The Blood We Crave: Part Two (The Hollow Boys, #4)

by Monty Jay

It’s these moments where I can quietly admire all she is, not having to worry about hiding my appreciation of her peculiar ways. It’s in these hours of the morning that I give myself some leeway, and I am soft. Weak for her.

“I didn’t even know what love was then. But I was alone. I had no one else except the memory of a boy who saved my life, a boy who had chosen kindness, and it was all I had. All I had inside foster care and group homes.” Her voice cracks a little, and she chews the inside of her cheek. “You were all I had.”

Do you know what it’s like to go your entire life and never know gentle? How to be kind? Then you meet someone who is overflowing with it, and suddenly, you can’t be anything but soft just for them?

Touching Lyra is the same as stroking ivory keys. Everything stops spinning, and my mind goes wholly still. There within the black-and-white of her soul exists a solace. My fingers beg to hear the music she’d make for me. It’s simply her and the piano. They know my secrets, the things the rest of the world will never.

Music is the only way I can remember in vivid colors, with no black spots or blurry images. A way to relive those horrifyingly beautiful, powerful moments. And Lyra had been my very first muse.

I never thought there would be anything stronger than the urge to kill. Until I tasted her.

“You’re such a chicken shit! You picked this movie,” Briar laughs, throwing a jelly bean in her direction. “I thought weed was supposed to mellow you out?” “I told Rook that new stuff makes me paranoid as fuck.” She hides behind her hands, giggling as her red hair falls in front of her face. The high from the pre-rolled joint (thank you, Rook) still lingers in my bones, making me feel heavy yet weightless, as if my limbs weighed a ton but could still take flight if I jumped. I’m not a huge drug or alcohol user, but weed is nice for nights like these. A way to forget, to put the world outside on pause and exist in the now.

“Darling.” He traces the front of his white teeth with his tongue, a starved animal ready to feast. “I’d rid the world of men who breathe the same air as you.”

“It’s cute how clingy you are.” He drops his mouth to my breast, sucking my nipple between his teeth, biting down before apologizing with his tongue. “You can’t even come without me.”

“Wait, wait. I’m not laughing at you,” she breathes. “I just—I think I broke you.” Yeah, I think you broke me too.

“As tempting as it might be to pin you up and store you in my closet with the other toxic specimen, why don’t you just try accepting that you’re not dead.” Such a little stalker—she would enjoy keeping me forever in a glass case. “You make me fucking crazy.” A heavy sigh shakes her shoulders. “Why are you still so set on hiding from me? Putting all these walls between us. Have I not shown that you can trust me with yourself?”

“I crave you,” I exhale, the admission slicing my throat on its way out. “My body wants you every second of the day and twice as much at night. I want you in the most unhinged ways, ways that would scare you.”

“I was touch starved, and now you’ve fed me.” I tighten my grip on her hair, our noses rubbing against one another. “Of course I’m fucking hungry for you.”

I wish I could say that I don’t believe in fate, but if it was real, I think I would’ve been made for her too.

The light from the kitchen downstairs twinkles onto the banister, dressing her in a dim orange glow. My sweater sleeves cover her tiny hands and drop just below her waist. She is all things chaotic and peculiar in a way that makes you want to believe in things like destiny. Because no one is simply born this beautiful. This unbearably beautiful.

But beneath all of that, beneath the man, there is a boy who had dreams. Who felt and stood a chance if not for his father. I wish I could have seen him before the world turned him so cold.

In my hallway, underneath all the anger, there was just a man so terrified of himself, of what he’s capable of, that he’d rather deny me than hurt me. That’s him putting someone other than himself first, putting me first. Thatcher doesn’t want to leave me empty, and I don’t want to leave him lonely.

I lift my hand, cupping her cheek, rubbing my thumb across the bridge of her nose. It feels impractical to experience this. The way I was so hungry for violence seconds ago, and now… Now I want to submerge myself in her softness.

My lack of a soul wasn’t because of the evil that had infested my mother’s womb or my father’s corrupt DNA. No, I didn’t have one because it belonged to her. I think when we were created, instead of splitting our spirits in half, they gave both of them to her in order to keep them safe. To remind me, when the time was right, that all I am is hers to carry.

Far before we stood in these bodies, someone had decided she would be the keeper of my soul, knowing I would have done far too much damage to it.

“No matter the cruelty your hands are capable of, they will always be the one place I feel safe. How could I fear fingers that were made to touch me?”

“Where is Rook?” I ask, looking through the crowd of students on the dance floor, all wearing various masks. “We’re supposed to be in recon mode, and my job is to provide you two with an alibi in case something sketchy goes down. How am I supposed to do that when I only have half of the twisted sisters?” “You only came for the sweets.” Alistair leers. “He’s probably toking in the bathroom. God knows he’s not getting through this night without smoking.”

If he touches Thatcher, I will bury him my goddamn self, and I won’t need any proof of his guilt to do it. My fingers tighten around the material of my dress, and I feel a warm hand curl around my wrist. Looking down, I find Alistair’s hand wrapped around my own, keeping me in place.

I smile behind my champagne glass as I watch Rook wrap Sage up in his arms, dancing more as one person than two separate people. They look so in love at this moment that I almost forgot the reason we came here.

