Possessed Soul

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

"What made you change your mind?" Holden questioned, reaching across the kitchen counter for one of the knives that were embedded in a wooden block.

"My mind was made up the second I knew there was a tracker inside of me. Kaden on the other hand...." I left my sentence unfinished, knowing that Holden would get the gist of what I was trying to say.

He approached me with the knife, and to be honest I wasn't at all scared. Sure, this knife was bigger and deadlier than the pocket knife, but I was all too eager to get this tracker out of me.

"Then I don't suppose Kaden knows what we're doing?" Holden quirked his eyebrows and I could tell he wasn't entirely sure about this anymore, as if he was worried about what Kaden would do to him.

I shook my head slightly.

"I won't mention it to him, then," Holden decided after a pause.

I didn't bother telling him that it didn't really matter what he said to Kaden, since I'd be long gone by then anyway.

I bit down on my lip, hard enough to draw blood, anticipating the pain I knew I would experience. But preparation didn't help. The pain was horrible...no, horrible was not the word I'd use to describe it; it was ten times worse. Intense to the point where I couldn't even wrap my head around what was happening. I shut my eyes quickly, so quickly that white spots appeared in the black of my eyelids, disappointing me since the thing I craved most was darkness. I tried to cough to disguise my screams, but it sounded more like a raspy wheeze.

"Shit," Holden exclaimed, at the exact same moment that something wet trickled down the side of my neck. "The wound is deep," he explained. "Last time I tried, your skin was difficult to cut. Now I managed to slice it all the way through." I'm not sure if it was just me, but he sounded kind of smug about it. "Better knife, probably. Anyway, at least the tracker's out."

"Yeah," I rasped, accepting the cloth he offered me and pressing it to the left side of my neck. "Are you sure you didn't cut a vein?" I pulled the cloth away, only to realize it was soaked in blood. The cloth was covered in red; it was impossible to figure out what colour it had originally been.

"You'd be dead if I did," he replied. "Do you feel faint?" He didn't bother offering to get me a bandage or anything, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe it was possible that I would bleed out.

"I think..." I didn't get a chance to finish before Holden collapsed to the floor, his head making quite a sound as it hit the floor, kind of like the sound of a basketball bouncing. The tiny tracker still clutched in his hand. It was hard to imagine something so small had caused so much trouble.

***

I screamed as loud as I could, considering I was losing what felt like gallons of blood.

"Someone help!" I knelt by Holden's body and took his head in my lap. I held my hand above his mouth and was relieved when I felt his warm breath against my palm.

"What the fuck?" Aaron was the first to see me gushing blood, while holding Holden's limp form. "How...?" His voice trailed off as Emma walked in. She let out a high-pitched scream that shook my eardrums.

"Holden," she gasped, dropping down onto her knees beside him. "Blood?" She touched his cheek, which now had a bloody handprint on it. I didn't bother telling her that the blood was mine not his. Even if I did tell her, I wouldn't expect her to be less worried about Holden or more worried about me.

"I don't know what happened," I told her. "He just suddenly fell."

"He couldn't have," she argued, putting two fingers on his wrist to feel his pulse. "Holden never gets sick."