Rigorous ringworms, near and far,
It is my great dismay,
To inform you of a horrid thing,
That happened just this day.
Lolly and Hayley, the twisted two,
Decided to be mean.
They wrote a chapter a lot shorter here,
Pages totaling to seventeen.
So please forgive us, ducks of doom,
For our act of under-writing.
However, 17 is still a lot.
SO STOP a) COMPLAINING, b) BITING.
Pfft. Honestly . . .
Love Lolly and Hayley.
P.S. CHARACTER DEATH!
- 8 -
Then, however, his hands left my hair.
. . . And they were at the zipper of my jeans, which they COMPLETELY unzipped.
Dark, gripping memories of Cole doing the exact same thing suddenly seized me.
Robin slid my jeans down, smirking. His eyes were getting far too dark for me to continue looking up into. I couldn't bear to look up at him. Not when I knew what he was about to do.
That's when I started really screaming.
- 8 -
CHAPTER THIRTY
'NO!' I shrieked, suddenly terrified beyond all recognition. 'DON'T! Please, don't – '
'She's begging,' Nathan was laughing angrily. 'She's begging for you to stop, Robbie.'
My mind was completely blank with the horror of what was about to happen. All I could see was his eyes, above mind, looking down at me with such . . . triumph. Like this was some CONQUEST for him. It was like he was looking for buried treasure or something.
Which, it seemed, was hidden in my pants.
Whoa, someone sounds a little over confident. But that was kind of how it felt.
I tried once more to move, to thrash about, to struggle, to escape, but the Astral Block wouldn't allow it. It was too strong, and I was far too weak for the likes of the Misfortunates of Fortunaschwein.
Because this was a rage to which no shifter could compare . . .
If only you lucky people could understand the power of a good astral block, then maybe you could see where I was coming from. Astral block is not just a wall . . . it's like cramp you get when you run too much or go swimming too soon after you eat. It actually physically hurts. Each time I tried to break the block with my mind, it felt like I was running into a wall over and over and over again. Head first. My head was throbbing in agonizing pain.
You can also feel it's restraint on you. It's as if someone tied you up with rope so tight that it cuts off your circulation. All you feel is numb. Numb with an absolute killer headache.
In short, it's not fun. It's cramping, debilitating, and it completely wore me out.
'You don't want to – ' I began shakily, but I felt Charlie's foot step on my hand. I couldn't help but cry out. I mean, Charlie was heavy. You'd kind of have to be with all that muscle.
But he freaking stepped on my hand like it was nothing to him. He ignored my cry and continued on with his merry little speech.
'You let him GO!' he spat down at me. 'You've been a nuisance ever since you and your little friends ever arrived at this school, and when you FINALLY did something right, by bringing him to us, you just let him walk right back out!'
Trembling, I shook my head. 'No, I said I'd only bring him here to apologise, n-not for you to kill him – '
But a sudden blinding pain behind my eyes made me scream. There was a pressure there that I'd never EVER felt . . . like all of my shifting headaches, infinitely multiplied.
And Robin was still sliding my jeans down.
I was so, so scared. It was my worse than my absolute worst nightmare. Robin was trying to rape me . . . rob me of the only little pieces of me that were left. The only thing that wasn't completely shattered already.
And the worst part was that I didn't have any control over it as my pants were being worked past my hips and down my thighs. The block, which had caused not only a great deal of physical pain, had also hindered me from being able to call the only people that could help.
I was trapped . . . I was stuck. There was nothing to stop Robin now from having his way with me.
Which he initiated, by shoving one of his hands up my shirt. I felt violently sick the minute I felt his fingers touch my breast. And it got worse. He started . . . grabbing it and – it was hurting me. A lot. I was shaking badly. So much so that I couldn't even speak. I just – this HORROR was rendered me speechless, motionless, powerless and terrified.
I couldn't BELIEVE how DISGUSTING he was – I mean, I knew from the moment that the Block had settled in that I was in deep trouble.
But THIS – it was revolting. And it HURT so BADLY. He was so ROUGH. He tore back at the material of my bra, and I rolled my head back, whimpering, suddenly pleading for him to stop, over and over again.
