Violinist (CENTURIES series: Book #4)

23

They said that if the water in your lungs didn't kill you when you drowned... the coldness did.

- I woke up to a cold bed. The same bed that had been my only grasp at reality last night was now a cold fiend, cruelly supporting my numb body as I laid unmoving.

He was gone.

I closed my eyes, feeling the surrender throb through me.

Last night... happened. I had given it all up. The last piece... all of me... I'd given it away to him... and now?

I was stripped bare, naked and alone; Vulnerable.

- I had given up before the violin.

Pressing my lips together, I curled into a ball. I didn't want to do this anymore. I couldn't, but I wasn't done yet... he wasn't done yet... we weren't done.

We had destroyed each other, but fuck we weren't done yet. I could taste it in my mouth, could feel the bad omen seep into my lungs as I tried to breathe. He was under my skin, in my body.

Sitting up slowly, I pushed my hands past my face, through my hair, pulling at it. I could feel everything slipping through my fingers. I could see it happening; I was losing touch with reality, but I also couldn't stop it, but hell, why was I worried? Tony had been doing it for eight years and he was still around. Or was he?

My empty, cold apartment mocked me with its silence.

I cupped my mouth when a sound started breaking from it. I was sitting alone in my bedroom, naked after a night of having witnessed multiple murders, and after all was said and done, I had consoled myself by sleeping with the murderer.

The murderer who had brought me back to life.

The irony was macabre. The sound on my lips slowly died when it stopped just being hopeless sobs. No more.

My chest started aching and my gut deflated instead, creating a hollow sensation that only seemed to spread rapidly by the second until it consumed me. It took less than a minute; when it was over, I couldn't even cry.

No more.

Last night... last night had taught me that there was no such thing as escaping the inevitable. Tony was missing, but not gone. Those men had come looking for blood... and blood they had gotten. I had been looking for something to bring me back to life... and hadn't I felt alive yesterday?

My eyes fell shut. I didn't want to think anymore. Couldn't.

Silently rising, my body worked on autopilot. I walked towards the bathroom, coldness nibbling at my skin like a hungry scavenger. I instinctively avoided the mirror the second I turned on the lights. I finally knew why Tony had given up on his reflection. I turned towards the shower and turned it on. The whole of New York would be looking for me, for him, but all I could concern myself with was washing the aftertaste of his touch off my body.

Even though it sung through my veins, much like the feelings he had woven into my heart.

~~~

There was nothing. No news. No reports. No signs that it had happened.

It was as if last night had been nothing but a twisted nightmare.

Turning off my TV, I continued to stare at the dark screen. Nothing. By now it should've been all over the news. Four Russian mobsters found dead in alleyway. Police should have been investigating. Eye witnesses should've described me and Tony entering the alley. Big Brother should be knocking on my door.