Page 13

Phantom

S he was scared. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me, her body folded into a tight ball, shrinking into the armchair and away from me. Anger swirled in my eyes, flooding my vision with red, and my skin itched under my armor. I craved only one thing right now—to retract the plates so I could kill her mother with my bare hands.

The fierceness of my reaction shocked me, but that shock was tucked away somewhere deep in my psyche, the fury and need to kill overwhelming everything else.

“You really look murderous,” Barbara said in a small voice. She didn’t blink, watching me like prey staring into the gaping maw of a predator.

And it was perverse, but I loved the sight of it. How she trembled, sitting practically at my feet. She’d look even better on the floor, shivering and…

And what the fuck was wrong with me?

“Don’t go anywhere,” I growled, my voice sounding alien to my ears.

She nodded frantically, not taking her eyes off me. I got my phone from my pocket and called my shrink, walking into the bathroom. I was about to bare my fucking soul, and if she heard any of it, I’d die of embarrassment.

“This better be an emergency,” came my doctor’s grumpy greeting when he picked up after the fourth ring.

“I’m about to kill the girl’s mother because she is a bitch,” I growled, my voice still having that predatory rumble. “Talk me off the ledge.”

He yawned, evidently unimpressed. I squeezed the edge of the sink until my hand hurt, the pain grounding me.

“What did the mother do?” Natharan asked, stifling another yawn.

“Threatened to send her to a mental asylum if she wasn’t an obedient daughter.”

There was a short silence and a rustle, then a faint click. He got out of bed and turned on the light.

“You’re right. She is a bitch. And you can’t kill her. She is your client,” he said. A faint whisper of his scales sliding on the floor came through.

“I know,” I bit out. “But fuck, Nat. The world is all red. It’s not going away. Why the fuck am I like this? Can you explain it to me?”

He was silent for a moment, and then I heard a loud splashing sound. I closed my eyes, my head pounding with bloodthirst that was like physical pain.

“Are you pissing right now?” I asked, each word bitten out with effort.

“A shehru’s gotta go when he’s gotta go,” he answered over the steady splash. “That’s what you get for calling me after hours.”

I closed my eyes and hit my head against the cold tiles. The thud was loud, my brain jarring a bit from the impact, but it did nothing to dissolve the red fog swarming my vision.

“Don’t give yourself a concussion. We’ll deal with this,” Nat said, another splash of water coming through. He was washing his hands. “You said earlier you desire the girl and feel protective of her, yes?”

I leaned my forehead into the wall, taking deep breaths. Fuck, I needed another smoke.

“But it makes no sense,” I growled, angry with this whole situation. “I’ve known her for two days. And I don’t do this, Nat. I don’t have murderous urges on behalf of other people. I kill out of duty. And for fun.”

He chuckled under his breath, and an infinitesimal amount of tension seeped out of me. I was so grateful for Nat. He was a monster, too. He got me and knew my will to eliminate threats was a normal instinct, not something to fix.

And I would just bet Barbara would try to fix it. If she ever deigned to have me, which wasn’t going to happen.

“Well, you got attached to her very quickly,” he said with infuriating calmness. “It’s surprising but not outside the realm of possibility.”

“Not outside the… Do you hear yourself? Abominations don’t get attached to strangers. We don’t have freaking mating bonds. We’re a reasonable fucking species, and we don’t just sniff someone and decide they are the one. ”

“Well, is she?” Nat asked, his question quick and sly. “The one?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I hissed, some of the pressure finally draining out of my skull thanks to the distraction. When I opened my eyes, the tiles were less red. “First of all, she’s not my type. Secondly, she’s practically royalty. I’m a humble man. And smart enough not to aim for the fucking moon.”

“Humble,” he snickered. “I’ll add a note under self-delusion in your file, shall I?”

“Fuck you,” I said amicably, because he was right. I wasn’t humble. I was, however, smart, and I stood by what I said.

“Talk to me about it,” he said, ignoring my rude reply. “Is the urge to kill like your normal threat response or is it different?”

