Page 79 of Creatures Like Us

I roll over and land on his side, catching my breath. “We should clean up.”

Noah gives a breathy moan, as if he’s still experiencing some kind of pleasure or some kind of pain. “I don’t want to.”

“Doesn’t it feel weird?” I glance over at his stomach. The blood around the gash is going dark, coagulating.

“Yes. But it feels good too.”

Well, if that doesn’t sum up my thoughts around this strange intimacy between us. It feels weird, unfamiliar, freaky as hell, taking over my mind and my body, but at the same time, it feels so fucking good I cannot bring myself to care. Until now.

“We need to clean your wound. It’ll get infected.”

Noah doesn’t reply, and I start to get a little frustrated as the gravity of what I’ve done is dawning on me.

I cut him. I sliced into his skin. Why the fuck did I do that? Was Iwrongto do that? Our isolation is such that I’ve started to lose my grip on what’s normal and what’s not, what is healthy and what is bad and unacceptable. I cut him out of my own desire, but he wanted it too, didn’t he?

But was it worth it to permanently scar him for that?

What am I doing?

What arewedoing?

It’s the sort of thing only self-harming teenagers get up to, isn’t it? Either that or professionals who fucking know what they’re doing. I know nothing of this. I’m in way over my head. I’ve plunged into the deepest, darkest waters. We both have.

It’s happened so quickly and felt so amazingly up until this point that I’ve just?…?gone with it. It’s been so freeing to be the one in control, but maybe I’ve led us onto a darker path than I know what to do with, and before I know it, I’ll have hurt Noah and myself beyond recognition, beyond the ability to go back from it, and it will be my fault, my blame, my guilt eating me raw?…

I’ve never been one to enjoy hurting other people. People have always hurt me, or I’ve hurt myself with drugs and irresponsible sex and letting people walk all over me, but today, I?…?I don’t know what came over me.

My eyes fill with tears, and I want to apologize, want to do anything to make up for what I just did, but there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say that would make it okay. The worst of it is, Noah is just lying there, on his back, silent and covered in blood.

Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t feel the need to hurt him and the thrill that comes with it? It would. It surely would. I just don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to stop this desire, and I don’t know how to stop my ache for him. I just have to endure it.

You will learn how to stand it. As I have.

His past words echo back to me, and for the first time, I realize the gravity of them.

We’re the same, he and I, and it’s all we can do to endure this ache for each other, this yearning. Even if it kills us, that ache will always be there. We’ve made sure of it—we’ve bound ourselves into this isolated darkness, and the only string binding us to life is our own ache for each other, for each other’s bodies and minds, each other’s pain and pleasure.

That’s it, isn’t it? But why does it feel so wrong? Why do I feel so bad? Why can’t I just enjoy it? I’ve never had anything like this in my life. I’ve never had anyone be mine the way Noah gives himself to me so willingly.

I just don’t know how to receive that gift without breaking it into pieces.

There has to be some way I can make this better for both of us. Healthier, at least. I’ll think about it harder tomorrow. For now, I turn around to face the wall, the room reeking of our blood, of our sex, of our sacrifice. Of our love.

Chapter 22

Noah

WhenIwakeup,it’s not to Asher holding me. All throughout the night, he hasn’t held me. The wound on my stomach is throbbing, burning, but the pain feels distant, unlike the hollow darkness in the pit of my gut.

I turn to look over my shoulder, to the other side of the bed, wanting to at least see him, but?…

He’s not there.

My blood turns cold.Where is he?

“Ash?” I call out, but I cannot sense his presence in the basement. He has to be upstairs.

I shoot out of bed, and my bare feet thunder up the stairs as I clench my hands into fists, my mind set on a singular purpose.