The Edge of the World

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For most of the night, Tatum tried to lure Ian from the shelter of the bathroom. Her soft, husky drawl that usually seduced him into succumbing to her biddings, did little to pull him from the strange sentiments spreading through his brain, keeping him suspended in an emotional dusk. That fucking creature... he knew that creature, but wasn't certain how. It was a frightening memory so deeply embedded into his subconscious that he couldn't quite reach it.

And he didn't want to either.

His original stayed silent, even as the other aspects demanded he leave the bathroom and be with Tatum. But he couldn't shake the sorrow at seeing the beast so clearly in the amber lantern light.

Was that his child? And if so, why hadn't the wraith reached out to Tatum as well? Who was he? Who were any of them, and why did he and Tatum keep getting dragged back to this empty, maddening island?

For a moment, he'd found himself okay with staying there with her, but not anymore. Now panic was settling in, and he longed to escape that place, along with the aspects, originals, and wailing beasts of the night.

The silence drew him from his myriad of thoughts and repeatedly muttered tongue twisters, and he paused, listening. Tatum and the crying monster were quiet. He then rose to his feet, cracking the door to see where she was before making his move, but only after spying her asleep in their bed.

She looked beautiful in the moonlight, which rained its silvery shades across her face. Her long hair was splayed out over her pillow and her small hand rested on her middle. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her breast and his cock twitched, the hunger for her on the return. No matter how many times he took that woman, he couldn't get enough. He was an addict, and she was the drug he long for.

His throat tightened as the understanding of what his next actions would entail sank into him with poisoned thorns burning him. Pain at losing her was as strong as the moon's pull on the Earth and his eyes watered. But he needed to leave her. He had to get away from her and that thing in the woods. The occult threat it posed overwhelmed him. It was malignant, growing inside him like a cancer in an attempt at overtaking his sanity. And he was reaching a devastating conclusion that he didn't know what was real any longer.

In Canada, everything made sense to him. His life was planned out, his routine a constant. But there, in that cursed land, everything stayed shrouded in mystery and for every one puzzle solved, more followed, leading him to realizations he was too weak to handle.

He was a coward and had always been he reminded himself. Squeezing his eyes shut as to block her loveliness from weakening his resolve, he turned away. Tatum couldn't leave this island. If she did, her country would kill her, and therefore, she must stay.

As he stepped into the shadows of the late night and quietly closed the door behind him, despair burned his eyes. Tatum would wake up alone and ultimately hate him, which was something he never wished for.

But better she hate him for leaving her there to live than loving him for taking her back to her home to die.

He moved quickly, heading for the beach. He had plans to build a raft, something he figured he could do rather quickly now that the air was warmer, and the snows were gone.

The green foliage beneath his feet crunched softly as he raced through the night, desperate to escape the sound of the creature's voice and what it all meant. But he couldn't flee the pictures in his head, transforming from shaded glimpses to the vivid hues of a young man lying dead in the grass, surrounded by blood seeping from the gaping wound in his throat. That boy, no older than Ian, had been murdered. That boy... his boy.