I focused on the anger, feeling into it. It was like a buzzing in my bones, an electric current running just under my ribs, shocking my heart into a frantic gallop. Faster, faster , it urged. Kill, kill now. Kill to survive.

“It’s similar. It feels almost exactly like the instinct I get when somebody threatens me and I need to eliminate them to survive,” I said, frowning. My vision cleared bit by bit, and even though the craving to wrap my hands around Clarissa Ashford’s throat wasn’t gone yet, it was easier to control.

“Interesting,” Nat said. I heard a rustle of paper and knew he was taking notes. “So your natural self-protective instincts extend to her.”

I exhaled heavily, my breath fogging up the cream tiles. “Yeah. Maybe. Fuck, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense!”

“That’s okay,” Nat said, his calmness utterly irritating. “All of it happened right now and it’s fresh. It’s okay not to know what it means yet.”

“But I have to know!” I growled, hitting my head on the wall again. “I’m falling, Nat. I’m falling and I don’t know how to stop it! She will trample all over me and I will let her. I will fucking lie down to make it easier and then thank her for the privilege! You get it? This girl will turn me into a doormat. I offered not to smoke when she’s around, for fuck’s sake!”

He hummed thoughtfully, paper rustling as he noted down my words. Nat was a slow, deliberate thinker and liked to take his time with gathering data. Normally, I tolerated it, but tonight, it annoyed me even more than normal.

“You’re not helping,” I complained, retracting my plates until my naked palm rested against the cool tiles.

“Really?” he asked. “How is your murderous rage, then?”

I paused, taking a good look at the bathroom. It was no longer red but faintly pink. Because I was thinking about Barbara, not her ho of a mother.

“Better,” I admitted grudgingly. “Don’t brag about it.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, his smile obvious in his voice. “Okay, are you well enough for now? We can talk tomorrow once you’re calmer. I’ll move appointments for you.”

I sat heavily on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the bright lights dotting the ceiling.

“Yeah, fine. Goodnight.”

He chuckled, and I huffed. “And Nat? Thanks. For getting up and letting me listen to you piss. It was real soothing.”

He laughed out loud, his laughter low and rich. “Anytime, Scarab.”

I clenched my jaw and hung up, looking at the door. I was completely certain Barbara was gone. I’d terrified her with my behavior and words, and now she was probably in bed, crying about being saddled with a real monster for a bodyguard.

So when I opened the door, resigned to a sad wank and an uneventful night spent roaming the manicured garden, it surprised me to see she was still there. No longer curled up in the armchair, Barbara stood opposite the door and admired my poster.

“Hey,” I said gruffly, everything I’d told Nat ringing in my head. It was true. I was falling, and it was scary as fuck.

“Hey.” She turned with a tentative smile, taking me in with wide eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a moron,” I said with a shrug. “Could you forget what I told you? I wasn’t in my right mind.”

She huffed softly and cocked her hip, watching me quizzically. “Well, it will be hard to forget since I spent all this time imagining what it would feel like to suffocate my mother with a pillow.”

I closed my eyes, cussing at myself in the privacy of my mind. Of course, she couldn’t forget. She hated me now, I was sure.

“Yeah? Weird thing to imagine,” I said, feigning nonchalance.

She shrugged, looking away with a thoughtful frown. “I guess. It was shockingly satisfying, actually. Calmed me right down, you know? I think it’s going to be my new meditation.”

“Really?” I crossed the room in a few long strides, the need to see her face up close overriding my restraint. “You’re not… freaked out? Disgusted? Scared?”

She gasped softly when I stopped just in front of her, too close to be proper, but fuck it.

“Um, no?” It came out as a question. “I mean, with myself, maybe? Because who fantasizes about killing their own mother, right? I won’t do it, obviously, but imagining it helped like nothing ever did. I could almost feel her thrashing under my weight and… And I didn’t feel powerless for the first time in so long. It was nice.”

I exhaled in relief, my chest filling with a pounding, rippling something. Barbara shrugged, looking away with an uncomfortable huff, and suddenly, I itched to tell her everything about myself. Maybe she would understand, after all. Maybe she wasn’t like all those other women who got their freak on fucking an abomination but couldn’t stand looking at me in the morning.

