Scarlet Night (Limited Edition) (24 page)

“
S-sorry…” his speech was slurred from exhaustion.

Serena shook her head and slowly pulled her hand away, “Don’t be. I know it’s not your—”

“It’s… it’s anger.
My
anger. Mine! Not the damn curse’s;
MINE
!” His body tensed and went rigid as his aura flared and he snarled from the second wave of anger. Serena started to reach for him but he shook his head, forcing his eyes shut and inhaling sharply and continuing to clench and unclench his fists until he’d relaxed again; this time seeming even more drained from the process. “Th-they saw it; saw the
real
me and used it as a trigger. They booby-trapped my own anger to cause this...” he spoke, his voice coming out more of a growl and he forced an exhale and shook his head, “I couldn’t control it to begin with. But now…
now
the damn thing
knows
. It sees a way out and it’s doing all it can to do just that.” He looked up at her, his eyes sad and pleading. “I… I can actually
feel
it in my head, lurking about and trying to find the right triggers to push me over the edge. And… and I’m starting to want it; I actually
want
to let it out… but I don’t know if those are my thoughts or its. And I can’t help but wonder, wh-who the fuck am I anymore?”

She frowned and leaned over to him. She wanted to help him, to make him fee
l at peace just as much as she did with him. “It’s okay. I’m here for you, Zane, and I still know who you are,” she said softly, offering him a smile, “Who you
really
are.”

Zane frowned, shaking his head, “Why should you care?”

Serena bit her lip, kneeling down, “Because I
do
!”

“Hardly!
” he scoffed, “I
heard
you and your ghost—your lover, right?—heard you talking about me!” He shook his head as his long, unkempt dark hair shook more in his face. “We’re not right, right? That’s what you said! What you told
him
!” he forced himself to relax again and groaned as his head rolled about on his shoulders, “Don’t pretend to care about me just to make me feel better. It’ll only piss me off more.”

She frowned, freezing her grip as she watched the emotions cave into his face as he confessed hearing Devon and her conversation.
And while she remembered
saying
the words, she couldn’t recall if she’d ever
believed
them. She bit her lip. Was she falling for Zane? Could she
actually
get over Devon, even with him still
haunting
her? She had sworn to be faithful—had even been ready to
marry
Devon—but what did that mean now? Looking into Zane’s golden eyes, she suddenly felt like everything was right. There was no more doubt or panic at not knowing what was coming, because she at least knew that he wouldn’t let her face it alone.

And she found herself forgetting…

She nodded, “I… I
did
say that, but I—”

No! Stop it, Serena!
Devon pulled away from her, using her aura to build his mock-body as he always had before; hollow and translucent and trapped in her aura because neither of them was ready to let go of the other. She couldn’t even remember what it was like to
not
have him attached to her auric field. And now he was pulling at her; using more energy than he ever had before in an effort to pull her away from Zane.
You’re mine!
Mine
!
His voice bellowed in her head and the dresser on the other side of the room began to shake.

She cried out, gripping her head and dropping to her knees as Devon howled and pulled at her, “N-no! Devon… please! I can’t… I can’t keep… don’t make me…”

Zane’s eyes flashed again and a deep growl emitted from his throat as his aura began to shift from blue-to-red, his eyes widening momentarily before narrowing in on Devon.

He could
see
him?

“
Get away from her! Leave her alone, you clingy bastard! Can’t you see you’re
hurting
her?” Zane yelled.

Devon whipped and writhed in rage at the accusation and Zane’s hair shifted from the force,
We were
fine
until you showed up, monster! We were together and we were happy and—

“Happy? Sitting alone in some shit-hole in the woods with nobody but a
ghost
to keep her company? And a
pussy
of a ghost, at that! You think she was
happy
like that?”

“Zane...Devon...” Serena whimpered and turned to Devon,
growing more uncertain.

No! I won’t let it end like this! I’m doing what I should have done in
the beginning!
Devon flew at Zane, beginning to tear free of Serena’s purple aura and disappearing for a moment before emerging once again in Zane’s; her ghostly lover now bathed in scarlet as he struggled to take control of Zane’s body.

Zane growled, fighting back Devon’s advances as he steadily lost more and more of himself to the invasion. As Zane’s life began to drain from his eyes and Devon’s force began to occupy them, the body began to
shake with violent spasms.

“Devon! Get out of him now! This isn’t the right way to do it!” Serena cried out, taking Zane’s s
houlders and shaking him.

