Poison Kissed (9 page)

“More powerful. Girls like power, d’you think?”

“I guess.” He clenches his fingers around the glass, itching to punch her annoying face. If he doesn’t react, she’ll get bored and walk away.

“Better looking?”

“If you say so.” His pulse aches. He doesn’t give a fuck what Delilah thinks of him. Her meaningless taunts shouldn’t hurt. But they do.

“Oh, I say so.” Delilah eyes him slyly, and leans in to whisper. “Doesn’t he make you want to touch? I mean, those sweet glassy muscles? That tight ass? Hell, he makes me wet just looking at him. Don’t those narrow hipbones just beg you to peel off those jeans and lick your way down? Ever wonder what that barely-there skin feels like? You can’t blame her, spreading her legs for a hottie like that, can you?”

Vincent flushes, hotter than the alcohol. He isn’t gay. Not really. Maybe he’s experimented, but a few—okay, more than a few, but who’s counting?—a few breathless blow jobs in the dark don’t count. And until the day he’s sober when he lets some gorgeous hard-muscled fae boy fuck him, that doesn’t count either.

He fingers sticky hair off his neck. Diamond’s probably straight anyway. Straight enough to bang Flora, that’s for sure.

Delilah laughs softly, her seductive breath warm on his cheek, and she flicks her tongue out to taste the jewel in his ear. “Mmm. Fae, as well, and glassfae at that. Kinky. Much more intriguing than a human. No doubt he’s a shit-hot screw, too. That big hot hard fairy cock probably fits pretty good up your girlfriend’s—”

Vincent slams the glass down on the bar, his fingers shaking. “Why don’t you go fuck him yourself, you nasty hellbitch? He’s obviously got a hard-on for low-down lying whores. You two’ll really hit it off.”

His stomach shivers, sick. She could chew his throat out if she wanted to. Right now, he doesn’t give a damn.

But Delilah just chuckles and slings a smooth brown arm around his shoulder. Up close, her perfume is dark and fleshy like a woman’s sex. “I like you, Vincent DiLuca. Your pathetic pondscum antics make me laugh.” She glides hot ashen lips across his cheek. “I saw you sniffing after Joey’s leavings tonight. Brave boy. If you ever get sick of wriggling through snakeshit, give me a call.”

Vincent’s bones jolt cold, but by the time he can react, ask her what the hell she means, she’s gone.

He slides his glass across the bar, disgust and embarrassment twitching his nerves in tandem. Demon bitch is teasing him again. Like she’d ever do business with a stupid human. Like any of them ever would.

Not even Mina. Guilt still stings his lips as he thinks about her, her smooth belly tingling his palm, those lush breasts pressed against his chest, her toxic breath tempting his lips. He didn’t exactly set out to deceive Flora with another woman, not that it fucking matters now.

He’d just wanted what Joey had. Mina, strong, pretty, and resourceful, and fixated on Joey like an infatuated puppy dog.

Bad idea.

Sourness twists Vincent’s bourbon-rich stomach. Joey has everything. Respect, power, minions, Mina’s attention, Delilah’s favoritism. Vincent has nothing. Not even a girlfriend who’ll stay true to him for five minutes.

He waves at the long-lashed barboy for another, his gaze sliding easily over the kid’s hard-muscled arms. But a narrow white hand slides a glass along to him, rustbrown liquid tilting on ice, and a husky female voice tingles his nerves taut. “That one’s on me, beautiful.”

Deathburnt goth hair, long and straight to her breasts, which swell out of a black lacy corset crisscrossed with white ribbons. Pearly skin under inkblack makeup. Legs slender and sexy in tall black boots, frothy white miniskirt frilling around her ass. She smiles around glinting vampire teeth, charcoal lips full and soft like velvet.

Vincent glances at the drink and back again. Her painted eyes glint scarlet, inviting. He’s just the fang-girls’ type, he knows that from experience. And some of them like drugpoisoned blood. It helps them get high. Short odds she’s slipping him a mickey.

He sends her a flippant grin he doesn’t feel. “No thanks, petal. Nice try.”

“Dance with me, then.” Her sexy voice darkens. She crushes her cold hand over his and pulls him away from the bar, the satinblack bow on the back of her skirt bobbing in a froth of white lace.

Alcohol and sorrow mix a warm whiskey sour in Vincent’s heart, and he follows, already regretting that lost bourbon.