It was NOTHING like how Paul touches me. His touch wasn't harsh, wasn't aggressive . . . When Paul had done that to me I didn't feel like I wanted to vomit or pass out from the pain.
'Don't – ' I shuddered, but that only made him smirk more as he pressed his hand harder; rougher. When I asked Paul to stop, I never meant it. When I asked ROBIN to stop, I SO did.
But he didn't.
He lowered his mouth to my neck, and chuckled against my skin. I shivered more. 'Keep asking me to stop,' he beseeched. 'I love it . . . '
He lifted his face, and – I'm SO not kidding – dragged his tongue down my cheek.
That made me writhe even HARDER.
Which, consequently, made him . . . squeeze harder.
YES, I'M AWARE HOW GROSS IT WAS. BUT I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING TO STOP HIM . . . I WOULD HAVE IF IT WAS POSSIBLE, BUT IT WASN'T . . .
'STOP it – !' I cried, realizing too late that only a moment before, he'd ASKED me to do that.
'Hurry up,' Nathan scowled in frustration, 'I want a go. You ALWAYS go first.'
'Yes,' Charlie agreed cantankerously. 'And don't kill her before we get a proper turn, like last time.'
'Yeah,' Nathan snapped moodily.
HUH?
Robin just LAUGHED. He LAUGHED AT SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
At a moment when he again released me from the Astral Block's control, I whipped my hand up and scraped at his face, moaning in fright.
That only served to amuse him. He grinned wider, and started kissing me with a violent vehemence. I screwed up my face as I felt his tongue in my touch. I swear to God, I wanted to throw up. I felt SICK from the FEAR he still hadn't STOPPED attacking my CHEST with his stupid HAND which was being even MORE FORCEFUL there and I couldn't TAKE this and yet this was only the BEGINNING of what was going to happen to me.
To think . . . Dani had suffered this fate, too . . .
I was a goner. I was SO dead.
However, suddenly he was knocked clean off of me by a swirl of navy and grey.
Bart had totally tackled him sideways.
I rolled over a bit and looked up at Bart in shock. Bart was laying on top of Robin. He looked over at me frantically.
'SUZE, GO!' he yelled, trying to keep Robin from breaking free.
Stupid freak. I couldn't MOVE.
'I can't,' I cried at him. The Block was too oppressive. And I couldn't think about anything but the pain in my head, let alone concentrate on trying to break through the Block.
'You little – ' Robin snarled at Bart, before I heard him yelping. Bart, that is.
Robin was able to break free from him, roll on top of Bart, and lay some pretty mean punches on him.
I screwed up my face, feeling every punch that the little guy got. I mean . . . this was all my fault. If I hadn't been so STUPID, and so NAÏVE, then I would have realised that the Misfortunates didn't want some APOLOGY. They wanted vengeance. They wanted to kill their old principal. That was the only thing that would compensate for the fact that they were now all dead, it seemed.
Meanwhile, I saw Nathan swoop over me. His pale blue-gray eyes were glinting coldly as he smirked. 'Lucky Susie,' he said down to me, 'Now you're going to have all the fun that your friend Dani had . . . '
'Please,' I tried to appeal to him once more, so God damned desperate, but with a rush of pain and an extreme force, I was shoved on my stomach by something unseen.
STUPID BLOCK!
I felt hands working their way up my back, pushing my top up with it. 'Don't,' I shook my head, over and over again, 'I know that you died, and I know that it was unfair, and that you shouldn't be stuck here, but this isn't going to make anything better, I swear. Don't – '
'You talk to me like I haven't already done this before,' Nathan hissed. 'I have nothing to lose now, Susie. Nothing to gain, come to that. However, you have everything to lose, and that's the thrill that I get.'
Such a sick, sick thing to say.
This guy was not only twisted, but disgusting. Loathsome. His words, however, were so chilling that fear quickly replaced repulsion.
