He hugs me from behind, whispering in my ear. “Yeah?”
My gaze remains fixed on the shadow when I say, “Emilio.”
He freezes in action, unable to react or move from my word before I hear his breath hitch.
“What?”
I point toward the shadow, a tremor of fear vibrating through me, only to see that there is no shadow there. Did I imagine it all?
Grey slips out of me, turning me around to meet his grave eyes, silently questioning me.
“I-I saw him,” I whisper, my voice drowned by the thudding of blood in my ears.
He looks uncertain, glancing toward the shadows but seeing nothing. “No one is there, little doll,” he whispers, heartbroken,before sighing. He leans his forehead against mine, but I can’t stop looking at the shadows where I saw the moving figure.
“I know I saw something,” I insist, my voice trembling.
Grey cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Listen to me. You’re safe. He’s not here.”
I want to believe him, but when he embraces me in his warm hold, I swear I see the same shadow moving once again—ominously observing us.
Chapter 8
Naya
A deep breath, yetit feels as if I cannot breathe.In, and then out. In and—
I’m gasping for breath that refuses to fill my lungs, and I feel the trembling taking over, my legs nearly folding underneath my weight.
We got back late to the motel yesterday, and my paranoia seeped into every crevice of my soul. I know I saw something—is that why it feels as if I’ll collapse from lack of oxygen?
Grey didn’t believe me when I said it was Emilio Ricci I saw, and it’s fucking with my head. Am I just that paranoid to have imagined such things? Am I spiraling again?
Pain—I need pain tofeelsomething. Like an itch I cannot get rid of, no matter how hard I try to.
With a shaky, unsteady breath, I glance back at Grey resting on the sheets. He crashed the minute we got back from the store, with our groceries still stocked inside a plastic bag on the floor. Moonlight filters through drawn curtains, casting an ominous hue over the room as I hurry inside the bathroom.
I make sure not to wake him when I lock the door behind me before undressing.
Hurt—I need to fucking hurt before I lose my mind entirely.
My eyes fall on the scissors by the sink, and I pick them up with hands that refuse to cease their trembling, only to drop them with a loud clatter.
”Shit,” I hiss.
No sound comes from the outside, so I know I didn’t wake Grey. I step into the shower, and the water washes over me, asoothing caress that fails to ease my inner turmoil.
Alone in my own misery, thoughts invade my mind; of all the people we’ve lost. ThatI’velost. Too much death looms over my life like a perpetual shadow. It feels as if I was born in a vast cemetery, surrounded by endless graves that trap me with no escape. No matter how hard I try, something always destroys my fleeting moments of happiness and peace.
It’s been like this ever since I found my dad’s mutilated body in our living room when I was seven. Since then, everything has spiraled into a dark abyss. I want to scream out all of my emotions; the frustration brimming over the edge. Shout out to the world about how much I hate my mother for everything she did to me, for ending my life without actually killing me. She ruined me, and I’m not sure I will ever be repaired.
Broken things can’t be fixed.
Biting my lip, I try to stifle the scream rising from deep within my chest. My mind drifts to the souls I’ve left in my wake, to the friends I’ve made and subsequently lost, and to the gnawing fear that I will probably lose Grey too.
Tears fall, first one and then two, before streaming down my cheeks in rivulets. I need to feel something other than this overwhelming ache wrecking inside my soul.
Pain—I need the fucking pain, and I hate myself for sitting down in a tailor position on the cold floor, using the scissors to scrape the skin from my heel in meticulous movements. I’m driven by a need to rid my body of its imperfections.
