Page 58 of Mortala
Halfway out of her room, her hand catches mine.Instinctively, I rip away and take a few steps back.The war ploughs into me.Flashes of desert sand and palm trees pack in behind her.Pops of rapid fire snuff out the words I barely see forming on her lips, as my throat flattens on itself, choking my vocal cords where I can’t shout, plead, or breathe.
Babel!
Jerking to the left, a too familiar voice shouts my name and sends me into a tail spin.Before I manage a good look, excruciating pain pierces my shoulder as a round rips through the muscle and connective tissue that keeps my rifle lifted.
“’Lias?”Sadie’s broken tone digs through the oppressive noise.Her voice doesn’t stop the avalanche of anxiety, but it’s there—my life raft.Stretched thin, my remaining threads hang on by a hair with no end to the pressure in sight.For the first time in a decade or more, I’m about to lose my grip.
“Please don’t go!I’ll…I’ll be better,” she pleads.
Goddammit!
“I’m sorry.‘Lias.I’m sorry!Please don’t go.”
I feel her hands holding onto me for dear life, but all I see is the hell hole.Like her, I’m a captive to my thoughts while standing frozen in place.This is all she has ever known, desertion.Betrayal.People who abandon her when she needs them the most, and like the piece of shit I am, that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
I’ve manipulated this girl into wanting me, into begging for things she deserves without question.I used her body against her, forced an emotional bond I now have to break because if I don’t, it’s going to destroy both of us.
“Don’t.Don’t do that, Sadie.Begging’s beneath you.”My words shake as they leave me.They’re the truth, but equally as deceptive.
“Then don’t leave…please stay.”
The salt in her tears hits my nose with a punch—I hate myself.
“I’ll be good.I promise.I promise!”Her pleas are more desperate than before.
“Sadie…”
She chokes on her words, and finally, her hands fall away.Cool air cuffs my arms with an invisible pay load, anchoring where I stand.Between her and the invasive flashbacks mixing with reality, I can’t take it anymore.
I can’t.Fucking.Breathe.
Visions I’ve kept suppressed for so long fade in and out in splotches.Filling negative spaces within her apartment but refuse to vanish where I can see Sadie clearly.Her white-blonde hair hovers near my chest for a few seconds before the air charges and she dips out of sight, evading my peripherals.
“Sadie…” Her name, two syllables, laced with warning.
Delicate fingers dig behind the waistband of my jeans.Heat fills my ears when she urgently unbuckles my belt.
“No…no.Sadie, stop,” I bark.Grabbing her wrists, I haul her up where we’re practically nose to nose.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Y…you said you’d punish me if I was bad.I was!”
Sadie’s hands drop to my jeans again, which she doesn’t get far when I jerk her with such force her feet leave the floor.Walking her back to the room, I throw her onto the bed I’ve spent days watching her agitated body sleep in.My cock is already so fucking hard the teeth of my zipper are digging into me through my boxers.
Both hands vibrate while raking through my salt-and-pepper hair—anger and arousal overshadowing all of my guilt.
“What makes you think I’d do that?”I shout.
“I hurt you!”she screams back, scrambling to the edge.
Capturing her face, my rough hands brutally engulf her chin, fingertips viciously clawing into her cheeks until the buccal tissue frames my digits.I hold her here, in her fucking place, and still her bewildered eyes silently pray for me to stay.
Violating the little bubble between us, I growl, “No.”
“D…do you not want me anymore?”
The Earth spins at 1,037 miles an hour and it just came to an instantaneous stop.
