Authors: Nash Summers
And then I could think no more. I faded into darkness like the last trickle of sand in an hourglass.
Chapter 15
“OH, SWEETHEART,”
my mama said with tears in her eyes.
I had awoken not a moment sooner with her by my side. She grabbed my hand, kissed my forehead. Her heart was beating so quickly I could almost hear it.
The ceiling above my head began to spin.
“How are you feeling?” Mama asked, patting my hand. She stood next to my bed.
“Sick,” I replied honestly. “Tired. What happened?”
Sitting up quickly did nothing to help the unease in my stomach. My head was full of cotton, my mouth dry and raw.
“You were sick,” Mama said. “Having wild, violent nightmares, thrashing about. You wouldn’t wake up. We had the doctor come look at you, but he said that there was nothing physically wrong.”
“How many days?”
“Just over two.”
“How’s Silvi?”
She paused for a second. “She’s really upset. Whatever she saw in that house…. It must’ve been terrifying.”
“It was.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “I think it was Monroe’s aunt, Germaine. Her spirit. It must still be haunting the swamp.”
Mama grabbed a glass of water off the nightstand and handed it to me. I took it and finished the entire thing.
“She’s sleeping now,” Mama said. “Finally. I’d say it best not to disturb her. She hasn’t slept at all since you fell ill. Now, wait here. I’m going to get you some more water and something to eat.” She stood up and left the room.
When she left I scooted over to the side of my bed, which was pressed against the window. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool glass, breathing in deeply. Moonlight pressed against the leaves on the ground, reflected against the chrome on Silvi’s bicycle on the front porch. In the distance, the small town of Malcome slept quietly. A few lights were on in the houses near us. Upstairs bedroom windows glowed, while yard lights flickered when an animal ran past.
My bedroom door creaked, and I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that it was Ward.
“How do you feel?” he asked. He came to stand next to my bed, right where Mama had been standing.
“Like something is wrong.”
“I feel that way as well.”
I turned toward him. “You feel it too? That tug on your heart?”
“Yes.”
“Then something is wrong.”
“Silvi is asleep in her bed. I checked.”
A moment of silence ticked by. Mama walked back into the room, a glass of water in one hand, a plate of crackers in the other. Even though she couldn’t see the expression on my face, she asked, “What’s wrong, Levi?”
“Where’s Monroe?”
She set the glass and plate down on my bedside table. “He left about an hour ago. Barely left your side during these two days. He probably went home to rest.”
In my heart I knew that wasn’t why he’d gone home. There was an unease lingering there, something that Ward felt too. I might’ve still had my soul, but Monroe had a piece, however big, of my heart.
I pushed the covers off and stood.
“I will come with you,” Ward said.
“Where are you going?” Mama asked.
“I’ll go alone. You stay here and keep an eye on Silvi. Please,” I said to Ward. To my mama, “Something is wrong with Monroe. I can feel it.”
“Don’t go back inside that house, Levi,” Mama called out as I slipped past her. “And whatever you do, stay away from the swamp.”
THE POIRIER
house stood as a silent pillar against a black backdrop. Ominous and looming, it stole each of the stars out of the night sky.
Before stepping foot on the front porch, I knew Monroe wasn’t in the house. Still, I knocked on the front door and waited. Silence filled the air. Frantically I knocked again, called out his name. Silence remained.
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the wood grain. Monroe wasn’t inside, and I knew exactly where he would be. In the back of my mind, hidden behind a forest of trees and a world of dark, watery depths, the swamp sang its love song to me. It was sweet and slow-paced, howling and soft. I could feel it in my heart, hear it in my head, feel it in my skin.
The amulet around my neck felt hotter and heavier against my skin than it ever had before. It was as though everything good in the world was warning me against this house, telling me to flee.
I walked down the front porch and around the side of the house. The dock looked surreal now that I knew Monroe’s father had stood in that very spot, smiling, happy as a young person, being photographed. The dock was older now, decaying and rotted in places, the wood old and wet and crumbling.
I barely thought of where I was stepping when I stood on the end and peered into the distance. It was just as likely I could’ve put my entire leg through the thin boards, but I didn’t care—not then.
