protect him.
But no matter how hard I claw at the space between us, he slips further away. The distance stretches, unraveling until he’s swallowed and I’m alone, wailing into the void.
The bed vanishes.
The room fractures.
I’m swallowed by everything and nothing.
Shadows curl around me like monstrous hands and I’m dragged onto my back. The world becomes a hollow chamber of rippling silk, distorted puddles that shimmerlike oil on water.
There are no floors. No ceiling. Just a breathing darkness that extends in all directions.
And I lie naked at its center. A pale figure drifting on a surface with no texture. It exhales beneath me. Then expands. The darkness slithers up, rising from below in ribbons of smoke. Tendrils that wind over around my legs. Up around my hips.
It brushes my belly.
My throat.
Pulls apart my thighs.
Brushes the seam of my sex.
Latches with the sweetest little suckle. A tentative taste. A test.
It drags through my folds with a teasing sweep that flares heat low in my belly. My body instinctively rises to the familiar nudge. My knees fall further apart of their own accord, and I surrender to the tongue tip circling my opening. Dipping in.
