A Lover Like Him (The Perfect Lover book #2) (Espresso CRK)

Chapter 27

Espresso froze... then blacked out.

It felt like he was drowning suddenly. Espresso couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't stand. The silence pounded against his ears, unbearably loud. Then, the voices that sounded like nothing grew louder. 

But the voices weren't loud enough to process. Or there were just too many voices... and red eyes. The longer Espresso was in the Ocean space thing, the more eyes there were. 

Red, angry, eyes. 

Judging eyes.

Louder whispers.

One voice rose above the rest, the most distorted, yet the most clear, "Are you fucking kidding me? Are you three?! How dare you have emotions control you, weaken you. You could-"

Cold. Cruel. Furious. Unnacepting. 

A cold voice Espresso had spent more of his life with than with his blood family. 

Espresso swerved around, or more accurately, swam around so that he didn't see anything except darkness once more. He told himself he didn't care about Dark Enchantress's opinions, or anyone's opinions, anymore.

If only it was true.

He swam away from the voices, towards the dimly glowing yellow light in the far distance. It looked bright and unnatural against it all. Espresso would never do something as carelessly as this, but what other choice is there? And it reminded him of Madeleine. 

When he finally reached the light, he flinched back in terror. His eyes widened and he tried to scream, but couldn't. His chest tightened and his stomach and heart hollowed. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, falling away into the thick water-like air, which wouldn't have been possible at all if it weren't for the cursed magic.

It was Madeleine.

Madeleine, lifeless, and floating in the water. He was only visible due to the light which made him appear even more dead. His blonde hair was stained with crimson blood like his clothes. Espresso felt so cold, so lonely, so dead himself. 

Espresso tried to grab ahold of his love, but more blood gushed out in front of him as the knife that he hadn't noticed before was ripped out of Madeleine's chest...

By his nightmare once more. By Dark Enchantress, who had an evil smirk painted on. It was like a common nightmare Espresso had whenever he slept, but it felt so real. Dark Enchantress opened he-

"ARGHHH!" A scream cut through his mind, dragging him back into reality with a painful jab to his mind.

In front of him was Abyss, who he'd seen moments before he blacked out due to the Yakuza doing some sort of witchery. Instead of looking like a black hole threatening to engulf him, Espresso thought he seemed pathetic. 

Abyss was clutching his head and rolling back and forth, his eyes widened and terrified. He was shaking and begging for it to stop. 

Espresso turned the other direction, and sure enough, Pomegranate stood smirking and holding up her thrice-cursed mirror. When she caught him staring, she scoffed.

"What may you be doing here?" Espresso asked, allowing the fact that Madeleine was alive and running towards him and not dead to sink in.

"Not even a thank you," Pomegranate muttered stiffly. 

"I thank you for helping us," The mage said, truthfully, "But we could've managed it sooner or later."

Another shriek from Abyss made the four cookies now gathered wince again.