The rain is pounding against my flesh like crystal glass, each droplet sharp and bitter against my skin.
Shivers wrack my body and blood coats my hands.
The night sky is so black; no stars shine. A knife juts from my stomach and I’m crying, trying to pull it free.
A faceless body stands in front of me, and in the next breath, the knife is in their hand and not my gut.
Panic seizes my chest and my breathing labors.
There’s no sound apart from the rain hammering against a tin roof. Someone is calling my name and a child is crying.
I look through the back gate of my house into the trees where the sound carries.
Eleanor.
The name whispers from my lips and a gaping hole punches through my chest.
“Evi. Drop the knife.”
I battle with the crying and the voice in front of me. I want to follow the misery of the child but my feet are rooted to the spot and I’m so cold; my body feels numb.
“Evi,” the voice says again, and it’s clearer this time. Not that of a stranger, but familiar.
The sky lightens and stars pop like fireworks. My conscious thoughts battle the ones in my dreams.
“Goddammit, Evi!” The words punch the air and my eyes flitter open and shut.
I gasp for air and my hands fly to my chest to massage the ache there. Rain pours down on me, running through my eyelashes and distorting the presence in front of me.
A glint of a blade catches my eye and a scream rips from my chest.
“No, please!” I cry out, stepping back and almost tumbling over an old plant pot.
“Evi, you’re okay.”
Max’s voice penetrates the haze I’m in and the shuddering of my body takes over.
Images of me being in this place only smaller attack me in a barrage of mixed jigsaw pieces.
“Why are you holding a knife?” I whimper.
Max looks down at the blade in his hand and drops it to the floor.
“You had it. I just took it from you.”
What?
It’s then it dawns on me where I am. I’m back at the house, standing in the pouring rain in my nightclothes, and Max is topless, looking down at me, terrified.
The soles of my feet sting and I hiss and lift my right foot to see the old wound from the lake house has opened up and is bleeding, running away with the rain water.
“What the hell are you doing here, Evi? I woke up to my mother calling, saying you were in here holding a knife.”
I look up at his mother’s house to see the lights on and her nosy face peering out at us.
“I… I sleep walk,” I murmur, embarrassment and fear seating themselves in my chest.
“It’s an hour walk from my apartment to here,” he says, astonishment in his voice.
“I heard crying. A child.”
He stiffens and his mouth snaps shut, doing that jaw ticking he does.
“It felt so vivid.”
“You were dreaming. You should have told me you sleep walk. I would have stayed awake and watched over you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you have stayed awake to watch over me, Max?”
“So you didn’t walk four fucking miles in the pitch black with no shoes or coat on.”
“But why do you even care?”
I’m desperate to know why he’s being so nice to me. Why he cares so much, and why I feel so connected to him. His eyes flicker and flit as if searching for the right answer.
“I’ve always cared. You might not remember me, Evi. You might not remember us, but I do. Every single detail. And there hasn’t been a day, Jesus, a fucking minute when I haven’t thought about you.”
He cares. He really cares about me. This isn’t like Edward or even Garret, who couldn’t be bothered to come here, or to the lake house.
“I’m cold and your mother is staring at me.” I change the subject and he sniffs and pushes back the wet strands of hair that have fallen in his face.
He takes a quick glance up at his mother’s window and waves a hand.Looking back at me, he offers his hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to my place and get you dry.”
I take the hand he’s offering and follow him through the gate into his mother’s garden and through her house. “Go to sleep, Mom. I’ll be over tomorrow.” Her dagger eyes scald into my back as we leave.
“She’s trouble, Maxwell,” she croaks, and I can’t argue with that, because maybe I am.
He leads me down the garden path and I sigh when I see a truck and not his bike. He helps me inside and goes around to the driver’s side. His words play on repeat in my head.
“There hasn’t been a day, Jesus, a fucking minute when I haven’t thought about you.”