She wraps her arms around his neck, her breasts crushing on his chest in the warm rainbow riot of the dancefloor. Reluctantly, Vincent slides light fingertips on her hips, feeling her muscles move, watching the moisture glimmer as she wets her swelling lips.

Her body’s sinuous slide feels good. He swallows, aching. She’s kinda hot. He’s getting hard again. Maybe he could just . . .

Perfumed female sweat and flesh tantalize his nostrils, the music’s dark beat drowning him, and he grips her hips tighter, closes his eyes to feel her body dance. He could pretend she’s Flora. It wouldn’t help. He sighs, lost. “You feel good.”

She molds her hands over his ass, pulling him into her, and her whisper thrills his ear warm. “We’ve been watching you. My friend and me. We’d like to play with you.”

Vincent chuckles. He has no issue with being used for sex. At least he’s good at that. And so long as he’s conscious, he can stop her before she gets too fanghappy. Danger thrills darkly down his spine. “Sure, darlin’. Maybe I’m up for a little game. Where’s your friend, then?”

“Here.” Another, deeper whisper shivers his skin. Hot male scent dizzies him, and a hard body slides against his back.

“Whoa.” Vincent’s eyes snap open, and he tries to squirm away, but the guy sighs hot breath along his neck, the brush of burning lips and sharp teeth spiking anticipation deep inside him. Strong dark hands grip his hips, a massive cock pressing like hot stone against his ass. Vincent’s blood burns, and his balls ache for real this time.

The old learned self-hatred spews inside him like hot oil. He won’t, he shouldn’t, it’s evil, hellcursed, all that bullshit. But he can’t help wanting it. Can’t deny it, the aching need deep inside, and it doesn’t even matter that this guy’s a stranger. Hot male flesh makes him horny, and it feels so fucking right, he wants to laugh.
Hear that, Dad? Your son’s a fag. I suck cock and swallow. I take it up the ass and love it. Fuck you, you hate-twisted moron.

The girl stings her fang along his earlobe and laps at the blood. Her chuckle resonates deep. “I’m Jessie. That’s my friend Rafe. He’s new. Always hungry. Don’t be shy, pretty. Wanna play with us?”

“Yeah.” Breathless. Hot. Horny as hell. Vincent twists his head to chase Jessie’s mouth with his, catching her in an openmouthed kiss that spills warm lust into his guts. Her hungry tongue slides around his. His own blood zings like salt on his lips, and he gasps, his veins swelling with longing.

Her boyfriend, Rafe, groans, hot, long blond hair falling over Vincent’s shoulder. Rafe mouths his throat, ravenous, tongue flicking hard over his pulse. He rubs himself harder, like they’re fucking, a hot rhythm that sends Vincent’s imagination to dark and forbidden places.

Vincent can’t help but groan, too, the stranger’s kiss and the hard, lithe bodies surrounding his so deeply arousing, he’s afraid of what he might do. Take the girl, rip her panties away, and fuck her while she bites his throat. Get naked and wrap his legs around this hot guy’s hips and let him do the same. His cock strains harder, stretching his jeans.

Jessie slinks against him, grinding her hips into his erection. “More like it,” she purrs. “Look at me.”

Golden seduction glimmers deep in her irises, and Vincent’s conviction slips away like wet plastic. He blinks rapidly, forcing himself conscious. “You don’t need to do that.”

Her growl vibrates his chest, and she snarls softly. “Look at me, pretty.”

Alarm spices his blood. Vincent tries to wrench his head back, tear his gaze away, the man’s hot kiss on the tense muscle between his neck and shoulder a feral distraction. He wriggles, tries to squeeze his eyelids shut. But Rafe yanks his head back by the hair, growling as he grazes stinging fangs over Vincent’s throat, and Vincent can’t help but stare into her eyes, his breath stolen away and his body bursting with confused lust.

His skin burns. His pulse deafens him. Her eyes swirl crimson, sucking his will away. The room fades, only her eyes and her fleshy lips on his, the sharp meaty taste of her tongue wrapping around his and the hot slide of Rafe’s dark-skinned hands over his belly and down between his thighs, he’s working those long hard fingers into the ragged rips in Vincent’s jeans and Christ, it’s the biggest fucking hard-on he’s ever had.

The world tumbles, disoriented, colors flashing behind his eyelids. He grabs Jessie’s long black hair and forces her mouth open wider, and next thing he’s on his back, soft suede rubbing on his skin when they tear his shirt off, Rafe’s burning mouth sucking his bar-pierced nipple.