It was useless. Suddenly, with a painful realization, I understood that I wasn't going to get out of here alive. No way. Not while these three eighteen year olds were so angry, so hateful, and so powerful. And there was no way for me to defend myself, either. I mean, I was alone . . . powerless, unable to move, unable to call for help, and even though people KNEW I was in danger, they couldn't reach me in time.
So I was screwed.
So, so, so screwed.
As much as I could try to touch into any humanity left in these three boys, I knew that THAT was a lost cause as well. There was no humanity there anymore. That had died when Dani had.
To kill is to lose a part of yourself.
To kill and enjoy it, is to lose yourself completely.
Bart regretted what he'd done. He hadn't done it out of malice; he'd killed out of fear. He had a lot on the line if he didn't do it. Mr. Head would have spilled the beans about his powers . . . but who would believe him? And then what? Would they ship Bart off to the mental ward? That's touching on the most taxing fears on the mind of a shifter.
But Charlie, Robbie and Nathan had killed to get off on it.
And that was what made them so dangerous now. Because they didn't have any respect for life any longer, seeing as they'd lost their own with such violence.
I mean, JESSE got MURDERED as WELL. But HE didn't go around killing people because of it. HE didn't try to get some ass from any girls who could still see him. And even though he had kind of gone after Felix Diego that one time in the chapel, after I exorcised myself, that didn't mean that he was a killer. He had just beaten the crappers out of Diego for being a jerk.
But Diego was DEAD . . . that was DIFFERENT. He didn't have a life to lose.
Mr Head did.
Dani did.
And most currently, I did.
Going by their previous display of how chummy they were with the living, I doubted I was going to last very long.
There was nothing I could do to save myself. I mean . . . I had no means of defense. Paul had no way to get to me. It really, truly was hopeless.
But . . .
Yes. But.
BUT . . . just when I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die, and violently, there was this flash. No, seriously. I know, I know, yeah-how-convenient-there-was-a-FLASH-just-in-TIME-to-save-the-heroine, blah blah . . . But honest to God. The whole room was suddenly coated in blue, and it hit my eyes like a laser.
And all four of the Misfortunates were thrown against the wall where the mirror had been before they'd shattered it.
The block was gone.
Dust was EVERYWHERE. It seemed that any possible area of dust had suddenly become unsettled, and so there was a cloud of grey across the whole ballroom that made it almost impossible to see through. However, as I scrambled up, shaking like a leaf and yanking my pants up – my knees weren't working properly, and my heart was going faster than a Formula 1 racing car – I could have sworn that I saw . . .
No way.
No, no, no way.
I mean – that wasn't POSSIBLE.
She couldn't have . . . she was DEAD. She wasn't even a ghost – she was supposed to be GONE. Completely.
The figure past the screen of dust was tall, colorless, and in shadow . . . there was no mistaking the shock of red hair, though.
As I swiped at the falling dust, I looked again, and she was gone.
. . . No way. No freakin' way.
Suddenly, my heart went so fast. I mean . . . I am aware that I am a mediator. I see ghosts. I hear them, I touch them, I occasionally make out with them, and I beat the crap out of them – or bravely attempt to. Ghosts EXIST. I know they do. They don't scare me. I mean, as PEOPLE they do, but not because they're the existing souls of those troubled spirits who have unfinished business in this plane.
But there . . . THEN . . . I was scared.
Because Danielle Moore was supposed to be FULLY gone. As in – not haunting me anymore.
But there she'd been. I was so sure of it. Her hair . . . no one had hair quite like that. Even with the sheet of dust in front of me, I would have sworn on my life that it had been her.
Her presence make me shiver. It scared the HELL out of me.
Could it have been, though, that . . . maybe that WASN'T her ghost? More like . . . a memory of her or something? I mean – I had been about to suffer the same fate as her. At the same hands.
Could that have triggered some FORM of her to have come from beyond the grave to stop it?
Was that POSSIBLE?
Because NOTHING could have EVER been as strong as to break through an Astral Block so suffocating . . .
I mean, the Block was born from the desire of revenge. Had something countered that . . . ?
I didn't KNOW. It didn't make SENSE.