When his door slams shut, I launch myself over the seats into his lap. It’s awkward. My knee hits the door and my foot lodges inside the cup holder, but none of that matters
He startles and turns rigid under me at first, but within seconds, his body softens and his arms clutch me to him. We’re both dripping with rain water and the condensation steams the windows and my flesh. We stare at each other, saying a thousand words without sound.
It’s unexplainable how my soul recognizes his so passionately, but it does.
His breath, hot and needy, disperses over my sensitive skin with every exhale, his jaw locked and eyes heavy with lust.
“I want you so bad,” I confess, and like striking a match, we ignite.
Our lips collide, battling for control, his hot, probing tongue dominating and exploring every inch of my mouth. Grinding my body against his to cause some friction against my clit to relieve the pressure building there, I thrash and rock against him. He moans in response, thickening beneath me. He’s so much bigger than me that he maneuvers me around like I’m a doll and he’s my master.
The space is small, but so am I.
Heavy hands pull and tear at my clothing, ripping my top and exposing the wet, sticky skin beneath. His hot lips brush over my skin, finding my hard, begging nipple and sucking it into his mouth.
I want to move more but the confines of the truck keep me restricted, like invisible thread tying me down.
My pussy throbs, crying out for relief. Taking his hand in mine, I push it between my legs and buck over it.
His fingers reach the waistband of my shorts and slip beneath it, finding my hot, wet juices already flowing between my folds.
“Jesus,” he breathes against my body, his hot breath setting me on fire.
His fingers explore and nudge until they slip effortlessly inside me. They’re long and thick, and I buckle under the intrusion, moaning out and throwing my head back.
Moving them in and out of me with rapid succession, he teases my clit with the pad of his thumb.
My body bounces to keep pace. He’s fucking me with just his fingers and it’s still the best I’ve ever had.
My lips part and I gaze into his lust-filled stare, our lips brushing against each other’s as we dance in pleasure.
Reaching down, I fight with his zipper to free the hard granite I can feel confined inside. His fingers slow their pace inside me and I groan in protest.
“I think … we shouldn’t…”
“Shh.” I place my lips to his, kissing and biting
“Don’t think, just feel.” I push my bare chest against his and rejoice in the sensation of being skin to skin with him.
Freeing his cock from the hold of his jeans, he gasps when I brush down the length with the palm of my hand.
Nostril flaring, his body is rigid beneath me, and I know the fight he’s battling over the right thing to do.
I hate doing the right thing.
Taking his cock in my tiny fist, I use my other hand to pull my short leg to the side.
His hand moves from inside me and I replace it with the tip of his cock. Lined up at my entrance, he breathes my name and I lower myself down over him, relishing the stretch as I completely sheath him.
His cock is thick and long, much like his body, and it hurts to sit on him in the most delicious of ways.
A sharp pain twinges in my stomach with every full bounce I take, gyrating my hips. Smoothing over my tits with his palms, his fingers find my nipples, rolling them and pinching.
“Are you sure you want this?”
It’s a stupid question because I’m already full to the brim with him.
I don’t answer with words, instead I contract my pussy walls around him and savor his hiss.
The windows have steamed up but I wonder if his mother is watching, and hopefully having a heart attack at the show.
His palms move down to my ass cheeks, squeezing and guiding me up and over him, skin slapping skin and the wet juices slurping as he plunges so deep inside me he may never be able to leave.
His lips find mine again, soft and then urgent as he embraces me, pulling me tight against him.
Our mouths hang open against each other’s, bursts of kissing and then panting emanating from our spent bodies.
Running my hands through the soft wet strands of his hair as my entire body tenses and spasms, my thighs clamp against him and my hips thrust up; one, two, and then my stomach muscles pull so taut I may be stuck like that forever.
Hot, white, blinding pleasure licks through me, sending my body into convulsions.
A cry rips from my lips as I scrunch my eyes closed, the pleasure so intense I think I actually leave my body and float above myself.
Max forces his hips upwards, prolonging my release, and with it his own ripples over him, throbbing and contracting until hot ribbons pulse inside me, making me aware that Max has followed me over the edge. His tongue flutters like a bird’s wing against my lips.