“To me it sounds like a totally normal response,” I said quietly, watching her like a hawk.

It was a test, and I expected us both to fail it. I would say too much and use the wrong words, and she would run from this room in terror. And yet, there was that tiny possibility that it could go right.

It was thrilling.

“What, killing my mother in my imagination?” she asked with an amused huff. “I mean, it depends on how you define normal.”

“Normal for someone like me. For an abomination,” I clarified, reaching down to take her hand.

When I felt the warmth of her skin, I realized my palm was still unarmored. A small shiver went down my back, and I pulled her to the couch by the wall so we could sit.

“I want to explain to you what happened. Why I got angry,” I said, folding a leg under me so I could face her on the couch.

“Okay.”

She leaned against the armrest, hugging her knees like she did in the armchair, her eyes huge and glistening as she watched me. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but I didn’t see any fear in her gaze, just open curiosity.

“I was born in Mexico,” I began. “It’s different now, but over thirty years ago, hunting abominations was a common practice there. And for our species, it’s natural to be ruthless when faced with a threat. When I was about one and my parents were targeted by an anti-abomination cult, they kicked me out of their nest so I wouldn’t be a burden while they fought those who came after them.”

She blinked a few times, at first confused, and then horrified. “I’m sorry, but did you say you were just one year old?” she asked, shaking her head.

I waved my hand dismissively. “Oh, we’re not like humans. I could already speak, walk, and find food. I was small, which also allowed me to hide better than if I had been with my parents. It’s a common practice to separate from your children when faced with a threat. This way, everyone has higher chances of survival.”

I paused, wondering how best to explain it to her so she wouldn’t think I was a psychopath. Though, of course, I was one in human terms. A human shrink made that diagnosis, and it almost cost me my job before Fatima decided to get a second opinion from someone who actually understood the intricacies of my species. That was when I met Nat.

Barbara waited patiently for me to gather my thoughts. I took up my story carefully, wanting to explain it to my best ability.

“Because you see, abomination children are supposed to hide. Adult abominations are equipped with this superb survival instinct, but it only kicks in in puberty. So I was kind of defenseless, and my best bet was hiding. My parents couldn’t hide with me, because that instinct forced them to fight.”

She nodded slowly, and I shifted, moving just a bit closer to her. She wasn’t running away. It was a good sign.

When I’d told this part to a girl before, when I was still interested in finding a long-term partner, she told me point blank I obviously had issues. She said she wouldn’t carry my baggage.

Well, Barbara was still here, though admittedly, she didn’t know I was falling for her like an idiot.

“So I hid. For eight years, it worked, until the same cult that finally got my parents found me. I slept in the desert but close enough to a small village where I sometimes stole food. They saw my little camp and caught me when I was asleep. I didn’t stand a chance.”

She said nothing, her eyes as big as saucers. I sighed and got up to get my ashtray. I lit a cigarette and settled down by her side, bracing myself for the next part.

I had to tell her and see what she did. Because in the end, Nat was right. It didn’t matter how or why, but I attached myself to this woman, and now the only reasonable course of action was to put this thing to the test. If she rejected me now, which was practically inevitable, I would be able to move on.

“So that cult had funny notions about abominations,” I said after blowing out a long stream of smoke. “They believed we were demons made of corpses—because of the skulls, you see? I’d say it was clever if it wasn’t so fucking ridiculous. Anyway, they had this ritual they did to cleanse the earth, and it involved burning an abomination alive.”

She hiccupped once, a forlorn, sad sound, and I reached out to clumsily mess her hair.

“Hey, it gets better. Anyway, they didn’t burn me at once. They displayed me, chained and all, for the village people. Many came to spit on me, throw rotten eggs, stuff like that. Kids would poke me with long sticks, and some of the adults recorded it.”

I swallowed, wondering if she would see the connection and my main reason why I practically jumped on her case.

