I stood there like a stunned muffin staring at the hardware store running through all the things that could posibly be classed as much needed supplies.
If Milly had rang Seth how would he have known what he needed?
It’s not like he knew where I was or what I was doing.
What was so important that he had to make a pit stop at a hardware store.
Preparing myself for the next lot of surprises that I was sure couldn’t possibly be more shocking then Seth’s involvement with the dragon goon squad.
I headed into my next bout of who is Seth really with a side of it can’t get any worse.
As far as hardware stores go this one was not your usual do it yourselfer.
With normal hardwares stores you might find things like hammers and rope.
Here it was more like home made shives, baseball bats with nails wedge into them and the far more creepier torture devices that looked like they’d been pieced together by a mad scientist striaght out of an asylum for the criminally insane.
“Umm hello?”
I wanted so badly to run out of there like a gazelle from a lion in the sahari desert while throwing dirt at him to hide which direction I went.
Taking a deep breath of courage I steeled my reserve determined to see this thing through.
After awhile a laughing hyena of a man licking his chops like he wanted nothing more then to sink his vice like jaw into whatever piece of me he was lucky enough to catch scooted his way to the front counter from the back rooms.
His eyes scanning over me with a blood stained lint in his sneer.
“What’s a little thing like you doing here? Got a boyfriend in need of taming, a husband that’s strayed from home. No, no I’ve got it. You look like the type that’s in need of extracting information. I’ve something that’ll loosen thier tongue if you you know what I mean.”
My heart thumped.
“Not to your liking maybe you’re more into the shocking truth if you catch my drift.”
I couldn’t breath.
“If that don’t excite you maybe it’s thier insides you’re after. Got one that’ll pull em right out while they still-”
“ENOUGH!”
My hand grasped at my chest.
My breathing laboured.
I felt like my heart would beat right out of my rib cage.
I couldn’t be here.
I couldn’t hear any more.
Why would Seth send me here?
He knows what I did.
What that day.
That soul made me do.
I couldn’t be here.
Couldn’t face what I’d done.
Stumbling to the door.
Reaching with my free hand I fumbled for the handle sweat coating my palms causing them to slip straight off the metal.
“Hey where ya going?”
Hearing his voice fortified my need to break free of this nightmare.
I burst through the door the fresh air making me gasp out like a drowning diver.
What was happening to me.
I felt like I was having a heart attack.
My breathing was getting worse, the fear of that night fresh in my mind.
The disgust at myself for what I’d become.
Rounding the corner I fell to the ground.
Flashes of blood, my hands covered in it.
Pieces of him.
“Rexy?”
My head snapped up.
Green orbs staring back.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!”
“Rex it’s me. Zarethan. Are you alright?”
Lurching to my feet I ran.
Ran as fast as my legs would take me.
Ran like my past was chasing after me.
Like I could still hear his voice, see those dead souless eyes staring at me.
I ran until I couldn’t run any more.
~
June 21st 2538
“Damian! Wait up!”
“Whoa there. Slow down lexa.”
“Can’t. We’re late for class.”
“Who cares it’s not like they give a crap if we’re there or not.”
“Maybe not me but they notice when your gone.”
“Here we go again.”
“It’s true. I don’t have a shifter form. You do. I already know where I’ll end up but you. You can be anyone you want.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“What if all I want is to be with you?”
“Stick with me and you’ll end up in the slums right along side me.”
His arms were full of warmth as they wrapped around my waist.
A strength that always made me feel safe.
Loved.
“The slums aren’t that bad.”
“Not from what I’ve heard.”
“Oh and what have you heard?”
“They kill each other for sport. Tear each other apart like savages.”
His laugh against my neck as he pushes me against the wall my heart fluttering in unision to his.
I can feel his erection through his pants pressing against my front his arms trapping me in place.
“At least we’ll have each other.”
~
Present day
“Rexy?”
The door slammed as I leaned against it crumbling to the floor in the middle of a panic attack.
My head in my hands, chest heaving.
My lungs screaming for air.
Seth scrammbled for a paperbag shoving it into my hands.