Sighing, his lips flurry over my reddened cheeks, and he whispers, “You feel so damn good.”
Nibbling on his ear, I inhale and exhale and a giggle leaves me.
Our sweat sticks us together like glue and I don’t think I could ever be close enough to him. I want to become water, seep into his skin and live just under the surface, feeling his blood rush through his veins every day for the rest of my life.
The high of sex makes me weightless and careless in its euphoria, but it’s short-lived.
The small space begins to suffocate me as the fluids from our bodies begin to seep out of me, staining my upper thighs, the sweat turning cold and dry on my skin.
Lifting from Max’s now flaccid cock, indignity begins to taunt me, sending a sprinkle of goose bumps over my flesh and heat to my cheeks.
Dirty Evi.
Why does this happen to me? I don’t regret being with him. I enjoyed how he made me feel, so why does the need to cleanse myself wash over me?
My hand darts for the door handle and I spill out of the truck onto the damp concrete.
Max quickly tucks himself back into his pants and leans down over me to pick me back up, but my heart seizes and the eyes peering down at me don’t match the older, rugged face but instead morph into a boy. Pain explodes in my stomach and my hand pushes against the scar.
Rain pelts down over me and Max has moved, trying to step over me, but I scramble to get up, the asphalt cutting into my skin as I do.
“Evi.” He says my name so gently that a tear leaks from my eyes.
Holding his hands up in surrender, he looks broken, like me. So damaged that we will probably never be whole.
“You’re freezing.”
My body shudders in response. I want him to invade my space, wrap me in his arms, and squeeze until the air constricts and I asphyxiate against his flesh.
Dirty Evi.
I already long to feel him again. Pressure builds between my hips and the sore ache turns to hot need just thinking of the pain mixed with pleasure I’d feel if he took me roughly against the truck bed right now.
Dirty Evi.
He steps towards me, still shirtless, and I sprint away from him.
The rain whips and cuts at my flesh. I dart through an alley towards the back of the houses.
The dark night sky is being swallowed by the trees as they shield me beneath them.
My blood burns in my veins, a contrast to the rain assaulting me. Tears mix and bleed with the droplets cascading down my face.
My feet scream in pain as brush and stones are relentless against the soles. Branches lash and tear at my exposed body.
Heavy pounding slapping against the wet floor sounds behind me and I know Max is following, and I’m relieved.
I need him to snap me from whatever is driving me. Drag me away, save me from myself.
My dreams come crashing down around me and I’m so muddled up inside my thoughts, I don’t know what’s real and what’s the dream world anymore.
Sounds of animals and wind rustling through the trees howl and scream in my ears, but I push on.
My lungs burn and my ribs protest. My legs weaken and I hit the water, wading in up to my waist.
The cold force stills my breath, despite already being soaked and freezing.
The dirty lake offers comfort.
The rain almost feels hot in comparison to the cold, compressing weight of the water flowing over me.
Heavy breathing and the sound of boots crunching over stones and rubble signal Max’s presence.
The moon casts a blue glow over the water that ripples from my intrusion.
Sobs ricochet through me and I don’t know why I’m crying.
“Evi,” Max whispers. Broken words tremble from his lips.
“Come out of there.”
I turn to face him.
Worry and concern cause the corners of his lips to pull down. He looks paler under the hue of moonlight.
“Do you want to save me, Max?” I ask, admitting for the first time to myself that I actually may need it.
He drops to his knees, holding his hands out towards me.
“You don’t need saving, Evi. You needed to be found. Appreciated. Worshipped.”
“Why? Because I’m beautiful? A good fuck?” I shout, spiteful and venomous.
His head drops for a second and then lifts, his eyes trying to convey all the emotion inside him.
“You are beautiful, Evi. But love doesn’t see with its eyes, hear with sound, feel with touch; it connects with its mind, and once it does, there’s no going back.”
My arms wrap around my waist to offer myself security.
I want to start my life over again, change everything that I am.