Jessie’s lips slide on his throat, her tongue pressing hard, sucking sharp bruises into his flesh. The threat of razor fangs spears dark desire deep into his guts. She grabs his hand and forces it under her skirt. She’s not wearing panties, and his fingers slide easily between her burning wet folds. Hot, slick, delicious, her tiny clit already swollen hard. She sighs and rubs against him, her breath coming faster.

But forget that. Rafe’s rough kisses inflame his belly, sharp nips leading downward. Strong male hands on the buttons of his jeans, tearing them open, sliding them down, sweet relief. A crushing bite on his thigh, the pain creeping delicious in his balls, strong tongue sliding where the veins throb. And at last, that hot wet mouth on his cock, enfolding him deep, sucking, the pleasure so deep and cruel that he barely notices when Jessie’s acid fangs sink deep into his throat.

His muscles jerk and shiver, pleasured and ravaged at the same time. She purrs and slides her mouth in the sticky mess, tongue lapping. She pops his skin again, sharp fangs sliding in, and god, it hurts, a dagger through his vein, the vile backpressure of her sucking ripping a blaze of agony right down to his heart. His skin rips open wider into her mouth, and she swoons, gulping the hot splashing blood faster and faster. If he doesn’t get her off him, this could be very bad.

But Rafe swallows Vincent’s cock again, deeper, clever fingers slipping between his legs, feeling for his ass, seeking his pleasure. Sensation tears up from his balls, so hot and bright and shocking that Vincent groans and lets go, jetting desperate heat into that talented mouth while Jessie feasts on his blood, sick delight throbbing over and over until he’s got nothing left.

He chokes, bile and his own blood mixing in his mouth. His pulse hammers. Jessie rips hot fangs from his neck with a cry of triumph, and blood splashes like hot oil. Agony and afterglow swamp him, bitter and sweet. Lights glow faintly, sounds fade, dimmed by dizziness and pain.

Not enough, he registers distantly. He won’t die. They’ll probably just leave him here now they’re finished. Sickness fights a raging battle in his guts, and he lifts a weakened hand in a lost effort to get up, to cover the wound and stop the bleeding.

But strong arms pin him down. Hands clench in his hair, and the blond crawls over him, levering his thighs apart. Rafe’s naked brown muscles glide on Vincent’s chest, so hard and smooth and rich with hot male scent. Sharp fangs nip at his lips in a cascade of musky blond hair. “Not finished with you yet, pretty. You ready?”

Their kiss slides in a sickening smear of vampire blood. It drips into his mouth, burning like ironrich honey, delicious and disgusting. Blood crawls over his tongue, coating his teeth, sliding down his throat, hungry hellvirus cells mingling with clean. It trickles down his cheek, and Jessie licks it up, smearing it, sliding her hungry tongue into a three-way kiss. She slashes Rafe’s throat with hungry fangs, and Vincent can’t help but follow her, the syrupy taste intoxicating him, the deathrich pulse of Rafe’s blood in his mouth making him groan.

Somewhere deep and distant in his lustdrunk mind, Vincent knows this is very bad indeed. Dangerous. Flirting with darkness.

But he gulps, and swallows, and swallows some more, his ragged nerves afire. Mouths mingling, tongues sparring, suction and heat and salty bliss.

Jessie snarls and wraps a hungry thigh around him. Her nails scratch his chest, she’s lithe and hot and slick and he’s inside her before he can remember the word for
wait
. So smooth, so tight. He’s hard again so soon, the friction unprecedented, and when she sinks her teeth into his throat again, he can’t help but thrust into her, searching for her groans to match his. God, it feels good, tension ebbing and flowing like a slow-cooking orgasm, the faintness of shock and the fevered lust of touching, and Vincent wonders dimly if this is what dying should be like.

Rafe covers them, his body hard and light. White-blond hair smothers his face again, drowning him with stolen fruity scent. There’s something familiar in that smell—something he should recognize—but too late. Rafe’s fangs rip deep into Jessie’s shoulder, blood splashing hot into Vincent’s mouth, over his face. Jessie moans and writhes between them, her nipples rubbing hard and wet against his chest, and he feels the other man’s hardness slide against his as Rafe pushes into her.

Flora. Rafe smells of Flora. It’s a trick. They’re killing him. Or worse.

