Soulless (Book #2 of Hunted)

Whiplash

The house was unnervingly silent. Phoebe and I exchanged glances and turned to the mangled basement entryway. "He's been rather quiet hasn't he?" Phoebe whispered. I nodded severely. We got off our stools and started down the basement steps.

Zane was sitting against the wall with his knees against his chest and his arms crossed. His head was down and he looked absolutely miserable, but at least he wasn't screaming. I sat down on the bottom step and considered him carefully. Phoebe thumped down next to me and we just looked at Zane like we were waiting for him to explode. I saw his shoulders rise and I heard the sound of a deep inhale and then he said without an upward glance, "I'm sorry." The apology sounded more furious than sincere and it confused me. Who was this here speaking to me?

"You made the right choice in restraining me, Lori, but I trust you know it will only get worse from here," he said with his head still down. I wished he would look at me; I needed to see his face to know who this was. He sighed loudly and tilted his head upwards. His face and neck were still covered with blood but his expression had changed. He looked tired and his eyes were different. The sclera was visible and his irises, though still black as pitch, were only a little larger than a human's iris. He had finally come down.

"I need you to promise me something," he whispered huskily. I stood up and took a step forward against my better judgment.

"Anything," I replied. He leaned towards me on the balls of his feet, his back coming away from the wall. His hands dug into the solid cement of the floor and his eyes met with mine. I tried fiercely not to surrender myself to those eyes.

"Promise me that no matter how much I beg or scream you'll never let me go," he said in a strained voice as if someone was trying to pull the words back into his mouth. I nodded. "Don't just nod, promise," he urged in a slightly alarming tone.

"Okay, I promise," I replied quickly. "But for how long?" I asked naively. His eyes seemed to become even more shadowed as he said, "Until you stop being an overly optimistic idiot and get up the nerve to drive something silver through my cold un-beating heart." There was a stunned pause before he fell back and straightened his legs out in front of him. He had his head tilted slightly to the side like he didn't recognize the sound of his own voice.

"That didn't come out the way I wanted it to," he said slowly. I crossed my arms over my chest and scrutinized his face prudently. His eyes had softened, the shape of his mouth had become less derisive, but his voice was still cruelly unforgiving and it felt like a whip against my skin. I longed for the gentleness and soothing compassion of Zane's voice but for some reason I found his cutting tone refreshing. He was bordering on jerk and I found it refreshing. I'm a peculiar girl.

"So, there isn't any hope at all?" I asked.

"No hope whatsoever, I'm afraid," he said in a cheerful voice, almost like he was happy about the hopelessness of the situation.

"Why?" I asked. He looked at me but his eyes didn't come to my face so much as lingered around my collar bones.

"Why what?" he queried his eyes stuck to that spot. I would've moved so that he couldn't make out the web of pulsing arteries wrapped around my neck like a scarf but I didn't really care anymore. He couldn't reach me from here anyway so why even bother?

"Why is there no hope?" He groaned loudly and rolled his eyes skyward. It was like he was caught somewhere in the middle of being Zane and being Anton.

"There is only one way for me to get better and I can't handle the aftermath without wanting to scratch my heart out of my chest," he said grudgingly through gritted teeth.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" I whispered. He stared at me like I was stupid as a box of rocks.

"Haven't you been listening?" he asked. "You keep me chained up until I come up with a clever idea to get out of here or until you swallow enough bravery pills to do me in for good." He blinked a few times confusedly like he had no idea why he had said that. I was getting serious brain whiplash.