The swamp spread wide and even before me. It remained still, rippling, unmoving. And dark. Impossibly dark. Tall trees stood to the sides, their roots peeking up from beneath the surface of the water, their long, stringing vines hanging and dipping into the swamp.
The world felt cold then. I wrapped my arms around myself, tried to shiver away the spoiled feeling in the pit of my stomach.
My gaze finally landed on Monroe.
He wore a white T-shirt and jeans that clung to his skin like they’d been melted on. They adhered to his skin, obviously soaked through from the swamp. Waist-deep in the water, all I could see was his back facing me, his large shoulders slumped, his head down. Dark strands of sooty hair lay across his forehead from where I could see his profile.
And then I saw it.
I leapt into the water and rushed toward him. The mud on the bottom of the swamp clung to me, wrapped around my shins and ankles and tried to pull me down, away, back.
I called out his name, but he either couldn’t hear me or was ignoring me. I tried again, this time my voice catching in my throat. Tucked into the back of his jeans was a gun. The world slipped from under me as Monroe reached behind him, wrapped his fingers around the base, and pulled it out.
This time I screamed his name at the top of my lungs. Still too far from me, still out of hand’s reach. I barreled toward him, my heart shooting up into my throat when I watched him press the barrel of the gun against his temple.
As though the waters parted for me, I rushed him, slammed into his back, sent us both tumbling forward.
Forward and down. Down. Down.
Into the water.
But as it wrapped around me, blanketed my body, my heart screamed for something else. It didn’t want these waters to fill my lungs and steal my breath and hold me close.
My heart only wanted him.
We breached the surface of the water at the same time and scrambled to stand. Water dripped down his face, his hair slick against the side of his head.
“What the hell, Monroe!” I hated the unsteadiness of my own voice.
He pushed his hair back from his face. His eyes were dark, wild. “Go home, Levi,” he said quietly.
“What the fuck were you doing?” I shoved him hard, but his feet were planted in place. He barely swayed. His arms hung heavily down at his sides.
“Levi.”
He’d never said my name like that before. Something in his voice. Or maybe it was nothing. A lack of something in his voice, something missing.
In the water something brushed against my ankle, once, twice—then the water came alive with writhing, slick black snakes, their golden eyes like a thousand and one hazard lights spreading out in different directions. They began wrapping around my legs, slithering up my thighs.
“A gun, Monroe? How can you be so selfish?”
“Selfish?” His jaw tightened. “I’m doing this for you, Levi. Whenever I’m around, you crack, you crumble, you begin to break apart.”
“But if you leave, all the pieces of me will blow away!”
He pointed toward the horizon. “Go home.”
“No.”
Monroe grabbed my arm. He wrenched me back, tugging me toward the house. This time I let him drag me along. The gun was no longer in the waistband of his jeans. He was leaving the swamp and the gun behind. I would let him take me anywhere.
He wrenched open the back door and shoved me inside. We both dripped water from our soaked clothing, our hair, our skin. I turned toward him, put my hands out to stop him, but he didn’t let up. He pushed me backward down the hall. I tried to calm him, but he was transfixed, staring into my eyes, his jaw working, his fists clenched.
By the time we reached the living room, my heart thrashed in my chest. Monroe breathed deeply, once, put his hands over his face. When he pulled his hands back, his eyes were no longer the clear blue color I knew them to be. His eyes were dark like burned coal. Snakes slithered around him. His ankles, his waist, his neck. I’d blink and they’d be gone. Blink again and they would reappear.
Monroe pressed into me, shoving me backward until my back hit the wall. I stared up into his dark, soulless eyes. And those eyes glistened down at me.
His knuckles brushed my stomach gently. His hand moved higher, his knuckles dragging against the wet fabric of my shirt. He paused at my throat, reached under my shirt, and palmed the amulet in his hand. He looked at it for a moment, cocking his head to the side. And then he yanked it hard, breaking it off my neck and throwing it to the ground.
“I hate that fucking thing,” he said darkly. His voice sank an octave. Or maybe I thought it had because of the snake wrapped around his neck. “It burns when I touch it.”