When I was capable of thought again, I realised that the Block was gone. I no longer felt that pounding headache or that awful numb feeling. I felt free again.
With this knowledge, and the knowledge that, at any moment, the situation could change as soon as the Misforts caught on, I knew exactly just who to call.
Ghostbusters.
. . . No.
Paul, I thought.
And before I even finished my thought, a slight wind and a shimmering sound let me know that my request had been met.
I opened my eyes and immediately looked at the Misforts, who were in a heap on the floor by the wall. They would recover any second now.
The minute Paul came, he took one look at my somewhat disheveled state before his eyes went REALLY wide. 'What did they do, Suze?' he asked quickly. 'Did they hurt you? Why are you shaking?'
Because I totally was. I felt like I was going to die.
And cry.
He pulled me into a forceful hug, and swore under his breath. He then pulled away a moment later, and his fingers came to my arm in a protective, scared sort of way as he examined the damage. 'What the h-'
But at the same moment, Jesse materialised beside him, and cut off Paul by asking in the same tone of urgency, 'Susannah! We couldn't get to you – Slater called me and said that you were in danger, but something did not allow us to come to you – are you okay?'
Not knowing who exactly to respond to, I replied, 'I don't think I've got time to explain, but it'll be a lot worse than this if we don't do something.'
Yes. You totally don't need to know what Robin had had planned for me. That will forever remain between me, him, and his penis, thank you.
And, as if on cue, the Misforts started to get up from their pile on the floor and brush themselves off. The three of them sauntered over to us like predator seeking prey.
'What the DAMNED HELLL HAPPENED?' Charles roared. 'How did THEY get HERE!'
'Susie broke through our Block,' Nathan spat.
Um . . . okay, I'll just pretend it was me.
Paul looked at me swiftly, impressed.
'Oh well,' Robin said loudly, his voice crushed with decadence,
All of them had cheap intimidation tactics . . . Charlie folded his muscular arms over his chest, Nate cracked his knuckles, and Robin grinned lazily at us.
The sad thing about these tactics?
They worked.
On me at least. I don't know about Paul or Jesse. Paul's grip on my arm got a bit tighter, and Jesse just looked plain angry. I would go as far to say they looked murderous, even.
I don't think I had to worry about Paul and Jesse committing murder anytime soon. It was the three across from us I had to worry about.
I could feel the room becoming edgy with the agitation and the tension that was boiling up between both groups. I knew it was a total Us versus Them sort of thing. Let the best group win and all that.
Well, personally I thought the SIA (or what was left of it) was a pretty good team. But I still wasn't completely confident that we could beat the Misfortunates, especially not after all their attempts to break us and weaken us. Those had worked . . . what if they tried to pull it off again?
Paul's voice seemed to take a knife to the tension in the room as he spoke in a rather harsh voice, 'What do you want from us? Haven't you three done enough?'
'We want a number of things,' Nathan drawled hatefully. 'We want our lives back. They were stolen.'
'But most of all,' Robin cut in, dropping his lazy grin for a chillingly dark look, 'we want revenge.'
'We wouldn't mind taking the girl, either,' Nathan added in last-minute, his gaze raking me. I stepped back, my eyes wide. 'Throw her in as part of the deal too. Because if memory serves, our lives were cut too short to ever have much fun.'
Charlie laughed in cold agreement.
I shivered, as a chill ran across my skin. They were talking about me like I was some thing.
A thing they wanted to overuse, and break.
And throw away . . .
'Such depravity . . . to think this is fun. Like this is some sort of child's game to you?' Jesse asked with much incredulity.
'We were killed,' Robin said, his voice taking on a sort of inhuman quality. 'What kind of game do you think that is? Parcheesi? Sure, we blackmailed him . . . but did we deserve to die for it?'
No.
And yes.
Paul dropped my arm and started walking a bit towards the three. I happen to notice that Bart was nowhere in sight, much to my chagrin.
God, that little shit.
Even though he was a wimp, I kind of thought it would be nice to have four against three.
