EXCERPT
“Michaela. You are going to make it through this,” Whisper promised. He would know since he had been in Shayteen’s realm for hundreds of years. Time was different there. One month is equal to a year in the Hell World. I have no one else right now, which makes Whisper the unlucky recipient of my awkward hug. I bury my face into his chest and inhale. “You smell like him,” I say, and wrap my scrawny arms around his middle. He’s warm, something I never feel anymore. I’m perpetually cold.
He’s a moment of comfort and my lungs fill with something sweet, sexy, and excruciatingly mine.
Gabe.
Whisper’s arms tighten around my shoulders and one of his huge hands presses my face further into the material I want to dissolve myself into.
“I wish I could hear his voice.” My whisper ends in a terrible gasp as pain erupts inside my chest where my heart is supposed to reside.
Whisper tenses and then relaxes again. “I wish I could give you what you want, but you don’t trigger my magick anymore than I trigger it with my own wishes.”
I push away from him. I can’t feel up and sniff my only friend all day. It’s Sunday–my first day in an empty house. I have a goal for today. I’ve got a paper to write for Social Science about human trafficking. I didn’t pick the topic and the irony doesn’t escape me. It is due tomorrow, fourth period. I failed to hand in my first two drafts, so this paper better be BBC News quality to make up the two letter grades I have already been dinged with.
“I have homework to do.” I say to Whisper. “I’m not kicking you out, but I am telling you that you have to go.” I say, shooting finger pistols toward the front door.
“I was hoping that I could crash here for a few hours actually. I haven’t had much sleep lately,” Whisper calls over his shoulder and makes his way to the stairs. “I will be as quiet as a church mouse.”
“Don’t you have a bed in that fucking ritzy apartment you whipped up in that imaginary life you have in Hillsboro?” I follow after him.
“My imaginary life is brought to me by your stupidity. He-Who-Musn’t-Be-Thought-Of doesn’t sleep much. I can’t sleep because he makes a shit ton of noise all night, and keeps the volume on the TV up to forty so he can hear it in the kitchen from the living room. Then, I come here to babysit your nightmares. I read a blog post about how kids respond when parents split up. I think I’m suffering from those same struggles. However, none of the articles suggest what to do when two soulmates split up and prove to be major pains in the backside.” His heavy footfalls carry to the guest room, which has become his de facto bedroom. His last sentence disappears behind the closing door.
“Darius Albrecht! If you are staying, the fee is that fucking shirt. I want it. Don’t you dare sleep in it and get your cooties on it.” I bellow.
The door opens and I follow the foot falls as they thud through the ceiling above me toward my bedroom and then back to his. The door slams this time.
“Darius!” I yell again. “Don’t you sleep with those boots on the bed. Mom hates that!”
A loud crash comes from upstairs as a boot hits the wall. His muffled voice filters down through the ceiling. “Don’t use that name, Michaela! Shayteen will punish us both!”
“Fuck him,” I mumble. “He’s the one who told it to me.”
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Sounds really great
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting book.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to starting the Powers that be. Thank you
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