He leaned forward and kissed me, slowly, deeply, languidly, as though every moment until the end of time belonged to him and he’d decided to share it with me. His tongue pressed inside my mouth. Hot, cool, wet. My body went limp. I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around his neck.
Not a moment later, he grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me, slammed me against the wall hard enough to hurt. My teeth clanked together. My cheek pressed roughly against the wood panels.
He crowded me, pressed his body against mine so there wasn’t a place we weren’t touching. He pressed hot kisses to the side of my neck as he reached down and pulled the hem of my shirt over my head.
“Levi,” he purred into my ear.
His hands went for my jeans. With one hand he pulled open the buttons on the fly. With his other he pushed my jeans and underwear down to my knees, leaving me bare. I stepped out of my jeans, and Monroe instantly kicked them away.
Monroe whispered my name into my hair. He ran his hand down my flank, my hip, over my asscheek. I shivered and pressed my forehead against the wall. He kicked out my feet, forcing them apart with his own.
He leaned forward, bit down hard on the flesh where my neck meets my shoulder. I hissed at the sting, squeezed my eyes shut, told myself not to rut against him.
“Levi,” he whispered again, his lips against my ear. “You, with your spells and your ghosts and your fucking charms.”
I groaned when he reached around and grabbed the weight of me in his hand. I was hard already, painfully so, waiting for nothing but the coarse feel of his hand around me. He pumped me up and down, up and down. His breath exhaled hot against the back of my neck.
The feel of scales against my bare back did nothing to quell the thirst I had for him. If anything, it propelled me forward. The snake, his soul, brushed against my skin. It was ice-cold and dry to the touch. It felt foreign and strange as it weaved around me until its head peered over my shoulder and then brushed against my throat.
“Even my soul wants you,” Monroe whispered.
“Yes,” I breathed.
The snake coiled snuggly around my neck. It squeezed, pinched, enough to make me see a dark sky full of bursting speckles of light.
Behind me, the sound of Monroe’s zipper. There was a bit of shuffling, rustling. I kept my open palms flat against the wall and my eyes squeezed shut.
I gasped quietly as Monroe’s cool, slick fingers pressed against me, and then into me. He murmured almost unintelligible words into my ear. Sweet promises, dirty things he wanted to do to me. Even dirtier things he wanted me to do to him.
He opened me for him carefully, unhurriedly. We were both gasping for air. It felt like time itself was about to fall over the edge of existence and all we had left were these few shared moments together. My skin sparked everywhere he touched. It burned so hot, I could almost taste ash in my mouth.
His fingers pressed far inside me. I could feel his knuckles against the tightness of my body. In, out. In, out. A slow tempo he set for us both. When he curled his fingers and pressed against the bundle of nerves he’d been searching for, my body quaked.
When he pulled his fingers back, I had a slew of swear words waiting for him on the tip of my tongue. He reached up and laced his fingers roughly through my hair. I turned my head to the side to look at him. His gaze was on my profile, his eyes still unimaginably dark.
I was about to say something but swallowed the words the moment I felt the smooth head of his cock press against me. The snake around my neck coiled tighter. Its tail flicked against my lower back, my hip bone. I bit my lip.
The coolness of the wall pressed against my chest, but Monroe’s warm skin against my back burned hot, even through the fabric of his T-shirt.
As he began to slowly shove inside me, he said, “I’ll never let anyone hurt you, Levi.”
“I know,” I replied breathlessly.
He licked up the back of my neck, pressed his lips to my ear. “No one but me.” The second the last word left his lips, he thrust all the way inside. I cried out from the roughness of it, the fullness of it, the way it felt to have him buried deep inside.
We shared heavy breaths, pausing a moment. Monroe pulled back and pushed back in again. The tight pressure, the friction, all of it set my heart aflutter.
I made a noise that made him chuckle, his lips pressed against the back of my neck. He set a leisurely rhythm between us. That easy push and pull. I couldn’t move if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. Every part of me wanted to stay right there with Monroe as our bodies heated and our breathing grew hasty.