Soulless (Book #2 of Hunted)

Suffocate

"Did you save me any hot water?" I asked as Phoebe stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

"Meh," she said with a shrug. That obviously meant she saved me about a tablespoon of hot water. I sighed and followed her to the guest room. I watched as she roughly towel dried her short blonde hair and hung the ratty maroon towel on a hook by her door. She sat down on her bed and burrowed under the covers until only her face was showing. She glanced at me and yawned.

"Goodnight, Pheebs," I muttered. "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

"The only bed bug we have to worry about is the one in the basement," she said a bit hostilely. She blinked and the lamp by her bed went out. I almost laughed at the bed-bug-Zane crossover. I was going to have nightmares about giant demon bed bugs now.

"Sleep well," I told Phoebe though I knew that probably wasn't going to happen tonight.

"Yeah, you sleep well too, Lor, and no singing in the shower," she said in the darkness. I smiled and backed out of her room.

"I'll wake you up when eleventh grade starts," I said. There was a moment of silence before Phoebe murmured, "I can dig that." She could lighten almost any situation. I closed her bedroom door and went to the bathroom to take a song-less and most likely cold shower.

After showering, I went to my bedroom and put on silky pajama bottoms and an over-sized t-shirt. I scooped up the bed-sheets and slowly made my bed before sitting down on top of the comforter and taking a drink from the three day old glass of water on my nightstand. I turned my light off and lay back without getting under the covers. I stared straight up at the ceiling watching the shiny stuff in the old popcorn ceiling twinkle dully. As I began to relax I could hear things.

I could hear people talking or watching television in other houses, I heard the pattern of Phoebe's breathing slow as she drifted off to sleep and I could hear Zane sitting in the pitch black basement. I heard the chains clinking as he moved and the shallow almost panicked breaths he was taking. I could almost feel his pain as he tried desperately not to make a noise.

I thought about what he told me, about that single command screaming in his head always present, urging him to give in, to kill, and to keep killing until he was put down like a dog. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine what else he could be thinking or if the blood-lust was blocking out every other decent thought in his brain.

I angrily kicked my way under the sheets and admitted to myself that there were just things in this world that I could never understand, things that I could never know. I could try to learn and I could try to figure out what was going on, but in the end I'd never be able to comprehend anything about what he was feeling or what kinds of thoughts he was thinking. I sank lower under the covers and pressed my pillow so hard over my face that I couldn't breathe.