Page 153 of Phobia

Fuck. Me.

She misunderstood. She saw something that wasn’t there.

“Danika—”

“And here I thought you were different,” she whispered, defeat lacing every single word. “But you are just like every other guy out there, with your pretty words and promises that mean nothing.”

No, no, no, no. “Dani, please.” I came closer to her. “It isn’t what it looks like. It’s her fear, it’s—”

“Intoxicating,” she murmured, looking up at me. “That heady feeling when you have their life in your hands. The knowledge that they depend on you and your decisions, just like I did this same night one year ago. And I know that you looked at me in the same way that you’re looking at her.”

The girl screamed then, trying to talk, shaking harder than before, and I knew the moment Danika looked at her again that this wouldn’t end up good. Before I could stop her, before I could do anything, Danika sidestepped me and went straight to the girl, stabbing the knife into the wood of the table right next to her head and leaning over her.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” she hissed, looking down at her with so much hatred, shocking me. But just as the shock started dissipating, another feeling came back.

Joy.

She was jealous. Jealous of this girl who meant nothing to me, because she thought I was going to replace her.

“Dani,” I mumbled, placing my hands on top of her shoulders, softly squeezing to garner her attention. “Are you jealous?”

She quickly turned around, wrapping her hand around my throat, and pushing me all the way to the wall next to the table. Fiery anger blazed through her cerulean eyes, igniting a fire deep inside my veins.

“You’re mine,” she bit out, squeezing her hand tighter, almost cutting off my oxygen intake. But if dying by her hand meant my end, I would gladly take it, because she owned me, body, mind, and soul. There would never be another for me. There would never be another person I would let do this to me, and there would never be another soul that could soothe the demons in my own soul as much as hers did. “Only mine.”

Her anger was a powerful thing to see. A carefully wielded weapon she wouldn’t use twice to prove her words, but even that one time was enough to make me see her feelings for me.

“You do love me.” I chuckled, pushing into her hand, and wrapping my own behind her neck, pulling her closer to me.

“Now’s not the time for jokes, Lazarus,” she grunted, trying to get free from me, but there was no use.

We held each other on a level that transcended the physical one. I didn’t need to hear the words from her, or to feel her touch, to know that our souls operated as one. To know that no matter what happened, we would always belong to each other, in this life and in the next one.

Chapter 14

One of the essays I did when I had just started university was under the theme ofWhat is your biggest fear?

Mine?

Mine was being forgotten, and not just by name or face, but by my actions. It kept me up at night, this knowledge that one day no one would know who I was. There wouldn’t be a single living person who would remember Danika Eleara Ascelin, and every time I remembered that teeny tiny fact, panic like no other settled in my gut, making it so much harder to breathe.

I didn’t want to end up like my mother, or my father. I didn’t want to end up like ninety percent of people in this shitty little town and seeing Lazarus standing above that girl with that familiar look on his face… Yeah, that wasn’t something I needed to see, especially not after the cryptic words from Gabriel, who, by the way, completely disappeared.

I had no idea where he or Judah went, but after spending one hour trying to find this place where Lazarus was, I got crankier than before. I knew that something bad was coming. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, this horrible, horrible fear that there was something I was missing.

I came here tonight with two goals in mind—to get Lazarus back and to finally do something I would be remembered by, to finally leave a mark on this world. But a couple of words from Gabriel shattered that second plan, and the rest of my night was spent planning how to figure out what was happening.

“I would give everything I have, Danika, if it could erase the painful things that have happened to you,” Lazarus said, playing with my hair. “But I can’t. I can only show you how much you mean to me. I will spend every waking moment reassuring you that this is it. You’re my forever.”

“Well isn’t this lovely,” the voice that always grated on my nerves sounded behind us, the clanking of his shoes echoing around the room. I turned around, releasing Lazarus, and my eyes met with the poisonous eyes of Judah. “You guys look like such a couple.” He chuckled, irritating me even more.

The girl we all but forgot about screamed again, moaning and crying the moment she saw Judah, thinking he would save her. But there was no saving her. I doubted that there was saving any of us.

The lantern in the corner of the room flickered, casting a shadow on the floor as Judah walked, coming right in front of the girl.

“Is this the prospect?” he asked, as if he was talking about a cow he was about to buy and not an actual girl. Maybe I didn’t care about her, but I cared about the fact that this man had everything handed to him on a plate, yet he still deemed it necessary to take and take and take, until there was nothing left for taking. “She’s pretty, I guess.”

The girl only cried harder, probably slowly realizing that she wouldn’t come out of this unscathed.