“Too late.” Zane’s eyes shifted and glassed over as Devon took control. As Serena watched, the last auric tendril receded back into the body as he finished.

“Z-Zane?” Serena frowned, stepping back, “I didn’t… where? Where is he? Where is his aura?” She began to shake, feeling cold and alone and, worst of all, whole. The part of her aura that Devon had occupied for all those years had been returned to her, and the new sense of strength was overwhelming.

“Serena!” Zane’s voice seemed different with Devon using it, “I did it! I got him!” he looked at his new hands and examined his face, beginning to laugh excitedly as he confirmed his success, “I’m… I’m back! I have a—”

“How could you do this?” she screamed at him, “You knew this wasn’t the way! You knew this was wrong! It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

Devon stepped towards her, his motions clunky and uncoordinated in his new body, “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to
choose
between him and me! You can have
me
in
his
body!” he smiled, but it looked foreign and wrong on Zane’s face, “It can be like we always wanted!”

“I never wanted this! You’ve… you’ve
killed
him! I can’t even
see
a trace of him left! We were never supposed to
steal
a body, Devon!” she sobbed, shaking her head.

He frowned and stared in disbelief, “Were you… did you actually
feel
something for him? Something past just this body? I thought—”

“You thought wrong!” she hissed, glaring at him through tear-filled eyes. “You’ve been dead too long, Devon! You aren’t like you were! You
never
would’ve done this before! You might be Devon’s aura… but you’re not him! Not anymore!”

He sneered, shaking his head angrily, “You… you’re lying! You betrayed me! You said ‘forever’! You promised…” he flinched and looked down at his arm as the tattoos began to glow, “What? What is this? Who are—” he shook and dropped to his knees, whimpering as his aura began to inflate and shine brighter than before; the red becoming so massive and overwhelming that the entire room looked like it was bathed in blood. His body continued to shake at the aura’s epicenter as swirls of new color—new aura—began to writhe through the calamity. “H-HOW ARE YOU…” he clutched his head and whimpered before twitching violently and snarling. “You’re not welcome in me either, you phantom fuck!”
The body lurched forward with a tremor as its joints began to break and shift with start of the transformation and the bright, pained eyes locked on Serena as Zane’s voice—Zane’s
real
voice—came through:

“Get out! Go get Zoey and wait for meeEEEAAAHHHHHHH!”

Serena tried to run to him but was overpowered by his aura and thrown towards the door. Crying at the impact, she pulled herself up, giving one last glimpse at the chaos before she rushed out the door and into the hallway.

Zoey!

Had to find Zoey!

She frowned
, trying to remember the right path as she began to maneuver through the ghostly-white catacombs.

It wasn’t until she saw Zoey running towards her that she realized she’d been calling her name.

“Serena! What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Zoey!
It’s Zane! I think he’s…” she choked on the words and lost her voice as she buried her face into Zoey’s shoulder.

Z
ane couldn’t forgive himself. He had become the monster plenty of times before—more times than he dared to imagine—and it had always ended in disaster.

Although it wasn’t new…

…it had never been this personal.

And while he had struggled in the past to keep at least a part of himself in control—enough to not destroy
everything
!—he had succumbed entirely to its wishes this time.

The memory of Serena as she hit the door flashed in his mind
.

The look of pain and confusion and terror in her eyes right before she’d left the room in a panic.

She’d trusted him! She’d cared about him! She was the only person left who didn’t see him as an unstable weapon ready to explode at any moment. And he’d hurt her…

He’d given her reason to fear him.

He had hurt not only the woman he cared for, but, in doing so, he had destroyed the ghost—the one she truly loved—in a jealous rage.

No. Not destroyed…

It was no accident; no fault of the curse or its influences.

He’d
wanted
it!

Needed
to destroy what stood in his way.

He shook his head as he thought of the rage as he’d reacquired his body from Serena’s lover. In his fury—in his
need
to be rid of him—he’d dismantled every fiber of Devon’s aura.

And he’d made sure it hurt.

Zane groaned and splashed more water on his face. He hadn’t even
known
such a thing was possible…

But apparently the beast did.

It showed him
exactly
how to destroy every last trace of his competition until he was certain there’d be nothing left to send to wherever it was they went to.

And he’d
loved
it!

He truly was a monster.

He looked in the mirror and saw that his eyes, though still bloodshot, had finally shifted back to their normal shade.

“
You will live with the guilt of your true self until the day the beast consumes it all. You will perish knowing that, even in death, you will only cause more suffering.”