Her eyes meet mine, and that’s how she stays for several seconds, increasing the pressure just a little.
It doesn’t hurt, though. Not at all. It actually feels kind of good, because the annoying sting of the cut is suddenly gone. Just gone. Like a kill switch.
She stops biting, explaining it to me. “He told me if you’re hurt in more than one place, your brain only registers one pain at a time. Usually the stronger one. I had a hangnail one day, and it really hurt, so you know what he did? He bit my finger. It was so weird, but it worked. I didn’t feel the other pain anymore.”
One pain at a time. So if something hurts, you can make it hurt less by adding more pain?
The sting starts to return but not as strong, the feel of her bite still lingering.
She does it again, and again, the sting disappears.
“Is that okay?” she asks. “Better?”
I want to smile, and I think I do a little as I nod.
Amazing. I wonder if the cut were deeper, would I have to bite harder? And does it have to be biting? Can I do something else to make the pain go away?
She releases my hand and smiles up at me. “It doesn’t make me happy like Oreos in ice cream, but it’s relief.”
Oreos in ice cream, huh? Yeah, I like that, too.
We sit there for a while, enjoying the noise of the waterfalls, the maze falling quiet and the lightning bugs starting to spark up around the hedges. The music and party and nothing else exist except our little hideaway.
“I wish we didn’t have to leave the fountain,” she says.
We don’t. Not yet anyway. Let them come find us.
“Why do you wear the rosary?” she asks.
I follow her gaze, looking down and seeing the wooden beads peeking out from under my shirt where they’re caught on my collar.
“They get mad when kids wear it like a necklace, you know?” she points out.
A laugh escapes me, and I can’t help it. I swallow. “I know.”
That’s why I do it. They give the girls white ones and the boys wooden ones for first communions. Father Behr was really mad when some of us put them around our necks. When I found out how wrong it was, I started wearing it like that all the time.
There isn’t much I can do to fight back—at home anyway—so I pick dumb things I can get away with.
I pull it off over my head and hold it over hers, slipping it on.
“Now you’re bad, too,” I tell her.
She looks down at it, rubbing the cross between her fingers, the silver over the wood.
“You can have it,” I say.
She can remember me, then.
“Are you mad I’m here?” she asks all of a sudden.
Do I seem mad?
When I don’t answer, she looks up at me.
I shake my head.
“Can I come back again, then?” she presses hopefully.
And I nod.
“Let’s do this,” she says, taking off the rosary and then unclipping the silver jeweled barrette from her hair.
She takes both and sets them up on the little alcove under the upper bowl, hiding them in the niche there.
“Since it’s our secret hiding place,” she tells me with an excited look in her eyes. “It’s like part of us is always here. In our spot.”
I tip my head back against the fountain, looking up at the items that claim our nook, and I smile. She’s nice. I like how she talks to me.
And she likes it here, too.
Winter’s mouth hovered over mine, our lips teasing each other as I pulled the white V-neck over her head and dropped it to the bed.
Her chest rose against mine, and she all but begged my name, “Damon.”
I kissed her slow and soft, her hands torturing me with featherlight touches and her body so warm I was drunk on it.
“Damon,” she breathed, tipping her head back and letting me taunt and nibble her neck.
“Shhh,” I teased in a whisper. “Quiet as a mouse.”
The snow outside turned to water, and the sounds of it rushed my ears as the fountain fell around us again, lulling me and my body into the only girl who ever really knew me. The only woman who needed who I was and who was all I needed.
I didn’t deserve anything I had, but I was doing everything to make sure I’d deserve whatever came. We’d have the family we would make, our friends, and our home, and every fucking night, I’d have her right here, surrounding me and getting lost with me where the rest of the world didn’t exist, and it was just us.
Always just us.
I slid inside of her, and she started rolling her hips, taking me in and out as she tipped her head back, and I squeezed her breast and bit her neck.
The snowy, silent night raged outside, our entire world right here, right now.
I wish we never had to leave the fountain.
We never did.
THE END
Thank you for reading Kill Switch!
Please keep reading for a glimpse of Nightfall,
Devil’s Night #4.
*This is a preview of Nightfall, the fourth and final installment of the Devil’s Night series. Enjoy!
* * *
Emory
Present
It was faint, but I heard it.
Water. Like I was behind a waterfall, deep inside a cave.
What the hell was that?
I blinked my eyes, stirring from the heaviest sleep I think I’ve ever had. Jesus, I was tired.
My head rested on the softest pillow, and I moved my arm, brushing my hand over a cool, splendidly plush white comforter.
I rolled my eyes around me, confusion sinking in as I took in myself burrowed comfortably into the middle of a huge bed, my body taking up about as much room as a single M&M inside its package.
This wasn’t my bed.
I looked around the lavish bedroom—white, gold, crystal, and mirrors everywhere, palatial in its opulence like I’d never seen in person—and my breathing turned shallow as instant fear took over.
This wasn’t my room.
Was I dreaming?
I pushed myself up, my head aching and every muscle tight like I’d been sleeping for a damn week.
I dropped my eyes, taking inventory of my body first. I laid on top of the bed, still fully clothed in my black, skinny pants and a pullover white blouse that I’d dressed in this morning.
If it was still today, anyway.
My shoes were gone, but on instinct I peered over the side of the bed and saw my sneakers sitting there, perfectly positioned on a fancy white carpet with gold filigree.
My pores cooled with sweat as I looked around the unfamiliar bedroom, and my brain wracked with what the hell was going on. Where was I?
I slid off the bed, my legs shaky as I stood up.
I’d been at the studio. Byron and Elise had ordered take-out for lunch, and—I pinched the bridge of my nose, my head pounding—and then…
Ugh, I don’t know. What happened?
Spotting a door ahead of me, I didn’t even bother to look around the rest of the room or see where the two other doors led. I grabbed my shoes and stumbled for what I guessed was the way out, and stepped into a hallway, the cool marble floor soothing on my bare feet.
I still went down the list in my head, though.
I didn’t drink.
I didn’t see anyone unusual.
I didn’t get any weird phone calls or packages. I didn’t...
I tried to swallow a few times, finally generating enough saliva. God, I was thirsty. And—a pang hit my stomach—hungry, too.
“Hello?” I called quietly but immediately regretted it.
Unless I’d had an aneurysm or developed selective amnesia, then I wasn’t here willingly.
But if I’d been taken or imprisoned, wouldn’t my door have been locked?
Bile stung my throat, every horror movie I’d ever seen playing various scenarios in my head.
Please no cannibals. Please no cannibals.
“Hi,” a small, hesitant voice said.
I followed the sound, peering across the hallway, over the bannister, to the other side of the upstairs where another hall of rooms sat. A figure lurked in a dark corridor, slowly stepping into the landing.
“Who is that?” I inched forward just a hair, blinking against the sleep still weighing on my eyes.
It was a man, I thought. Button-down shirt, short hair.
“Taylor,” he finally said. “Taylor Dinescu.”
Dinescu? As in Dinescu Petroleum Corporation? It couldn’t be the same family.