'I don't know what, exactly, you all deserve,' Paul said, stopping right in front of them. Charlie stepped forward a bit and looked down on him like a little kindergartner looks down on an ant it's about to fry with a magnifying glass. 'But,' Paul continued, 'after all you've done to make our lives hell and . . . and taking Dani's away from her completely . . . I think you all definitely deserve this.'
With that, Paul laid an almighty blow to the face of Charlie.
And all hell broke loose.
Charlie, besides overcoming some shock, hardly seemed to be affected by punch, and was able to lay one right back on Paul. I tried to run over and give Charlie a piece of my mind for it, but Jesse placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.
'You don't want to do that, Susannah,' Jesse said in a hushed tone, looking like he was trying to control anger. Hah. I wonder what he would have been like if I told him that Robin had almost had my pants off.
'No, she doesn't,' Nathan growled. 'She'd rather do . . . other things. With me.'
I glared at Nathan with utter disgust.
Yes. Other things. Decapitation is MUCH more appealing than punching, AFTER ALL.
'What do you mean, other things?' Jesse asked, getting rather defensive. 'What are you saying about mi Susannah?'
'Reality check . . . she doesn't seem to belong to you anymore, cowboy,' Nathan hissed. 'She's been a screwing the lawyer over there, if you haven't noticed. We saw her . . . dirty, energetic little thing, she is. Passionate, you know? Kind of makes me jealous –'
'SHUT UP,' I freaked, deeply humiliated.
Nathan's gaze snapped to me, and he tossed his head. 'Danielle was okay,' he went on. 'Nothing on what we saw from Susie – but still good. When we were done, though . . . we couldn't think of any further use for her. I mean, when she decided halfway through that she wanted to do things the hard way, and we . . . needed to force things out of her, it was getting a little irritating. That said, though, Robbie adored it when she tried to fight him off, and when she screamed, and he was able to shove her back down – '
The vivid mental flashes of such malicious violence were horrifying . . .
'Don't you say such things about a woman,' Jesse warned, enraged.
Nathan's eyes flashed with humour – a brief disturbance to the hate and the darkness that stung his gaze.
'Why not? It's all they're good for,' he sneered.
An acute chill left me numb with coldness.
Oooh . . . NOT a nice thing to say.
Jesse's face crumpled into an intense glare of revulsion.
Then he tackled him to the ground, hitting him over and over again.
Nathan was able to fight back, however.
And then I was left on my own. Which was a big mistake as long as Robin Lawrence was around.
Gulp.
Especially when the Rob Man TOTALLY came at me from behind. I felt forceful arms grab me around my waist, making me squeak in shock. However, I think I was very within my rights to aim a backwards kick into his dead dangly bits.
He moaned, and threw me away from him.
Gotta appreciate the masculine weak spot. Gets 'em every time.
'THIS,' I spat, 'Is for trying to - YOU KNOW - '
I kicked him again in THAT area.
'That's for being an ASSHOLE in GENERAL – '
I repeated my actions.
'And that's for Dani - '
On THAT attempted kick, however, he caught my ankle with both of his hands - that had previously been defending his minced meat - and he flipped twisted my leg so I lost my balance. I landed on my back. He completely tried to come over me, but I kicked up against his chest EXTRA hard. He fell away, his hair catching a gleam of light from outside the window.
I breathed hard.
'I'm going to kill you,' he promised me solemnly; murderously. 'Mark my words Susie.'
I laughed, and scrambled up, my fist landing heavily on his temple. It hurt him, but he completely IGNORED it, instead raising his arm up, and thumping down forcefully on my shoulder. My knees went weak from the shock of pain and I stumbled back, but I retaliated with a swift, hard sucker punch.
'AH!' I heard Paul yell, and turned my head to see the cause of his outrage: he'd fallen, and Charlie had kicked his stomach with cold brutality.
Unfortunately, witnessing this for mere seconds resulted in my receiving a smack across my face. Robbie then started with a round of assaults as if I were his piñata and he was trying to tear out the candy from within.
. . . Okay, ewww.
But seriously, um, WOMAN-BEATER MUCH? A fiery adrenaline ignited with full force, and I seized his shoulders before repeatedly kneeing HIM in the groin region. The noise he released was like a dog that had just gotten its tail stepped on.
