Alter Arlo by Nordika Night

Author:Nordika Night [Night, Nordika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-01-23T18:30:00+00:00

23. numb

zaden

Numb. All of me. Couldn’t feel my fucking hands. Didn’t know where the fuck my legs were. Hadn’t had a thought in hours, and barely even knew if I was still breathing. Tired but unable to sleep. Wired but not alive enough to be living. Numb.

I saw a ceiling but didn’t process it. I heard voices but didn’t listen to them. Not until the icy chill of Synner’s Lake swept over my face and pulled me under. I think I might have smiled, but I couldn’t feel my face.

“Hey,” I said to Zander.

“Hey.”

“Am I dead yet?”

“Nope.”

Damn. Soon. It’d come for me soon.

“I picked you,” he said. “That day. I lied to Cadoc and killed dad because I picked you.”

“By dying.”

“That was never part of the plan, but I’m not pissed with the outcome.”

My fingertips felt something fraying and worn. “Well, I am. I’m really fucking pissed with the outcome. It should have been me.”

“Why?”

“Because no one fucking cared about me, Zan. I was empty, and dying would have been a goddamn gift.”

“I cared. Cadoc cares. Finn cares.”

I looked at him, seeing and not seeing his face. “You know Finn?”

“Yeah, and if you leave him, he’ll die because of it. And if you leave my boyfriend, he’ll die, too. He needs you, Zaden. He needs you to help him keep Keiran.”

“You know Keiran?”

“Don’t leave them, Zaden. Don’t leave them.”

The rip in my family photo lengthened against my fingertips.

“Wake the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit!”

Water hit my face, shocking a gasp from my lungs that breathed in that water and coughed it back up. I jolted upright, the entirety of my body gaining substance all at once. It was too much. Feeling was supposed to fizzle out altogether or come back in little bits and spurts, but it was suffocating me. I felt the ache in my chest, the tears in my eyes, the words stuck at the back of my throat, and the dread at the base of my spine. I felt the heaviness in my heart, the confusion in my mind, and the pain…everywhere. Agony was my new stasis, my equilibrium.

“You wanna shoot this shit up, go for it, but you tell me before you do!” Cadoc yelled at me, making the knives in my head twist. He muttered something about me almost making him break a promise, but I barely heard it. Dizziness wobbled me, my body falling against the wall without my say-so. “Sober up, asshole. Your pathetic ass is coming with me.”

Where? Did my voice up and quit?

“To Dante. I…” he paused, glaring more daggers at me that embedded between the knives in my head. “I need to figure out how to keep Keiran.” Cadoc lost his patience with me. He hauled my ass out of bed, took my jacket and boots off, and then threw me under the ice-cold shower to shock me back into my body. It was like an exorcism. I was the demon that was being expelled.

I think I needed it.

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