JUDE
She’s haunting me. Every time I close my eyes, Aurora is there. She’s bleeding on the floor, or she’s pleading with me to help her while Lorcan stabs her in the heart.
And when I open my eyes, she is still fucking there.
Except for this time, she’s covered in blood.
“Jude,” she snarls, coming closer. “You need to snap out of it.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” I grit out, trying to get free of the bed they’ve strapped me to. But Aurora doesn’t stop coming. She reaches out, hand dripping with blood, eyes filled with insanity. “Don’t touch me,” I shout at her.
“Jude, wake the fuck up. It’s me,” Aurora says.
I glare at her. “I know who you are. I let him kill you.”
“You let who kill me?” she hisses.
I close my eyes, so I don’t have to look at her as she touches me. Her hands are ice cold. My chest constricts, and I can’t breathe. I need to get away.
I let Lorcan kill you.
Aurora unties the bed restraints. I stay stock-still while she does, hoping the fucking bitch will just disappear, but she doesn’t. My heart is hammering in my chest when I open my eyes again. She reaches for me, her eyes dark and empty.
She’s going to kill me.
No, you fucking don’t.
As soon as my arm’s free, I sit up and wrap it around her throat. I squeeze until her eyes bulge out of her head. She tries to claw at my arm, but I yank the bitch closer, making her stumble.
“I tried to save you, but you wouldn’t listen. I told you to stay away from him.
“Jude, stop, or I’ll have to…” she croaks out, tailing off, her voice barely a whisper. There’s no fear, though. The cunt is looking at me with dead eyes still, void of emotion.
“You made me do this,” I snarl at her. “Now, leave me the fuck alone.” Something hot and wet slides down my face. Fuck, I’m crying.
She grabs around my fingers, her brown eyes staring into mine….
Brown eyes?
And yanks, bending my front two fingers back.
The crack is loud in my ears.
The pain—fucking excruciating.
“FUCK,” I drop her like a sack of potatoes, clutching my hand.
And then I see her, sprawled on the floor, eyes dark and demonic, looking like she might do more than snap my fingers off. She looks like she wants to kill me.
“You fucking dick.” She kicks the base of the bed, and it collapses with me fucking on still strapped to it. I fall back, banging my head on the back of the frame. In seconds, she’s behind me, with me in some kind of choke hold.
“How do you like to be strangled, eh?”
“Vi—” Is all I manage.
“It’s not fucking nice, is it?” she sneers as the room darkens around me, and I lose consciousness yet again.
When I wake up,Viola is sitting against the wall, glaring at me. Her neck is covered in red handprints—my red handprints.