Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aria
Pax scanned our items in the self-checkout lane.
Quick.
Efficient.
Gaze always, always scouring the area as the scanner continually beeped, never ceasing in his oath to defend. I knew that he would. He’d more than proved it last night.
But it was the promise of his words from a moment ago that had left me staggered. Shaken me so badly that I kept peeking up at him as I loaded our purchases into bags. What filled me with the urge to trace my fingertips over the spot where he clenched his fierce, defined jaw, to drag my nails through the stubble and return to whatever it was that we’d shared last night.
Push into it.
Into the place where I could fall. Just for a little while. Into his warmth and his safety and his touch.
I wanted it, even if it was only once.
That need got tangled with the constant impulse to reach out and touch the people who jostled around me.
To listen.
To heal.
To slay.
To free them of the chains. To loose them of the voices that haunted and howled, so loud that I could almost hear the snare of it beating through me.
It’d been bearable when we were in the middle of the store since we kept our distance from others as much as we could. Dim enough that I’d managed to resist the call, even though it made me feel sick to walk away when every fiber in my being told me it was my purpose.
The reason I was here.
It was harder here, where people crowded together around the registers.
Blurred intonations hummed around me.
A low drone that fizzled and curled through the air.
“Take it, no one will notice.”
“Kick the little brat’s ass when you get home. He’s so spoiled. Rotten to the core.”
“Wouldn’t it feel nice to drag that razor across your flesh? To see the blood flow? Don’t you miss it?”
“Look at her. She wants you. Get her number. Your wife will never know. How long has it been since she’s let you touch her? It’s her fault, anyway. She drove you to this.”
It was the first time I’d been around so many people since I’d been admitted to the mental hospital. Since I’d first touched Jenny and found a new way into the darkness.
Voices penetrated now.
Growing louder.
I squeezed my eyes like I could shield myself from them.
“Are you okay?” Pax’s rough words cut into the disorder.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Only it became too much when a wave of wickedness suddenly rolled over me. A dark, suffocating cloud. Black smoke that filled the atmosphere.
Consuming.
Overwhelming.
An infant wailed. Inconsolable.
Hopelessness coiled in the darkened mist.
I tried to squeeze my eyes against the assault.
“Why would you bring him into this world? Why would you put him through this? Think of all the pain that is to come in this life. Why do you think he won’t stop crying? He already knows. Do it when you give him a bath. Put him out of his misery. It will be painless.”
I gasped as my eyes flashed open. Drawn, they landed on a woman who pushed a cart into the store with an infant seat set in the basket.
She swiped at the tears on her face, and she reached out and rubbed the baby’s belly. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw what she said: “Please stop crying. My sweet boy, please stop crying.”
“He won’t. You know what you have to do.”
Grief filled her.
Harrowing. Devastating.
“It’s okay. No one will blame you when they find you bleeding out. They’ll know you can’t live without him.”
The compulsion to touch her was the strongest I’d ever felt.
With my hands tingling and my heart racing, my spirit was already there. Energy rushed to my fingertips, a bright, blinding light that lit the way.
We were only halfway through checking out, and I gulped around the disorder, barely able to choke out to Pax, “I need to use the restroom.”
A question marred his harsh brow, only a heartbeat needed to fully take me in. Concern immediately slipped into his features. “Let me finish, and I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t need to come with me to the restroom, Pax.”
It wasn’t that he wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been subject to the same vile atrocities we witnessed each night.
It was that his purpose was different from mine.
His purpose was protecting me, and I couldn’t take the chance of him getting in the way of what I needed to do. I knew he would always put me first, whatever the circumstance.
“The fuck I don’t,” he spat, low.
Another swell of depravity inundated me.
Dark.
Disorienting.
Blinding.
My lungs squeezed with it, my body vibrating with the need to go to her.
I set my hand on his chest. “Don’t box me in, too. I’m not helpless or weak.”
He looked like I’d struck him, the man torn. Worry pinched at the corners of his eyes while understanding lapped through the chaotic gray. He both wanted to argue and also knew that I was right.