“Rexy breath into bag!”
I did as I was told.
Running on auto polit my mind in chaos.
Memories invading my thoughts.
“Breath, just breath.”
I felt his presence.
Calm, but when I looked up I saw the monster and screamed.
“REXY!” Seth’s voice was drowned out by my past.
All I saw was him.
His eyes.
“Your dead! I saw you die! I killed you myself!”
His voice.
“Rexy who are you talking to?”
I scambled away.
Putting distance between me and the nightmare.
Burying my head.
My knees bent beneath my arms as I rocked back and forth repeating the same words over and over.
“This isn’t real. None of this is real.”
A mantra a years worth of therapy had taught me.
“Rexy, it’s Seth.”
His voice changing into something safe.
Something tangable I could grasp.
“Come back to me Rexy.”
My voice shaky and uncertian.
“Seth?”
“Yes.” Relief in that voice.
“I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe with me.”
Lifting my gaze.
Slowly, hesitantly.
Seth’s baby blues entering my vision as the blurred sense of reality started to return.
Tears zig zaged thier why down my cheeks.
“Why did you send me there?”
A whispered acusation.
Pain crossed his features.
“I only meant to show you how easy it was.”
With clenched fists.
Through gritted teeth I snarled.
“To what. To kill? I already know that Seth! I’ve lived it more times then I care to count! I don’t need a reminder of what I already know!”
“Not to kill. It was supposed to show you how easy it was to gain weapons. Even in the slums.”
“Well mission acomplished. Now I know.”
Ignoring his attempts to block my path I stormed my way to my desk to grab my stuff.
“Rexy please I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Well it did! You have no idea what it’s like. To relive it. To see it like it just happened yesterday.”
“That’s only because you won’t tell me!”
I halted in my tracks.
“How can I possibly know what it’s like if you won’t tell me exactly what happend that day.”
I just stood there.
Frozen in place.
I had told him some of it.
Not all.
Just enough to make him understand what I was.
A killer.
A murderer.
My eyes met his.
Tears still blurring my vision.
Tears l left unchecked.
“Your right. How could you know.”
Lifting my eyes until they were level with his I told him the truth.
One that I’d buried all these years.
“He was my first love.”
Seth’s face dropped.
“The first time it happened, was when I killed the man I loved.”
“You told me you didn’t know who he was. That’s what you said.”
“I lied. I didn’t want you looking at me like you are now.”
His hands clenched then unclenched like he was holding onto something only to let it go again.
“Rexy, stop it. I don’t care if you lied. So you loved him. It doesn’t change what he was. What he’d become.”
“How can you say that. It changes everything. What kind of person murders her lover in cold blood?”
“You couldn’t control that. You told me what you saw that day. The shifters he’d sliced apart. The countless lives he’d taken.”
“That doesn’t make it right Seth! I ripped him apart just like he did to them. That’s how it always happens. They die how they kill. Every time. And I can’t stop it from happening. I AM the monster in that book. Thier blood is on my hands and I can’t get it off.”
“You get it off my helping the families of those they kill. You make up for it by finding them before they kill any more. Why do you think I do what I do.”
“That’s why you do it?”
“Before I came here I was a homicide detective.
Case after case I solved.
I thought I was helping.
Making a diference.
Then one day a case came to me.
It was from the slums.
14 dead already.
A seriel killer.
Right here and no one had reported it.
Not until an upper hit its victims list.
14!
It was then that I realised the uppers didn’t need me.
The only people that needed me were here.
The poeple who lived in the slums.
How many poeple die here every day.
How many murders go unsolved?
Since I’ve been here I’ve helped save more lives then I ever would have in the streets of the uppers.
I’ve never regreted my decision and neither should you.”
Stepping closer Seth reached out his hand.
I made to move but his voice stopped me.
“Do you trust me?”
He was so close.
I could feel his breath against my skin.
I remained perfectly still.
Afraid to even breath.
My eyes never left his.
His hands were just inchs from my skin.
If he’d been touching me he would be touching my cheek while holding my hand.
“You are not the monster. They are.”