Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 31 - Blood

"Why, hello, Eli."

Eli couldn't speak. He could barely move. He was still bound to the pillar that Mills and his men had tied him to earlier. The ropes were looser now, though, Zahra having clearly made good progress on them before the killing started. Eli's face was wet with blood, his clothes liberally sprayed down with more, part of the gore and viscera of the massacre that had happened in the room only moments before. That, the bodies ripped up like shredded wheat, Eli, and the deadly, pale woman standing only a few feet away from him were all that was left in the small, dark room.

"You were gone so long, I began to think someone had killed you. I'm glad to see that's not true."

She paused, clearly waiting for a response, but he didn't rise to the bait.

"I'm glad," she continued, not bothered by his lack of response, "because it means that I get to kill you now."

She slinked toward him, like a cat stalking its prey, her eyes narrow, a placid look of contentment on her face, lips curved ever so slightly at their ends into a smile. She grabbed him by the hair and by the front of his shirt and, pushing his head to the side, leaned down over him.

Eli closed his eyes and grit his teeth as he felt Amber move in closer for the kill. He could feel her breath, disturbingly cold, tickle its way across his neck. He didn't struggle, didn't resist at all as several sharp pricks sent flickers of pain shivering through him as her teeth pushed into the skin, drawing blood. He waited for the pressure to intensify, but it didn't. She seemed almost frozen in place.

Then the pain diminished and she pulled away, rocking back on her heels, though maintaining her grip on him. He refused to meet her eyes, but she wasn't looking at him anyway. He could see in the corners of his vision that she was looking into the distance, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"No," she said, seemingly to no one, "this isn't right."

She let go of him and stood up. Turning around, she walked a few steps away. "This is all wrong."

She paused again, probably waiting for another response from him, but it never came. Instead of talking, he slowly began to rub his bindings against the edge of the pillar behind him.

With a sigh of annoyance she turned back to face him. "After all you've done... after what you did to me, this can't be how it ends. It's not... it's not enough."

Eli tried not to react, but she must have seen the flash of confusion that shot over his features.

"Oh, you know what I mean," she said, crossing back across the distance and crouching in front of him once again. She grabbed him by the chin, forcing him to face her, and then with her free hand grabbed him in the stomach and squeezed a painful knot in the area that the man had been kicking him just a few moments before. Eli cried out in pain, and a wicked smile spread across Amber's lips at the sound.

"Yes," she continued, "you know exactly what I mean. You, Eli, and all the death you bring to everyone around you. You deserve to suffer for that. You deserve to suffer. A. Lot." She said the last two words slowly and with extra emphasis, as though they were each their own sentence. She took her hand away from squeezing his flesh and grabbed something from the floor. "Don't you agree, my big hero?"

She lifted the object, and Eli could see it was the completely severed head of one of the men that had brought him here, had tried to rescue her, and had been paid back in kind with a quick and brutal murder. A murder Amber was now clearly delighting in.

Eli tried to not react to the sound, but Amber's hearing was keen, and despite the low sound of what Eli could only describe as cackling that seemed to be coming from inside her as she held up the severed head, she heard it too. She cocked her head, looking past him into the shadows at the corner of the room.