Echoes (Dance With My Demons, #2)

by Steph Macca

I can't help but wonder what my viewers think of me too. I feel like a circus animal, chained and put out for show. Come one, come all. Hear the echoes of my hauntings.

Time stands frozen, the clock on the wall broken. But even the clock is still right twice a day.

Usually, the sight of blood calms me. There's something about the very essence of our being—the life that it gives and seeing it spill out—that pacifies me. It's a reminder that we can use it as a weapon, ending lives as well as saving them.

Out of sight, out of mind they say. But that's just bullshit. Now that I know she's in the same building as me again, the tether between us pulls. And I'm going to take that tether and wrap it around her soft body—whether that's to fuck her or kill her, I don't know yet.

"I would have killed him. I would have gutted him without hesitation. But that would have meant leaving you. And I'm not prepared to do that.

"What are you afraid of?" "Everything," she whispers, defeated. "Fucking everything." My eyebrows furrow and I shift closer to her, grabbing her hand to calm her. "Listen to me. There's nothing you can say or do that will make me run." Avery shakes her head sadly. "You will. Everyone always does."

She tastes like Heaven. My fallen angel. If God exists, he must be sick. Who would send a divine creature like her into the Devil's lair? And now she's stuck with me. I don't care about anything else, as long as she's with me.

"You're fucking perfect, Avery. Don't ever hide this from me. I want to see all of you."

It's fucking intoxicating, ruthless. She could end me in a single minute if she wanted. I wasn't wrong when I said she's a fucking force of nature.

Her legs buckle and shake so easily, my arms wrapping around her thighs so I can hold them in place. Then I bury my face into my new home, lips sealing around her clit.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" She shakes her head, and it makes me want to kiss her. She's so naïve, so blind. It's no wonder she has people falling to their feet over her. In her mind, she's at rock bottom, watching as people hit the same level too. But in reality, she's far from that lie. She's a fucking powerhouse, bringing even the most broken, lost souls to salvation.

"I could die right now," I growl, looking into her gray orbs. "It would be the best death. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else except in you."

If anyone lays a single finger on her, bruising her perfect skin, I'll soak them in gasoline and make a bonfire.

"You're not going to avoid me any longer, Avery. I don't care the reason why. Whatever it is, I promise that I'm the bigger threat."

I groan, shoving my face into my pillow. "Oh, God." "Not God," he laughs. "The Devil."

I want to fuck her so hard that it hurts. I want to slam into her with such force that we defy the laws of physics and become one person. It seems fitting anyway, since she already has my heart. She might as well take my body and soul too.

I've never experienced the amount of love and hate simultaneously as she brings out in me right now.

I'm fucking possessive. I'm dangerous. I'll fucking kill for what's mine. And that extends to her.

I am playing with fire—I want to burn. When Avery's involved, I want everything. Life. Death. Torture. Pleasure. Pain. Every-fucking-thing she can offer me.

"Say for argument's sake, you love me too. We're all messed up here, right? We're the unhinged… the lost souls. But despite all that, you love more than one person. Because we're not bad people. Love isn't an emotion that bad people can process. We've been fucked over. Don't we deserve love?"

"You deserve love, Avery," he answers. "Which is why I allowed him to live."

I'm going to chase you, Grey. I'm not letting you go that easily.

"Who do you think killed Hallman, little killer? He didn't take his own life. No—I ended it. I ended that sad, pathetic excuse of a man because he touched you. He tried to hurt what's mine."

"You're fucking mine, Avery," he growls into my mouth. "This lifetime and the next one too."

She looks fucking perfect. It makes me want to rip her into tiny pieces just so I can put her back together again.

"This is what you do to me," I breathe out, growling as her finger presses into my flesh harder. "You tear me apart from the inside out in the best fucking ways possible. You make me kill for you, you make me want to die for you. I'll burn this whole place down to ashes and paint you with them like the muse you are."

"When you go to heaven one day, I'll drag you back down to hell to join me. Because I'm never leaving you, Avery."

"It makes sense though. He doesn't like to share, so he picked the most secluded way to do it. He didn't have to see me and judging from what I could hear through the wall, he's still a possessive shit." "You're possessive too," I shoot back. "Leaving fingers on my bed." He shrugs. "I gave you a flower. Girls like that shit." "Oh, that's the part you are focusing on," I scold playfully. "Here's the finger of your enemy… it's in a rose though." "I'm nothing if not unique," he smiles.

"I have mental illness. I'm not mental illness. I'm worth more than what you paint me as psychologically."

She's everything I hate—annoying, unpredictable, overly trusting. But also caring, thoughtful, receptive. Most people here respect me out of fear. They are loyal to reap the benefits. Not her though. While I had forced her to stay on task, she did it because she wanted to.

Mine. No one is going to take that away from me. I'll kill every last person until we're the last two left. And then we'll burn the world down together.