“They got me on video crying from pain, even pissing myself,” I said, my voice growing cold and detached. “Those videos got uploaded onto the Internet at some point, and they still float up there. I tried to get them down but I couldn’t get them all. Lots of people enjoy watching that kind of stuff, especially with abominations.

“I don’t watch any sort of snuff, since I’m not that kind of sicko, but I’ve been told mine are the most popular, since I was so little and the videos are so detailed. They could get really close to me since I was chained and all.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a thick voice, touching my forearm gently.

I shrugged, giving her a grin. “Oh, don’t be. I have this tech whizz friend who tracks down people who share those videos. Sometimes, I pay them a visit when I get bored.”

“Do you… kill them?” she asked tentatively, her hand sliding off my forearm.

I shook my head. “Nah, it would be merciful. No, I don’t kill them. I tie them up and tip off the police, since those people have lots of monster snuff and other forbidden materials like that. They usually get sent to coeducational prisons, and once the monsters learn what they are in for, there is lots of fun all around.”

She shivered but stayed put, watching me intently. “You mentioned… burning.”

I lit another cigarette.

“Ah, yes. So they had me, a boy of nine, his survival instinct still dormant. But that cult had had many losses and there were just a handful of them left, so maybe that’s why they targeted children. There were maybe a dozen once the villagers went home. Not that many.”

I took a long drag from the cigarette and offered it to her on impulse. She stared at it, nonplussed, and then shook her head with a faint smile.

“No? You’re right. It’s a filthy habit. So, they had me bound with chains and tied to a good, old-fashioned stake. The wood was old and dry, but the stake was sturdy, and the chains tight. They did their ritual—a bunch of stupid prayers, I didn’t pay attention—and lit me up.”

Her eyes, already wide, widened still. I grinned and shook my head, though the memory of that heat still lingered in my bones, surfacing whenever I remembered that night.

“We don’t burn like humans, of course,” I explained. “You guys turn into crispy bacon. We, well… Do you know how a pressure cooker works? No? Well, maybe it’s better that you don’t know. Thing is, it takes longer to burn us alive, since the armor isolates the worst of it. The plates lock up tight, and as the heat outside increases, the pressure inside grows, until we kind of, well, blow up. That’s what kills us. But it takes hours, which is why this is a dumb way to kill an abomination. If you’re smart, always aim for the eyes, doll. That’s how you can get us.”

“Okay,” she said hoarsely, clearing her throat. “How did you survive?”

“We’ll get to that,” I said with a smile, blowing smoke out so it streamed just above her head.

She shot me a weak glare, but she seemed too invested in my story to be really angry.

“So, there I was, chained up and slowly cooking while the cult stood around the pyre and chanted their prayers. And since I was so close to puberty, my beautiful, smart body decided it was the right time to kick it off. My survival instinct turned on when I needed it the most. As the pain increased, I dealt with it by looking at those nutcases who were killing me and fantasized about all the ways I would slaughter them if I was free.

“Some, I wanted to throw in the fire and smell the glorious aroma of their roasting flesh. Others, I wanted to tear limb from limb. I was strong already. I knew I could break bones if I put in the effort. And the rest I just wanted to chase, you know? I wanted them to know I was coming. I wanted to follow the trail of urine after they pissed themselves from terror.”

I gave her a penetrating look, curious how she’d react. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and nodded faintly.

“Well, I think that’s fair. They were literally killing you, I mean. They deserved it.”

“Right?” I exclaimed, excited. “I think so, too! But would you believe one girl said I was a fucked up psycho after I told her all of this? Like, I wonder what she would do if someone tried to burn her alive. Don’t tell me she’d try to give them flowers. That would be fucked up.”

I laughed. She made a muffled noise of assent, then hiccupped again. I leaned in so our faces were level, and she pulled back slightly, though didn’t recoil.

“Is this bothering you? Do you want me to stop?” I asked, realizing that maybe she was suffering through my tale out of politeness and didn’t really want me to burden her with my baggage .

She shook her head so violently, her braid slapped the back of the couch. Her eyes were determined yet wet with what I realized were tears.

“Keep going. Tell me everything.”