Vincent’s heart gallops weakly, and he wants to scream
no
—or
god, please, yes
—but his head swims deeper with confusion and blood loss, and Jessie’s hot flesh drags pleasure like burning wire from his balls, and his throat fills with glorious spelldrunk vampire blood and his vision swirls to black.

7

I perched on my sofa in flickering candlelight, nerves trembling. My bare toes clenched in the pale carpet, cold despite the heat.

Cobalt laid a bony white hand upon my heart, his hot fingers sticking to the leather. “You ready?”

I shivered. The hot summer night soaked through my open windows like blood. No breeze lifted the lace curtains. The moon set fat and swollen behind jagged apartment blocks, lighting my sparse cream furniture in hellish orange. Tree branches reached gnarled shadows through the window to grasp the bare blue walls like skeletal fingers.

The candle flickered, making the fingers stretch and twist. The ripe patchouli scent sickened me. “Do we have to have that? It smells weird.”

“You know it helps sometimes.”

“Sure you’re not just trying to get laid?” I smiled weakly, but it wasn’t funny.

Cobalt thumbed the clotted cork from a long glass tube, his feathery blue gaze hesitant on mine. “Drink up.”

I took it, my guts rippling at the sight of the dirty khaki sludge inside. It wasn’t sparkle. I didn’t want to know where he got it, or how it was made. I only knew it worked. I closed my eyes, tilted my chin back, and swallowed the lot.

It scratched my throat, thick and gritty like burnt custard. I choked on the salty flavor of bad seawater, my stomach twisting. My eyes watered. Already my head swam and ached, my mind stretching like rubber, dragged in too many directions at once. Colors flashed, and strange music whirled, snatches of half-remembered songs.

Cobalt stroked my hair, mesmeric. “S’okay. Close your eyes. Don’t think. Just let it take you there.”

“Hurts,” I protested, my voice already slurred. Slashes of bright memory already ripped the real world to bleeding. Images splintered in, a madman’s axe through a balsawood door. But it wasn’t just vague memory. More like being there, the magic brew lashing every twitch and sting and breath to harsh-lit life.

This afternoon, the sun stabbing my eyes as I woke in a sweat with a poisoned screech ripping from my throat. Dreams of Joey again, aching and feverdrenched.

The other night, glinting knives in the moonlight, warm and soothing in my hands. Cool breeze lifting my hair, my breath’s hot catch, the burn of my thigh muscles as I ran, a salty red groan of pain.

A few weeks ago, a fight with angry fairies, my body hurtling backwards, crunching into the ground, the breath ripped from my lungs. Joey’s hands on my face, safe and warm, my bones hurt like a motherfucker but I want to stay there, he’s gazing into my eyes and just for an instant I see . . . and then the blistering taste of our kiss, the delicious shift of his tongue on mine before he shoves me away.

I groaned and swiped the image away, colors slashing my vision like clawmarks. Cobalt shuddered. It hurt him, too, this memoryscrape. His faetalent dragged my thoughts like barbed wire through his mind, and I got them back tainted with his flesh, his blood, the dusty sweetness of his sweat.

He pressed his fevered cheek to mine, shivering with need. “More. Further. You can do it.”

The memorysauce stabbed deeper into my veins, a hot shock of compulsion. I yowled, helpless, cold fear springing threat into my song, and Cobalt covered my mouth, his fingers hot and wet. “Shh. Not that. No poisonsong. Let it come.”

Confusion muddied my vision. I wanted it. I didn’t want it. But too late. My limbs jerked, my slimy sweat bitter on the air. We were going whether we liked it or not.

I closed my eyes, and my memories hurtled back.

But not far enough.

Sultry midnight in the spriggan’s den, the reek of stale sweat, humidity stinging like salt water on my bitten skin.

I squirmed on the sofa, dread chilling me, but I couldn’t shake it off, and the vile memories slid into me like bad heroin, warm and delicious for a few seconds until the fucker bares its teeth and chews you ragged.

Metal floor, gritty and damp on my back. Bare lightbulb buzzing, flickering yellow shadows. A rusty shackle scars my ankle raw. I’m so hungry, my stomach hurts, and a smelly black spriggan fucks me, his cock long and barbed, his clawed hands cruel on my thighs. Rotten meat stinks. My flesh stings again and again. I squeeze my eyes shut and think of dinner, old Chinese food, cold salty fries, my next hit, anything but the stink and the stabbing pain.

Serrated teeth slash at my naked breasts. I scream, my song lost and broken in a thorny scrape of sparkle and the weak acid they force down my throat every night. So many more days like this, on and again and forever before Joey finally comes for me.