Except him.
“I just want to feel clean. Clear. I want to understand these needs inside me. Why do I come to the water?”
Getting to his feet, he wades into the water until he’s mere feet from me.
“You used to come here when someone did things they shouldn’t have to you.”
A faint breeze carries across the water, blowing my hair, and with it a sound of a child crying.
My head whips to the side, searching the tree line. Nothing.
“I need to clean away their touches.”
His hand reaches for mine. Warm and strong.
“Have you ever been followed, or thought you were being followed? Maybe had a dream so vivid that you had done something wrong, really wrong, and the police were coming for you?”
“Sure,” he answers, his features pinching in confusion.
“And just as their blue lights flash over your body, they suddenly race past. They weren’t coming for you after all, but your heart is skipping so fast. You’re on the brink of toppling over the edge of a cliff, and at the last second, the wind blows you back from it. Sticky skin, an empty pit in your gut?”
He nods. “Once or twice. Why?”
Pain contorts my face.
“I feel that way all the time. The trees around me sway in mourning. The creatures have broken wings and the water holds ghosts. My past has me by the throat. I’m in a choke hold, gasping, begging for air.”
He closes the space with another step towards me.
“I want to pull a little of peace of heaven down just for you so you feel the beauty in the world,” he whispers.
The chaos inside me retreats and I’m just a girl standing with a boy who, moments earlier, had my pleasure swarming through me like a thousand bees around a honey tree, the buzzing and fluttering chaotic and wild but poetic and blissful.
“Why bring me heaven when we’ve already raised hell and I liked the way it burned?” I tease, letting him take me in his arms.
I climb him, wrapping my arms around his neck and dipping my head into the crook of his neck and my legs around his waist.
“I’m sorry I ran.”
Clinging to me, he walks from the water and takes me over to some rocks where he said the boy was murdered.
Much like with the death of Daniel, it doesn’t evoke any emotion inside me.
Knowing someone was murdered right here doesn’t make me want to move. I simply don’t care.
Dropping to his haunches, Max examines the cuts on my feet. “They’re a mess, Evi. We should go back to mom’s and let her fix you up.”
I’d rather bleed out than let that woman touch me.
“Do you think there’s something broken inside me? The veins knotted? The bones bent?”
“Evi. There’s nothing broken within you. You suffered trauma and your mind had its own way of dealing with it.”
An orange tinge kisses the skyline and I realize it’s the sun and morning is breaking through the night. It highlights Max at my feet.
“You look like an angel down there,” I jest, biting my lip. His muscles pull and tighten over his back.
His broad shoulders flex and swell as he dabs over a cut on my sole. Beads of water shine and drip over him.
His eyes creep up at me through his thick lashes to hold me in their gaze. “I have demons, Evi, but you bring them to their knees.”
“Why?” I honestly need to know.
“To worship their queen.”
Thud…
“Are you saying I’m a demon too? I’m my namesake?”
He smiles so softly my heart skips. “Remember, the devil wasn’t always shrouded in darkness, Evi. He was once an angel.”
He rises up to his full height and my body dims in his shadow. Nerve endings pop and zap.
All I want to feel is him wrapped around me.
I know I’m not normal. The way I crave sexual attention isn’t right. My father was the devil.
He created his own hell in our house and now I only feel at home when I’m embracing that darkness.
“I’m going to have to carry you back.” His eyes drop to my panting chest lifting my bare breasts up and down in offering.
Grasping onto him, I spread my legs and pull him to stand between them, reveling in the heat of his body against mine.
Lifting his hand in mine, I spread his fingers wide and place his hand at my throat.
I want him to squeeze and punish me. Thrust into me and cause the skin to break as the rock tears into me.
I find beauty in pain and darkness because of the horrors that bestowed me in light.
“What are you doing?”
I’m playing games that I shouldn’t be. Pushing limits with him.
“Hurt me. Fuck me,” I beg. “Steal my breath, Max.”
His hand wraps around my throat with such ease it’s as if it was made to fit there.