My breath was short, and sharp, and painful. His eyes were dark as hell, and his hair was no longer sophisticated looking by ANY means - it was chaotic from the movement.
He grabbed MY arms, and shoved me back. As I was getting my balance back, he'd strode over again, and pushed me backwards AGAIN. I didn't realise why, until I felt the solid wall behind me. I heard cracking beneath my feet and saw that I'd stepped on the mirror that they'd broken before. With aggressive force, he pushed me against the wall, his hands painfully gripping my upper arms.
I gasped on impact, because my head TOTALLY got bashed in the process. 'Get OFF - '
He crushed me there, hard. His chest was completely against mine. I tried to grab a breath, but he'd pressed against me totally. I turned my head a bit, and I tried to somehow, push him away, but he was holding my arms at an uncomfortable angle so I could not achieve this.
'I'm wondering if I should continue where I left off,' he snarled at me. 'Wear you out till there's nothing left of you . . . '
Um. Okay, he obviously didn't know that the average male can only go for fifteen minutes.
'After the amount of times I kicked your dick, I'm pretty sure I've inverted it,' I retorted.
I tried to kick his kneecaps, but he shook me up before slamming me against the mirrorless wall once more. UH, IT HURT. And if I SLIPPED at all, I'd totally cut myself on the shards of glass that were littered dangerously across the floor, and I'd DIE FROM BLOOD LOSS.
Which isn't very cool.
With me in this position of vulnerability, he took that opportunity to strike me heavily with his fist. I whimpered in a pathetic way, crumpling in pain, but he wouldn't let me slip; he was not done.
And he pummeled my stomach repeatedly, making me groan every time.
THIS WAS NOT A GOOD THING. NO, NO, NO.
I mean – he was going to prevent me from having CHILDREN in a second. It felt like he was about to break one or SEVEN of my RIBS or something.
Suddenly, thinking on my feet, I yelled, 'No, go back, it's not safe, Mr Head!' and he spun around wildly.
That was all I needed; I jerked away from the wall, before aiming a hefty kick to his jaw.
Wow, I didn't know I could get my leg that kick.
His head snapped back for a second, but he looked back at me, furious that I'd managed to deceive him. He made another move toward me, but I kicked at his chest, making him fall back.
His eyes flashed in pure rage. I swallowed, almost losing in myself in his dark, portentous web of terror that endeavoured to trap me with lethal resolve.
I didn't let him overwhelm me though. If I was going to beat him, I couldn't let him scare me . . .
I mean, yes. He'd been VERY close to sexually assaulting me a very short while ago. Serious, you have NO idea how lucky I'd been to have escaped from that. He was just a zipper away.
Suddenly, Paul's shouts ruptured my fearful thoughts.
'GET - '
Charlie had a large piece of broken mirror to Paul's neck. Heart stopping, I ran toward Charlie, jumping on his back and rolling him off of Paul. He roared in shock, and we landed so he was on top of me, face-up. He was HEAVY, man! My arms were wrapped around his neck, and I felt winded.
Ow -
'You interfering little - ' Charles began wrathfully, but then settled for slashing the glass down my arm. I shrieked and released his neck immediately, and I felt blood dribbling down my skin already from the gash. An intense, instant stinging seared up to my shoulder, and I panted.
'Suze!' Paul yelled, before going completely PSYCHOTIC at Charlie, kicking him like there was no tomorrow, and there'd been too many un-avenged yesterdays.
Jesse was waging war with Nathan still. He was totally winning. But that was because he too had an advantage over the living; his injuries lasted mere seconds whilst mine and Paul's slowed us down. Being alive sucks that way. So Jesse and Nathan were VERY much so even in their fight, and Jesse just proved to be the better man.
I didn't blame Paul for getting his ass a little kicked by Charlie.
I mean, let's face it, the guy was HUGE. Paul's really strong, but Charlie just beat him in MASS. He was a GIANT.
Not that Paul wasn't giving what he was getting. He was kicking ass too.