In my lounge, I yelled and wriggled, my guts afire. The magic sauce gripped me like the spriggan’s horny claws, not letting me free. I’d stay there forever, trapped in a hall of evil mirrors, unable to wake up.

Cobalt whimpered and pressed his forehead on mine, thumbing my wet hair from my cheeks, his dusty scent sweet solace. “Don’t, Min. It’s over. Let it go.”

“I can’t!” A sob tore my chest raw.
Cold hard flesh, crushing my guts from inside. Sick vomit spewing into my mouth.
I clawed at Cobalt’s hair, wild.

“You can.” Cobalt kissed me, once, again, a swift crush of lips and tongue and sharp fairy teeth intended to distract and shock, and at last the horrid sensory violation ripped free, images and sensations spinning off into some blacker void.

I gasped for blessed, untainted air. Dim patchouli smoke filtered in, comforting. My racing heartbeat calmed, little by little. My body ached, and I swam in space, weightless, in neither present nor past. Distantly, I saw Cobalt rocking me in shaking arms, the earthy smell of his hair, his lips hovering hot on the corner of my mouth. Like he held some other helpless girl, and I was just watching.

Dimly I felt him speak, his chest vibrating on mine, his addict’s need still raw and unsated in the way his body trembled and shivered, feverneedy. “S’okay. Enough. Try ’nother time—”

“Nononono . . .” My syllables slurred, but black determination poured into me like sticky tar. I’d see that killer’s face tonight if it tore my heart out. I twisted my neck, sliding my sweaty cheek on his, searching for his mouth. “Moremoremore. Gimme . . .”

His lips tasted fresh, like pine. He gasped into my mouth, the memories flowing between us like water. Glimpses of his mind, a black alley, his phone’s neon shine, a dark fairy kiss, guilt, a throbbing headache, a sweeter ache flowering in his groin.

He whined like a puppy, his sharp teeth grazing my tongue. “You hurt so much. You want more? I got a special one. Help you see.”

Anticipation burned, even as the stupidity of it all washed my muscles to water. Trust a guy who’s already up to his eyeballs in glitter, rubbing his hard-on against your thigh and whispering about pain. Good move.

I knew he didn’t do it for my sake. He was a junkie, just like me, only for a darker, more lethal drug.

But Cobalt shared my pain. He took my money when he knew it’d hurt him. He held me when otherwise I’d be alone.

I summoned my voice, groggy with confusion. “Yeah. Hit it.”

He uncorked another shimmering indigo vial and pressed it under my nose. Faint alarm pinged, somewhere in the minute part of my brain that didn’t slaver like a rabid beast at the sight of that sparkling temptation. That dark blue looked menacing, evil silver glitter winking at me like demon eyes. Something wasn’t right.

But the dribbling beast chewed my common sense to mush. I didn’t pause or think. I just inhaled.

Brightness rained, shiny and delicious. Drugspell burned my nose, my sinuses, my throat. My eyes stung fresh and watery. My limbs swelled with starry warmth, and a slow jitter of desperate relief jerked my spine. So soft and shiny, floating weightless on fruity nectar. Bliss, this stolen emotion, some other creature’s happiness bottled just for me.

Pleasure rippled softly through me, warming me, like someone licked slow and gentle between my legs. My thoughts twinkled like glitterbright stars, distant and clear. I groaned. I’d do unconscionable things to feel like this. I already had.

Cobalt gasped a smile and finished the sparkle off with a wet sniff. He sighed, raw and rough, his eyes glimmering. I relaxed in his arms, dimly aware that he laid me back on the sofa, sniffed at my throat, buried his nose in my hair. “Come on, pretty. Remember for me. Let me in.”

I gripped his knotted blue locks and pulled him down to me. We connected with a crunch, our minds slamming together like cosmic jigsaw pieces. Flashes of his guilty desire, stabbing pain, a rabid thirst for mental contact.

And then, it was all me.

Whirling back through black oblivion, evil-smelling wind dragging my hair over my face. A thousand dark images, smells, sounds, swirling in jagged fragments like a smashed mirror. The night the giggling spriggans caught me, stupid drunk little girl stumbling alone in the dark around scarlet-topped flametrees in Fitzroy Gardens, my dress smeared with beer and lipstick, my best and only weapon lost to cheap wine and laryngitis I caught on my knees in some dark sweaty corner.

