Курок Дуглас Пенелопа

She snorted. “You don’t have to quit,” she told me. “I’m not going to leave you over it. It’s just healthier.”

Then she climbed up on me, straddling me as I sat on the side of the bed.

“I know.” I ran the backs of my knuckles under her V-neck, over her stomach, touching the soft skin that still wasn’t showing signs that there was a kid in there.

She was only about eight weeks along, and with all the dancing, she was working off a lot of what she ate, and I worried the baby wasn’t getting enough, so everyone was feeding her all the time now. Thankfully, her tour was short, and she only had a few more performances before a nice, long break.

We’d gone ’round about putting herself in danger and the kid in danger with the shows, but she was determined to assure me she could finish it and be safe.

Things had gone well for her the past couple of months, and she already had more projects lined up for after the baby was born.

I tried to be at every performance—no matter where—but after the work I did for Grady MacMiller, jobs started coming in, and I had to work. A couple families sent me to their summer houses down south to build things, and I was busy planning out more projects already booked for spring and summer.

I made sure either Rika, Banks, or Alex was with her if she had to go out of town overnight for a performance that I couldn’t attend.

And although I was paying the bills and building us a future, I did relent when Banks gave the house back to Winter, including ownership of everything in it. Banks advised Winter to keep it solely in her name, though, so she could kick me out whenever she wanted.

They laughed about that one.

And Banks also honored my father’s deal with Margot and Ari for a nice settlement, even though the marriage didn’t make it a year and was now annulled. They’d moved into the city, Ari refusing to ever be in the same room with me again.

Somehow I’d find the strength to go on living.

And we still hadn’t heard anything about her father. I hoped it stayed that way.

Winter planted her forehead on mine, gliding her fingers down my arms.

“It’s snowing,” she whispered.

“How’d you know that?”

We weren’t outside. She couldn’t feel it.

“I can hear it,” she said. “Listen.”

We sat there, so still and quiet, and I closed my eyes, trying to see the world how she did. I inhaled, smelling the cold air, but the silence rang in my ears, and I couldn’t hear it at first.

But then I picked up a hint.

“On the glass,” I told her.

She nodded, smiling. “I love that sound. Like the world is asleep.”

It looked like it, too, remembering the blanket of white over everything outside. How water kind of had a habit of quieting the world around me my entire life, and in one form or another, I sought it out and reveled in hiding behind it.

Looking over her shoulder, out the window, the snow fell, charging the air with a little more beauty, the animation making the Earth look alive even when everything else was still. A little more pretty. A little more peaceful. A little more cover.

She always got that about me. She felt it, too.

Even when we were kids, she knew.

 

I sit in the fountain, the water spilling over the sides from the bowl above, down around me, and hiding me from her.

My finger stings, dripping with blood where I’d sliced myself on a thorn as I ran through the maze, but I don’t dare make a sound or even breathe.

She’s searching for me, and I just want to be left alone. My chin trembles. Just leave me alone.

Please.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she says, having bumped into a little girl. “Are you having fun?”

I close my eyes, imagining I’m far away. In a cave. Or out at sea. Anywhere away from here. I rub the little scratches on my wrist that I’d put there yesterday, trying to see if I had the balls to do it. Maybe I won’t do it. Maybe I will. If I did, I wouldn’t have to stay here with them. I wouldn’t have to live here. It would be over.

“Have you seen my son?” I hear her say, and I open my eyes, my hair and tears blurring my vision. “He loves parties, and I don’t want him to miss this.”

I don’t like parties. My knee shakes uncontrollably. I don’t like anything.

“No,” the little one says.

But I see her staring at me through the water, and I wait, terrified she’ll tell my mother I’m here.

Don’t, please.

My mother finally leaves, and the little girl moves toward the fountain, checking behind her to see if anyone is still there.

Approaching, she calls my name. “Damon?”

She can leave, too, for all I care. I want to be alone.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Just fucking go. I don’t want to talk. I won’t say the right thing, and I don’t want to answer questions. Just leave.

“Why are you sitting in there?” She peers through the spills of water, and I shiver, the cold seeping through my clothes. “Can I come in, too?”

I notice she wears a tutu—everything white—and her hair is twisted into a tidy little bun. She’s younger than me, clearly one of the students from my mother’s school. Winter, I think? She’s been here before, and I was in the same grade as her sister.

