Read Online My Darkest Passion by Carolyn Jewel - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carolyn Jewel
Ads: Link
emptying her mind of them. She couldn’t.
The knowledge wasn’t just a general there are other people in the house . The two were separate points of awareness, alive in her head, and she wanted to be downstairs with them. But she wasn’t. She was here. Alone. Losing her mind. Or maybe just living in her new normal.
She found the bedroom Harsh had told her about, the one with the shower, but she didn’t make it inside. She stood in front of the door, paralyzed by the certainty that if she went in there, into that box, she would be trapped the way she’d been trapped in the shed. A bigger prison, but a prison all the same.
Her paranoia was broad-based. Yes, she was afraid of being trapped again. She was also afraid of being alone. Terrified. She didn’t give a damn if her fears were irrational, and, after all, how irrational was it to not want to be alone after days of solitary imprisonment?
What if she couldn’t get out of the room?
What if that crawling sensation in her head never went away?
She leaned against the wall outside the bedroom door because she didn’t trust herself to walk without falling down. The vibrations in her chest weren’t going away, either. She pressed her back to the wall while she waited for something to change. Nothing did except the intermittent problem she’d been having with her vision since she’d been locked in the shed. The lines of the hallway no longer met in neat angles, and there were colors she didn’t have a name for. Dizzy, she slid to the floor and concentrated on forming a plan for how she’d navigate a physical space she couldn’t trust.
If she could convince herself to move.
If she could just believe that she could be alone like this without breaking down.
She surveyed the corridor and gave up trying to force what she saw into what she expected to see. Doing that helped. From having seen the house before her vision went all crazy like this, she knew this was an older structure, with all the beauty of a Victorian’s proportions: high ceilings, crown molding, and tall windows. The wooden floor had been lovingly cared for. The area rug pulsed with brilliant colors. She no longer cared if they were colors she could name.
Her pinpoint awareness of the two men downstairs shifted. Until now, they’d been in the same room. Now, the one called Harsh Marit separated and headed for the stairs. How odd that she knew where he was and that, whatever his destination, he was headed her direction. And that her reaction was not horror that he might be coming after her but thank God .
She clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the sob that rose in her throat. She couldn’t let them know she was falling apart. Weakness was dangerous. Fatal. She could not allow them to think she was weak. Rank mattered. It mattered more than anything because rank meant power and people without power got hurt.
At the same time, she wanted him to come upstairs to find her, not go somewhere else in the house. The air around her crackled. A spark burst into being in front of her face and flared out. The tiny ember floated down and landed on her arm. She didn’t feel a thing. The center of her chest resonated, and she knew it was because Harsh was heading her way. She didn’t need to see him. Or hear him on the stairs. She knew where he was.
Harsh appeared at the top of the stairs. “Ms. O’Henry.” His voice was deep, slightly growly. He felt real and that sense of calm around him touched her, too. God, she was just so grateful not to be alone. She lowered her hands and wrapped them around her drawn-up knees. She was cracking up. Going nuts. Already nuts. There wasn’t any such thing as people who weren’t real people. No one could do magic and demons existed only in stories. Except they were real. Magic and demons were real.
He walked toward her, and she didn’t care that she was practically naked and probably flashing him. She went on alert, because if he thought he was going to do
The knowledge wasn’t just a general there are other people in the house . The two were separate points of awareness, alive in her head, and she wanted to be downstairs with them. But she wasn’t. She was here. Alone. Losing her mind. Or maybe just living in her new normal.
She found the bedroom Harsh had told her about, the one with the shower, but she didn’t make it inside. She stood in front of the door, paralyzed by the certainty that if she went in there, into that box, she would be trapped the way she’d been trapped in the shed. A bigger prison, but a prison all the same.
Her paranoia was broad-based. Yes, she was afraid of being trapped again. She was also afraid of being alone. Terrified. She didn’t give a damn if her fears were irrational, and, after all, how irrational was it to not want to be alone after days of solitary imprisonment?
What if she couldn’t get out of the room?
What if that crawling sensation in her head never went away?
She leaned against the wall outside the bedroom door because she didn’t trust herself to walk without falling down. The vibrations in her chest weren’t going away, either. She pressed her back to the wall while she waited for something to change. Nothing did except the intermittent problem she’d been having with her vision since she’d been locked in the shed. The lines of the hallway no longer met in neat angles, and there were colors she didn’t have a name for. Dizzy, she slid to the floor and concentrated on forming a plan for how she’d navigate a physical space she couldn’t trust.
If she could convince herself to move.
If she could just believe that she could be alone like this without breaking down.
She surveyed the corridor and gave up trying to force what she saw into what she expected to see. Doing that helped. From having seen the house before her vision went all crazy like this, she knew this was an older structure, with all the beauty of a Victorian’s proportions: high ceilings, crown molding, and tall windows. The wooden floor had been lovingly cared for. The area rug pulsed with brilliant colors. She no longer cared if they were colors she could name.
Her pinpoint awareness of the two men downstairs shifted. Until now, they’d been in the same room. Now, the one called Harsh Marit separated and headed for the stairs. How odd that she knew where he was and that, whatever his destination, he was headed her direction. And that her reaction was not horror that he might be coming after her but thank God .
She clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the sob that rose in her throat. She couldn’t let them know she was falling apart. Weakness was dangerous. Fatal. She could not allow them to think she was weak. Rank mattered. It mattered more than anything because rank meant power and people without power got hurt.
At the same time, she wanted him to come upstairs to find her, not go somewhere else in the house. The air around her crackled. A spark burst into being in front of her face and flared out. The tiny ember floated down and landed on her arm. She didn’t feel a thing. The center of her chest resonated, and she knew it was because Harsh was heading her way. She didn’t need to see him. Or hear him on the stairs. She knew where he was.
Harsh appeared at the top of the stairs. “Ms. O’Henry.” His voice was deep, slightly growly. He felt real and that sense of calm around him touched her, too. God, she was just so grateful not to be alone. She lowered her hands and wrapped them around her drawn-up knees. She was cracking up. Going nuts. Already nuts. There wasn’t any such thing as people who weren’t real people. No one could do magic and demons existed only in stories. Except they were real. Magic and demons were real.
He walked toward her, and she didn’t care that she was practically naked and probably flashing him. She went on alert, because if he thought he was going to do
Similar Books
