Ebony
Darkness is not a friend.
I learned that when I was a little girl, scared of alleys and thieves.
Yet here I was, seeking the darkness of the quiet room, listening to the hum of my own voice. It enwraps me, soothes me with it's own voice of silence, and I know I am safe. Hurt, but safe. My leg is throbbing, burning with the heat of the blankets. Broken, I know.
But there is another lesson in pain.
It is reassuring.
When nothing else tells you, you are alive, the pain does.
Doses of uncontrollable pain.
Even when self inflicted.
I crave it.
Need it.
The devil, the man in a suit, is keeping me safe. The pain tells me that, although collared, I breathe.
That someone, somewhere will protect me from the beast. Even for a price.
The price. It sizzles with it's own drug.
Promise.
Promise that Damian will mark me, make me burn, bleed and see his touch. My skin will be doused in his scent, and someone will defile me further than Cole.
Cole will not exist.
His touch will not exist.
And neither will- I cut her off. The thoughts of those names, they make my skin crawl.
The darkness is no longer familiar and I get up. It's that room again.
Water on my skin. That's what I want.
It will wash him away. The memory of almost being with Cole again makes my subconscious retreat. She can't even form his name.
My own thoughts are scared of him.
The idea makes me laugh. It starts out as a yelp, a strangled sound, testing the air, and then continues. It scorches my chest, my stomach and soon I'm on the floor. Laughing.
I don't know when the tears start coming, but they do. It starts out as a sound I hadn't heard, or made since I was ten, and turns into something I haven't done since fourteen.
The laughing was worse, though. The tears are more familiar. They have made it as far as the corner of my eyes in the last five years. But laughing is a burning sensation.
Like drinking liquor for the first time in years. It burns. It's unpleasant. You don't want to try it again.
Laughing. It should feel good.
Oh, God. How insane was I? How beyond repair, had I made it? Laughing.
It should feel good.
It should feel good.
But I can't laugh. Not as cries like the sound of dying children come out. Those I like. It feels like a cleanse. They burn in the familiar sensation of pain. The thought of laughing makes them come harder.
And then I'm laughing through tears. It's a new feeling all together. An A-class high I've never been able to reach. Cole, for one second, had touched me again. And he had broken me to be unfixable.
I'm numb with tears when I make it to the bathroom. God, what a mess. My hair is tangled and my eyes are stained with black.
I can grab the shampoo easy, although my leg sears with pain. It's in the shower that I collapse, screaming with pain.
YOU ARE READING
Embers (Burn #1)
Romance{On Hiatus for Rewrite} "What did he do to you?" "Everything he did to you and worse," I hiss, nails digging into my skin. The words are thrown out in desperation, a hook to dig into his skin like he drove into me. He erased Cole. I had wanted that...