My hand is interlocked with hers as she pulls me through the cabin. I would’ve followed her just about anywhere in that dress.

If it makes me weak to crave her, then let me be weak.

“Nothing about you could ever scare me, Lyra Abbott,” I mutter. “All your darkness is my own. We’re the same.”

A dull flick echoes before the walls are plunged into an ominous red hue. Pits of darkness contour along nooks and tables. It takes my eyes several seconds to adjust, but when they do, I find myself looking at, well, me. I’m occupying every inch of this room, my presence tangible in the stillness. Hundreds of photos of me in various stages of life strung up along threads that are bannered from wall to wall. Developed photographs are plastered against the walls, more dispersed on the floor.

It’s a shrine of my existence, all documented through Lyra’s artistic eye. I was the only person in every photograph she’d watched and devoted time to. My ego purrs beneath my skin, and I don’t care if it’s strange to admit that this is attractive. I like that she’s infatuated with me, that she only has eyes for me—haunts, exists, breathes just for me. She is my obsessed angel, and I am her possessive god.

Lyra is pressed against the wall, her feet clicking together as she tries to shrink from embarrassment, not fully understanding how thrilling it is to know I’ve always been the only one on her mind. No one else stood a chance. She is solely captivated by me, and I refuse to let her stop.

“A boy who was turned into a weapon before he knew what it meant,” she hums, pulling a photo down of me when I was maybe fifteen. “I never understood how they called you a monster when you were always so beautiful. This was how I kept you close when I couldn’t be near you.”

“My father told me when I was young that if I ever felt, I had to kill it. That was how I remained perfect.” My other hand snakes around her waist, hauling her from the wall and into my body. “I wanted to kill what you stood for, what you did to me.”

“Every single time I saw you, I’d stare at this pretty little throat and think about the bruises I’d wanted to leave just so everyone would know who owned you. I wanted to hold you so tightly your ribs cracked. When you spoke to anyone else, I was half tempted to rip them apart. I wanted to ruin you, end you, just because I knew I could never fucking have you.”

“You had me then; you just never realized it. You can have me now.” Lyra’s sneaky fingers pull at the buttons of my shirt, undoing it casually. “Forever, if you want.”

“I don’t want to be perfect if it means I have to live without you.”

Lyra’s hand moves, the tip of her finger drawing across my skin. When I glance down, I find her painting hearts with the blood that drips from her veins. Tiny bloody hearts. They connect and leak down my chest, drying in messy strokes. She’s covering me in them. Marking my skin with the proof of her obsession. And I let her because I’m tipsy. Blood drunk on a girl intent on loving me until it kills her. Until the grave. That’s what we are, have always been. The kind of connection that began in death and would last far beyond it. Such a very grim, morbid declaration of love. So very Lyra.

“A part of me will always be inside you,” she insists, pressing a kiss to my skin right in the center of my sternum.

“Your heart is racing,” she whispers, placing a hand over my chest as if to steady the thrumming in my chest. I laugh, pieces of my damp hair falling in front of my face. “No one told you? I don’t have one.” She smiles, bright and blinding. All Lyra and all mine. Her lips kiss the hickeys on my neck, and she preens beneath me, so proud of her claim on me, admiring the dried bloody hearts still staining my skin. My chest aches uncomfortably when she speaks again. “You can take mine.”

It would have been much easier to fall in love with literally anyone else. But I don’t want easy. I’ve never wanted easy.

“Easy, Little Miss Death.” He drops his forehead to mine, his fingers rubbing circles into my lower back. “Knives away. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

My body thrums, and I press my weight into his lap, craving the closeness that comes from him being inside of me. I want beneath his fucking skin at all times.

I want to memorize every groove of your mouth, I want to protect these fragile pieces of you that are too sharp for others to carry, but I have gloves now, and you can’t cut me. Even if they sliced my palms, it would be okay.

For him, I’d bleed. For him, it’s worth it.

“I think I knew you in a past life. Do you think that’s crazy?” My fingertips trace the lines of his collarbone. “No.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “But me wanting to know you in every life after this one might be.”

I wouldn’t flinch to sacrifice myself if it meant she made it out unscathed, alive. Briar, she’s strong, she’d survive my death, she’d move on eventually and find the happiness she’s earned. If anything happened to her though? I would not say the same for me.

“I leave and you let Rook take the lead?” His voice is smoke, quiet, lingering. “You’ve lost your edge, Caldwell.” Welcome home, Silas.

When we were younger, it was his house I visited the most. I craved the silence he provided me. We didn’t need to talk; we just sorta existed in each other’s company, aware of the demons that haunted us but not speaking about it. I’d missed Silas’s brand of quiet. It’s always been my favorite.

“It’s Godfrey,” Rook announces from behind me somewhere. “The Imitator doesn’t kill men.” I look at the ceiling, watching clumps drop onto the floor, before turning to look at him and Alistair in the doorway. “No.” He shakes his head, grimacing at the scene before pointing at the body. “That’s Conner Godfrey, or what’s left of him. I found his car parked in the backyard.”

Of course she would slay her own monsters. My girl is a knife; brutal, unforgiving, beautiful.

But a little carnage never scared me. Nothing about Lyra Abbott would ever make me fear her.