His anger is a manifestation of heartache. Sorrow. Guilt? But as his hand tightens and I beam up at him, one emotion stands above all the rest.
Fear.
Fear for me, for what I need, but most of all fear because he likes it too.
The power, the control, the pain, the burn.
The darkness.
“Fuck me, Max. Fuck me!” I shout.
His hand tightens around my throat and my words become mute.
He pulls me towards his lips and we collide, urgent and ruthless, sucking, nipping, tasting.
The craving is so intense I feel it like a drug being injected straight to the vein.
“What do you want, Evi?” He exhales, breathless, the hard planes of his body like granite against the soft, supple curves of my own.
“I want to sink so deep within each other that we don’t know where one begins and the other finishes.”
I lick over his chest, biting at his chin.
“Let’s explore all the dark corners together. Follow the pull of lust and exploit our desires.”
My hands drop to unbutton his jeans and free his cock from its confines.
“Let’s make new memories, new secrets to keep from the world.”
My palm dances up and down his shaft as he sucks and teases my neck.
“Fuck me hard. Pull my hair and treat me how you feel, Max. How hard do you want to take me?”
“Hard.” He growls.
“You disappeared on me, just left me after everything we went through.”
Anger and old wounds open from within him, speaking truth he wouldn’t have spoken before.
“Punish me.”
Abandoning my neck, he moves from my body, the cold chill washing over me in a rush.
“Is that what you really want?” he snarls, the demons coming out to play.
“Yes!” I scream at him, slapping his chest.
Yanking me from the rock, he spins me around and bends me face down over it, jerking my wet shorts down my legs and tossing them behind him.
The expanse of his palm spreads over my spine, pinning me down.
“Is this what you want me to do” he roars, kicking my legs apart.
The rough surface of the stone irritates and burns the soft peaks of my nipples.
Heat from his body covers my backside and then all the air whizzes out of my lungs when he rams inside me, seating himself to the hilt.
Explosions of pain, scorching and intense, burst inside my walls.
Yes.
Yes.
Wrapping a fist in my hair, he heaves my head back and juts his hips forward, generating a scream to rip out of me.
Pleasure, pain, the beautiful edge between the two hold me suspended in its frayed strings.
“You want me to punish and fuck you?”
“Yes.”
“Ruin and destroy you.”
“Yes.”
“Abuse and mistreat you.”
“Yes.”
“Like they did?”
No.
“Like your father?”
No.
“Your brothers?”
No.
No.
“Yes.”
Sobbing, my chest constricts so tight I can’t gain air.
I’m disgusting.
His firmness leaves my body and I sag over the rock, heaving and crying, trying to grasp onto my sanity.
“I won’t be like them for you. I can’t,” he mumbles, and his footfalls fade away from me.
I don’t know how long I lay here.
The sun creeps over the horizon, sending its warm rays over my skin. My eyes sting and my face feels sore from all the tears I’ve shed.
My eyes close and open slowly as exhaustion bleeds into my bones.
A boy’s face plagues me behind my eyelids.
Blond shaven hair spikes up over a round head. Blue eyes, small and invasive, stare at me. Skinny arms flail next to him as he walks with a swagger. His skinny, waif-like body comes to a stop next to the water where I’m sitting.
My insides hurt and the cool water eases the pain.
“Hey.” He speaks and my insides corrode.
“Why have you followed me, Luke?” I grumble, looking around him to see if my brothers are coming here too. My sanctuary. The water is my solitude to wash away the darkness. But he’s alone.
“Lucian told me you were out here. He said you’ve got something for me.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Standing up, I grab the towel Max always leaves out on the rocks for me. They always smell of flowers from the soap his mom uses. My mom doesn’t use any soap and we all have to share the same towel.
Moving towards the rocks, I brush the furry material over my skin and then tighten it over my body.
“I don’t have anything for you.”
“You have a kiss.” He smirks, coming towards me. His thin lips purse and come at my face.
