I smiled.
“Stop it, Elian. I’m fine.” I pushed his hands away. I could see the still, calm waters outside the window. Hiding. Concealing. It’s rippling like laughter. It had let me go.
“I can’t believe you went out there far! After I told you about all the drownings! Why would you do that?” He kept on and on. Wanting answers.
Questions hammering my brain.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I felt…guilt.
Elian shook his head. “Sometimes Layna, you scare me. I can’t get in your head. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You’re this intense, enigmatic woman who set me on fire. I’m utterly consumed by you. But there are times I think—”
“You think what, Elian?” His name was a curse. A question.
“I think that you’re not meant to be here with me at all. That some crazy bump in fate threw us together and now here we are. But it’s not going to last long. And at the end of you, I will be completely destroyed. Finished. You’ll walk away just as you were before.”
Elian’s hands shook as he cupped my face. His thumbs ran over my lips, parting them. Pushing inside. Against sharp teeth. Tasting and touching.
Devouring.
“But what will be left of me after you, Layna? I won’t be walking away will I?”
What could I say?
No words were sufficient.
I stayed silent.
I gave him my lips. My teeth. My skin.
And he drank it in.
Because he knew that some things were too horrible to talk about. Too horrible to contemplate.
Life without this.
“I’m hungry,” Elian murmured from the web of my hair and limbs.
I ran my hands up and down his back. Touching the most important part of him.
“Me too,” I agreed.
“Should we go into town? Maybe go to Denny’s?” he asked.
“No,” I said sharply. Emphatically.
Elian laughed. Strained. Fake. Not real. He was starting to wear a new mask. A different mask.
One made just for me.
“I thought Denny’s was your favorite.”
I could never go to Denny’s with Elian again. It’s where I found him.
It was our beginning.
We were past that point in our story.
“Why don’t we go to get some groceries so I can cook for you?” I suggested. I wanted to keep him here.
Safe.
Away.
Tucked in and tight.
Mine.
“You cook?” Elian asked incredulously. After my brief encounter with death, he seemed brand new.
Revived.
Better.
He loved me. It had taken him over. It had pulled him under. He had been fighting as he drowned. But now, he seemed to have accepted.
And now he was…
Better.
“I can cook,” I told him with a smile. Small and sweet. Just for him.
“Well, let’s get dressed then.” We untangled. We pulled apart. We got to our feet and found our clothes.
Elian spent time dressing me. He insisted on it. He couldn’t stop touching me. Brushes. Lingering. He was all over me. He was inside. He was underneath my feet and deep under my nails.
In the car, on our way into Brecken Forest, Elian found an oldies radio station. Waylon Jennings sang just to me.
I could pretend for an afternoon that my father didn’t exist. That I wasn’t his daughter. That I was just a messed up girl with a messed up boy, and we would stumble through life together.
I had developed my own delusions.
Elian pulled into the parking lot of the small grocery store. Elian took my hand. I pulled it away.
Not yet.
Not here.
He looked hurt but I ignored him. I didn’t like the flash of…remorse…I felt as I pulled away from him.
Hating the way my stomach clenched.
Hating the constricting ache in my heart.
I reached out and took his hand.
I gave in.
Elian smiled. He was happy.
I felt…good.
Icy emptiness snarled.
“You’re my girl, Layna. I know your secrets. Do you want to know mine, little, little Layna?”
“Yes, Daddy! Tell me! Tell me!”
He leaned in, his mouth close to my ear. The night was dark. The sky was full. Daddy was home.