Page 16 of Grave Love
The images I’ve conjured of my mother.
My cheeks tense.This is insane.He doesn’t know anything about me. How could he?
I’m letting him dig into my head.
“Have you been stalking me?” I hiss, carving the anger out of my chest, focusing on the fact that he invaded my privacy. I don’t focus on the fact that he sees me. That he even seems to know me. I don’t want to acknowledge what that would mean. “What is wrong with you?”
He chuckles, the sound skittering across my core.
“Stalking would imply that I’m obsessed with you,” he says, leaning forward. “I’m afraid what you are to me is more of a curiosity, Ren. You live with your grandmother in a nice neighborhood, and most nights you force yourself to sleep with pills and alcohol. Nothing out of the ordinary.” He winks. “Yet, that’s not every night, is it? You spend nights here too, dreaming of death. Getting off on it. Pretending like someone’s hands are wrapped around your neck. Telling yourself that life would be better if someone killed you, if you just had those final breathsyour way,taken from you, like you always dreamed of. Your killer driven so mad by desire that they can’t help but fuck you until you’re dead.” He licks his teeth, his eyes locked on mine, and I shiver. “Tell me, though,” he continues, “if you’re so infatuated with death, why haven’t you killed yourself yet? Are you afraid, little corpse?”
Tears well in my eyes. His words are like a knife digging out my guts, shoveling them onto the ground while he walks all over them. Because he’sright.Almost every day, I imagine disappearing. The world would go on, and my grandmother and Denise—everyone in my life, really—would keep thriving. My lifeanddeath don’t make a difference.
I imagine driving into the ocean, and the water taking me down. A noose brushing my skin before it snaps my neck. A gun resting on my temple as the trigger is pulled.
I know I won’t do it.
Maybe I am afraid. Maybe I think I want deathonlybecause I don’t know what it will be like. The nothingness. An absolute void.
There are no guarantees to how it wouldfeel.No true indication if I would regret it, or if I would welcome it.
He has no right to know those thoughts within me.
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
“Youareafraid,” he murmurs. “And why wouldn’t you be? Death is the only unknown we have. Even for the untouchables like us—the ones dealing with the dead all day long—thatdeath,that inevitable end, is still an unknown, ominous presence.”
I clutch my purse to me. My own noose is inside of it, like a safety blanket comforting me. My clothes dangle from Blaze’s hand, swaying like palm branches.
Even if he is cornering me like this, I can still get out. I can still leave. None of thishasto matter.
His thumb flicks over his lip, and my thighs clutch together. The memory of his body against mine floods me. His mouth on my breasts. The pressure of his weight. His thrusts. His complete power over me.
Even when he made it clear that heknewI was alive, I gave it to him. I know that. And now, it’s like he’s holding up a mirror, forcing me to face myself for the first time in years.
“Just give me my clothes,” I beg in a whisper.
“You want someone else to take your life when you least expect it. To do itforyou. You want someone to lead you into that darkness. To lock you inside and never let you out.”
I scrutinize him. His eyes twinkle with longing, his jaw loose. The slight dip of his chin.
Maybe he’s not making fun of me. Maybe this is real. Like he’s seeing those hidden parts of me, the ones I rarely openly acknowledge myself.
My stomach sinks. Am I that obvious, or is he actually curious?
“Would you slip off in your sleep?” he asks. “Would you take a bullet to your head? No, notmylittle corpse. That’s too easy for you.” He winks, a sigh dancing on his breath. “You want to feel the rope close around your neck as your vision and hearing starts to fade, don’t you, love?” His eyes dart down between my legs, his tongue skating across his lips. My neck flushes. “You want to feel every last second fade away as someone powerful takes that dripping cunt of yours for the last time.”
A small drop of arousal dampens my jeans.
I straighten myself. He’s playing with me. There’s no way that this can be as good as it seems.
No one wants the real me.
“What do you want?” I ask, louder this time.
“It’s simple,” he says. He tilts his head. “You want to be dead. I like torturing women. Let’s be honest; I like killing them too. It’s fun to fuck corpses, but you know, they don’treactquite the way the living do. And I haven’t been able to find a woman as satisfying to kill as my first. I’m changing my hunting criteria, I suppose. And that leads me to you.”
My heart pounds in my chest. He’s definitely screwing with me. This isn’t real. He’s trying to see what I’ll believe. To prove how stupid I am.