I back away, shaking my head. “Lucian wouldn’t like that, Luke,” I say, feeling dirty and angry at him following me out here. And thinking he can touch me like that, kiss me. He can’t. I won’t allow it. He’s no one.
Thin fingers paw at me and try to snatch away the towel. “I know what you do with them, Evi. I’ll tell.”
Tell who? Who would care?
“Leave me alone!” I shout, backing further into the rocks.
He tries to follow but his foot slips and twists. Screaming out in pain, he falls to the floor. “You bitch. Look what you did.”
My eyes drop to his ankle wedged between two small boulders. It’s pointing at a weird angle and he’s writhing in pain.
“Go get help, you stupid little whore!”
The pain, anger, the broken dirty pieces of my soul fragments. I have a volcano inside waiting to erupt but I’m still so cold. My mind, my soul.
I don’t like it, the way they make me feel. The pain they inflict. The worthless acts they make me perform.
It has to start somewhere.
The fight back. It has to start sometime. Before I’m ruined forever.
What better place than right here? My lake. What better time than now? The greedy little pig, stuck like the fool he is.
His arm lashes out to me, gripping the towel around me, yanking it from my body.
Laughter, rapturous and mocking, roars from his chest as I stand there, bare and humiliated.
“You don’t even have any pussy hair,” he mocks.
Am I supposed to have hair there?
“I’m going stuff my finger in there and make you bleed, you little brat,” he barks.
“Go get your brother to help me.”
“I’m going to tell him what you said.” I test him and his face pales.
“He won’t believe you.”
Maybe.
“What will you tell him? Why you’re back here?” I push.
His face gives him away and confirms what I thought. They don’t know he’s even here.
“I’ll cut your lying tongue out of your head, Evi Devil,” he snaps.
My fingers brush over a rock at my foot.
No you won’t.
“Evi!” Max bellows.
“He made me do it,” I gasp, pointing to the body.
The blood coats my fingers. The warm crimson stain looks familiar on my skin, these hands soaking the liquid up.
“Made you do what?”
“He was trying to touch me. He said bad things.”
“Evi.”
“I had to do it!”
“There’s no one there, Evi.”
My eyes try to focus on the boy but he’s not there. It’s just rocks and nothing.
Sucking at the air to fill my lungs, I place my hand to my chest to feel the steady thud. “The boy.”
Max’s brow dips. “I shouldn’t have left you here. I went to get you some bandages and shoes.”
He holds up a bag. Scanning the palms of my hands, I see no blood there.
The dream was so real.
“The boy who died here,” I breathe.
“Evi, don’t,” he warns.
“Was his name Luke?”
Dropping the bag to the floor, he places his hands on his hips and looks off over the water.
The sun has risen and has begun drying all the damp from the rain, leaving an earthy scent pungent in the air.
“He doesn’t matter.”
“I think I may have done something to him.”
The confession vibrates in my chest. Did I kill him?
“Evi, that’s not true. You’re just confused.”
Shaking my head vehemently, a tear leaks from my eye. Tolerance of abuse when tested can transform a person from victim to monster.
“I think I liked it. He deserved it,” I choke.
Max doesn’t screw his face up in disgust at my admission or back away in fear, he just stares at me, devouring me right through to my damaged soul.
“I told you. He was an asshole.”
A laugh cackles from me. It’s unnatural and I’m not sure it’s even humor.
“The monsters ravaged and ruined me so I became one.”
“You’re not a monster.”
“Then what am I if not a monster? What makes a monster not a monster?” I snuffle.
“A monster’s not a monster when it’s loved, Evi.”
Who loves me? Him?
“Are you a monster?” I breathe.
He shakes his head and shrugs.
“Doesn’t matter if I am. Not all beasts do atrocious things. Sometimes the evil around us creates a monster because the world sometimes needs one to rid the world of worse monsters.”
“Is that what my mom did?”
A blank expression steals the light from his eyes and he reaches down and picks up the bag.
“I need to clean your feet before you end up with an infection.”
Okay.