I coughed, and sat up, holding my bleeding arm - Christ, the cut was like, six inches long and also DEEP. It was NOT cool.
However, I hadn't gotten much further than getting to my knees when a violent explosion of pain hit the side of my head, and I was knocked against the ground.
Oh yeah: Robin.
To make matters worse, I felt ANOTHER splinter of the shattered mirror carve at the skin of my shoulder blade beneath me, making me wheeze abruptly. Robin crawled over me again, and held me down powerfully. However, I managed to jerk my arm from beneath his hand, and TOTALLY elbow him in the face, knocking his head sideways a little. It wasn't enough to remove him off of me entirely.
That's when I felt two hands slide around my neck, and constrict with pressure I didn't know was possible.
My first instinct was to scream.
But I couldn't.
My airways were blocked off. My eyes bulged in horror, and I tried clawing at his face to get him OFF of me - to make him stop strangling me. The pressure in my head was building up as I wasn't getting oxygen. He was pressing against throat.
I couldn't breathe. At all. I tried to - I struggled - he only smirked more . . . his eyes were so DARK, and he was laughing and - he was so far gone from humanity . . . I was choking and he went all blurry for a second and then sharper but then really cloudy again - his eyes were intense, and they cut like the glass from the mirror and I couldn't breathe . . .
His face was composed of power, hate, pain, fury, victory, and – and arousal. As if THIS was turning him on. You know – having a defenseless girl writhing beneath him, with his fingers around her neck as he squeezed the life out of her . . .
A tyrant over whether I lived or died.
He looked like he was relishing this FAR more than he would have been if he were inside me.
And I'm sorry, but that was fucking SCARY.
Sick, sick, sick, twisted, evil, wrong, corrupt, dark, psychotic, perverted, depraved, sick . . .
Previously in this situation, when Robin Lawrence has been well on the way to killing me by means of strangulation, Paul or Jesse or someone'd always show up. They'd pull him away, or he'd just dematerialise due to their presence. However, this time, that wasn't the case.
Why, Susie Simon, can we never manage to kill you?
He'd asked me that once.
I'd responded:
Maybe I'm not supposed to die.
Because I had honestly believed it. I couldn't imagine leaving this world because some GHOST had offed me.
I thought that this God would be just enough to let me die with SOME dignity. I thought I'd been saved each of those times for a reason; because I was not meant to go in such a way. That I had another purpose later on that required me to be alive for.
However, as the face of death that hovered above me, the devastating realisation that I was HORRIBLY deluded misinformed hit me with a faith-shattering force.
Yeah.
The ghost above me was killing me. Murdering me. Stealing my LIFE with his own two hands.
No one was stopping it this time.
I wasn't meant to live for some great purpose.
I was meant to die.
Here.
And now.
I'm going to kill you. Mark my words Susie.
He'd told the truth . . .
The blackness clouded over my vision quickly as my brain just . . . stopped. So did my heart. My pulse. My blood. My sense of smell.
Everything just stopped.
The sounds - grunts of pain, growls of effort, roars of rage - just faded out, and stopped.
The pain stopped, too.
The fear; the shock; the horror lived on.
But yeah, the thing that killed me the most was the end of my faith.
I didn't even REALISE I'd had any real faith in God until that moment. I'd always thought that, when I died, I wouldn't really care . . . I mean, after all, I didn't really BELIEVE in God, right? What had He ever done for me? Except send me this stupid mediator ability?
But I DID believe. Only then did I realise how much.
Only THEN did I realise how badly I wanted to live.
And how much I was hating Him.
I did believe. That realisation rushed at me FORCEFULLY, like a bullet through the skull. I did believe, and I'd been betrayed so cruelly . . .
I didn't understand, as life was slipping away with consciousness, how He could have done this? How could God have disposed of me so pathetically? How could He have allowed me to be murdered like THIS?
At these hands.
These cold, cold hands?
Why?
. . . How could He?
The last thing I felt was the tear that slid from my eye.
Then I felt absolutely nothing.
It all stopped.
That's what death felt like.
Review.
Hayley and I truly want to know how much you hate us.