Unbroken (Shattered Promises, #2.5)

My head is swimming with the helpless sensation by the time I arrive at the end of the beach where a cluster of rocks blocks me from getting any further. I’m about to head back, when I hear the soft sound of footsteps move up from behind me. I turn around and startle back when my flashlight highlights a very familiar face.

“Gemma?” I pause, shining the light into her strikingly beautiful eyes, feeling a wave of electricity rush over me, the connection we share. But whether it’s from the star or something else, I’m unsure.

I immediately sense there’s something off about her. It definitely looks like Gemma, but there’s something missing…. Something’d vanished from the last time I saw her. She looks so hollow and the sparks are a just a lull of warmth, nowhere near as intense as they usually are. It’s how I imaged she looked when her soul was detached and the thought of it sends a chill up my spine.

I reach out to grab her, but she quickly raises her arm, moving way faster than she normally does, the sparks suddenly going haywire. There’s a shovel in her hand and seconds later, something smacks me in the head. Hard. With way more strength then Gemma has. The flashlight slips from my hands and I raise my arm as I stagger over my feet, the number of stars in the sky multiplying. She easily dodges my advances and swings the shovel back around, hitting me on the head again. I’ve taken a lot of beatings and know, I won’t go down until at least a few more hits. But I need to get my shit together. I work to get my footing and blink my vision back into focus, then hurry away from her. I just need a few seconds to get the dizziness and throbbing ache out of my head and then I can concentrate. But she easily chases after me, her long legs moving quicker than I remember as she runs through the sand.

Shit.

I dodge to the side and then try to circle around her, but she matches my moves and we end up colliding. She drops the shovel as our legs tangle together. We both lose our balance and fall toward the sand. I instinctively grab onto her, wanting to protect her from the fall, despite the fact that she just hit me in the head with a shovel. She lands on top of me, a leg on each side, her breasts pressing against my chest, her lips inches from mine, my fingers digging into her waist to support her weight. There’s a brief pause where I feel so turned on, not just by the feel of her, but from the pain, which is extremely fucked up, but not the first time it’s happened.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” I say as she pushes back and sits up on top of me.

She doesn’t say a word. She just lifts her arm above her, the glow of the moon hitting her hauntingly empty expression. Then I spot it. The triangular mark on her forearm. It feels like every part of me died. My heart stops beating. My lungs stop working.

“No,” I whisper.

She simply smiles in response and I know what I have to do. I hate it though. But I have no choice. It’s either do this or kill her. So I channel all my inner strength and flip us over so she’s lying on her back in the sand. She struggles, kicking and trying to knee me in the gut, but I restrain her down by the shoulders.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” I say as she writhes her body beneath me. “I’m just going to make this a little easier on me.”

She pauses and then starts to laugh, her chest heaving, sparks so hot and feisty, my skin feels like it’s on fire. “Oh my God. You think you can hurt me.” Her laughter silence so quickly it’s creepy. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Then she dips her head to the side and her teeth graze my skin.

I hate what I’m about to do—hate that I’m controlling her in any way, shape or form, but I still clear my head and prepare myself to take her energy away—making her exhausted. She doesn’t know that I can do this to people—make them disoriented—but only because I’m afraid of what she’ll do if she finds out. She’s big on trust, which is understandable, and this is downright manipulation. I don’t do it very often, but it’s the only thing I can think of to do at the moment.

Taking a deep breath, I gradually start draining her strength, forcing her to become weak and drowsy, making sure I only do it enough that she gets sluggish, but doesn’t pass out. Her eyes start to roll into her head, but then she manages to get one of her hands up and grab a hold of my arm. She starts clawing at my skin, splitting the skin open over and over again. Blood pours out and trickles down my skin. She starts laughing at the sight of it, this annoying laugh that doesn’t belong to her and sounds more like it belongs to a hyena. And her head is tipped back in the sand, her hair surrounding her head, totally disregarding me, as if I couldn’t conquer her.

“You stupid little boy,” she says, shaking my head. “You never can do anything right.”

And just like that, something snaps inside me. Breaks. Shatters. I see red as she utters the words my father use to say to me all the time.

“Fuck it,” I growl and then quickly and uncaringly, I drain all the energy out of her. Her eyes widen for a split second, but she has no time to react, and seconds later she blacks out. Still breathing. Still alive. But still with the Mark of Evil branded on her.