Backwards in time, a riot of intoxicated brawling and faceless un-friends, falling into gutters with blood in my eyes. My first knife fight, flashes of steel and reflexes jerking tight, the shock of blood and my skin splitting open, glass shattering as I scream.

Back again, to shoplifting, purse-snatching, grifting for cash, picking horny old men’s pockets and stealing plastic chips at the blackjack tables beneath glittering casino chandeliers, crafty fingers and a flutter of painted lashes while the dirty sods fingered my ass. Stolen cocktail dresses that never fit properly, black bruises on my thighs, my limp blue hair pinned up to make me prettier. Always hungry, always broke, always scraping for a score.

Further back, fevered, breathless, broken bricks against my back and delicious fairy flesh yearning against mine, smooth clawed fingers teasing up my miniskirt, the dark-eyed fairy devil who fed me my first bloodlaced sparkle hit just so he could get laid.

Before that, nights spent crouching in freezing shadows under the rainbowsprayed Jolimont railbridge with greasy drunks and hookers. Stealing a blanket from a mad old bag lady. Sallow skin and pimples and digging in the garbage for junk food, scratching another girl’s face when she grabbed the half-eaten burger first.

And then, there I am, crouched in terror behind that dusty sofa, those horrid footsteps crashing in my ears like helldrums.

“That it? We there?” Cobalt fisted my hair tightly, trembling, his sharp fairy teeth clattering with my terror. Fragrant black glitter shivered from his wings, warm like butterfly dust on my skin.

My throat corked. I nodded, and squeezed my eyes shut. I forged my concentration like steel, filtering out everything, the candlelight piercing my lids, the pain. Cobalt’s fevered body on mine, his palms seeking my warmth, crafty fairy fingers dragging my zipped corset open. The strange drug glittered darkly along my optic nerves, skewing my vision with silver like a moonlit ocean, ringing a jerky carillon in my ears.

This time, it’d be different. This time, I’d remember.

My head split with agony as time ground forward, inexorable slow motion, moment by tortured moment.

My mother wails and thrashes weak limbs. The footsteps click softly forward. Click. Click. I wrap my arms around my knees, and my elbows crack, one by one.

Click.

A tear runs down my nose. Plink. It hits the floor like glass, so loud, I cower. My guts ache like hell. If I lose my bladder, he’ll find me, kill me, rape me. I squeeze my eyes shut.

On the sofa, I groaned and sweated, my pulse aflame. Cobalt whimpered and pressed his face into my naked chest. His inkblue tears smeared dark on my breasts. I didn’t care. I willed that terrified me to swivel her eyeballs north, just for a moment. My breath ripped shorter, faster, and . . .

Click.

My teeth rattle together. I clamp down hard. My tongue slices, salt and sting.

Click.

He stops. Mother’s nails screech and rend the wooden floor apart.

“Please. Stop it. I can’t.” Cobalt sniffled, hot and wet on my breast. His face slid clammy with my pain, and in the depths of sweet sparkle psychosis, I felt his hooktaloned memoryspell withdraw, stinging like a wicked knife curving from flesh.

The images dimmed, sounds vanishing like smoke.

Horrorworms rippled my skin. I could see them, dirty brown worms, wriggling under there, cheap effects from a sparklebright horror movie. Desperately I dragged Cobalt’s hands to my hips, making him work my buckle loose. He needed contact. So did I. My voice trembled. “Help me. Just a little longer.”

Cobalt sobbed, but let me wriggle my pants down, let me guide his hand between my legs. His cool fingers quivered on my bare skin, warming me. He sighed, and gradually the scene sprang alive once more, melting back into my mind like burning film rewound.

My spine crackles cold. Sweat dribbles down my temple. A moth darts under the darkened lightbulb, lost.

My mother moans, her pretty voice shattered, and her words stretch into a ghostly howl.

Pleaassee. Heeellp meeeee.

The sound skewered deep into my ears. Long fairy fingers eased inside me, comforting, that gentle palm pressing against my flesh, drawing pleasure from my belly that I didn’t want. I writhed, warmth sliding against cold disgust.

Clothing whispers aside. Iron scrapes on leather, and soft fingertips swipe steel as the killer pulls his pistol.

Clunk.

The slide springs back.

My body quivered with urgency. Please, little innocent girl. Open your eyes. You must have opened your eyes. Just for a second. Let me see.

Clink. Crunch.

Bullet in the chamber.

Slap, hiss, smack, as my mother struggles, her hair dragging on the floor.