“I see you at Cathedral sometimes,” she tells me. “You never take the bread, do you? When the whole row goes to receive communion, you stay sitting there. All by yourself.”

The nanny takes me every week—my parents making me attend but never bothering themselves. It’s the one thing that bitch lets me fight her on, too. It all felt so fake, like the makeup women put over their bruises to hide what’s happening to them. It’s an act.

“I have my first communion soon,” she says. “I’m supposed to have it, I mean. You have to go to confession first, and I don’t like that part.”

My lips twitch, my anger fading just a little.

I don’t like that part, either. It never stops me from making the same mistakes. It seems weird to receive forgiveness for repeatedly doing things I know are wrong but I’m not sorry for.

“Do you want me to go?” she finally asks when I don’t say anything. “I’ll go if you want.”

I sit there, not as frustrated as I was a moment ago. I’ve even forgotten about the pain in my hand and my parents for a minute.

“I just don’t like it out there very much,” she explains. “My stupid sister ruins everything.”

I feel like I understand. I don’t like it out there very much, either. We can hide.

Together.

If she wants.

“I’ll go,” she tells me and starts to turn.

But I reach my hand through the water, inviting her in instead.

She stops, seeing me, and turns back around. Her eyes light up, and there’s almost no waiting. She takes my hand and steps in.

The water splashes, and she sucks in a breath as the cold water hits her. She giggles as she comes to sit down next to me.

“Wow, this is cool,” she says, looking around at the space, the shade of the bowl over us and the water spilling around.

I notice her white ballet slippers in the water as she hugs her knees to her chest, and everything on her is so small.

“What happened to your hand?”

I look at it, turning it over and rinsing off the blood in the water and wiping it on my jacket.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

I still don’t speak. But yeah, it hurts a little.

“My dad taught me something cool. Wanna see?”

Her voice is so…relaxed. Like she doesn’t know how awful things can be.

“It’ll help get rid of the pain,” she informs me. “Let me show you.”

She takes my hand, and I try to pull it back for a second, but then I stop and let her have it.

She holds it up in front of her. “Ready?”

Ready for what?

She finds the cut on the inside of my index finger, toward the knuckle, but puts her teeth on the other side of the finger, pressing down enough to stretch the skin but not break it.

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.

I licked my lips, swallowing again. I really needed to find some water.

“Why am I not locked in my room?” he asked me, coming out of the darkness and stepping into the faint moonlight streaming through the windows.

He cocked his head, his hair disheveled and the tail of his wrinkled Oxford hanging out. “We’re not allowed around the women,” he said, sounding just as confused as me. “Are you with the doctor? Is he here?”

What the hell was he talking about? ‘We’re not allowed around the women.’ Did I hear that right? He sounded out of it, like he was on drugs or had been locked in a cell for the past fifteen years.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

He took a step in my direction, and I took one backward, scrambling to get my shoes on as I hopped on one foot.

He closed his eyes, inhaling as he inched closer. “Jesus,” he panted. “It’s been a while since I smelled that.”

Smelled what?

His eyes opened, and I noticed they were a piercing blue, even more striking under his mahogany hair.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I barked.

I didn’t recognize this guy.

He slithered closer, almost animalistic in his movements with a predatory look on his face now that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

He looked suddenly alert. Fuck.

I searched for some kind of weapon around me.

“The locations change,” he said, and I backed up a step for every step toward me he took. “But the name stays the same. Blackchurch.”

“What is that?” I asked. “Where are we? Am I still in San Francisco?”

He shrugged. “I can’t answer that. We could be in Siberia or ten miles from Disneyland,” he replied. “We’re the last ones to know. All we know is that it’s remote.”

“We?”

Who else was here? And where were they?

And where the hell was I, for that matter? What was Blackchurch? How could he not know where he was? What city or state? Or country even?

My God. Country. I was in America, right? I had to be.

I felt sick.

But water. I’d heard water when I woke, and I perked my ears, hearing the dull, steady pounding of it around us. Were we near a waterfall?

“There’s no one here with you?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe that I was really standing here. “You shouldn’t be so close to us. They never let the females close to us.”

“What females?”

“The nurses, cleaners, staff…” he said. “They come once a month to resupply, but we’re confined to our rooms until they leave. Did you get left behind?”

I bared my teeth, losing my patience. Enough with the questions. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and my heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. They never let the females close to us. My God, why? I retreated toward the staircase, moving backward, so I didn’t take my eyes off him, and started to descend as he advanced on me.