Sick Bargain (Vile House #1)

by Nordika Night

For anyone who has ever been cursed

Death isn’t scary. To die means to stop existing. The absence of life means the absence of feeling, and to be snuffed out is almost a gift. There’s no suffering in death, no pain and no fear. It’s the complete obliteration of sensation and feeling, a freedom so infinite I often wish for it.

“Tell me something real, Remiel Sauder, and I’ll let you live till sunrise.”

It’s weird living in a brain that I don’t understand, and it causes me to feel disconnected from myself. Like I’m a passenger inside my own body, only letting the demons inside me rattle their confines enough to peer through my eyes as tiny windows to interpret the world we see.

Remiel spins, pressing that blade to the fabric covering my neck. “You fucking run,” he snarls at me. Oh, fuck me. Yes.

“It’s Krypt, actually,” I give him my name and grab his hands, tying them behind his back. “And I’ll be your devil. Not your god.” “Kryp… Keegan?” he asks. I knock him the fuck out.

“No. You belong to me now, and I’m not letting a pointless death have you.”

“If you know who I am, you also know that I’ve killed those I love before. My love is dangerous. My attention is worse.”

“I might be crazy, Remiel, but good luck enticing me into killing you. I’m very patient,” he says. “Everything you know, fucking everything, is about to change. Are you ready?”

“Welcome to Vile House, Remiel Sauder.” He frees my hands and places them on the edge of his mask. There’s no going back now. I rip it free.

“What do you want with me?” he asks quietly. Everything. To learn him. To figure out how he responds to fear and pain. To cut him off from everything and everyone in his life until he is solely mine and relies only on me. To warp his mind and force him to understand my sickness so I can understand myself—so I don’t feel so alone in my sickness. To use him until he begs for me, and then to dangle him in front of death’s door without ever letting him cross through. To teach him to take his own power and use it to his advantage. “To remind you what it means to live before you die,”

Anger creates chaos, and when it’s all churned up with hurt and pain, the destructive path always looks most appealing.

That he sold his life away with the hope of being fucking murdered, and instead of murdering him, I’m going to make him feel so tragically alive he’ll start actually living.

But I’ve never been a good person, and my monsters are stronger than my morals.

Krypt is right, I’m not the hero.

I’m my own belief, and I don’t believe that the living or the dead will protect me. I’m hypocritical because I want Remiel to believe I’ll protect him, though.

“Remiel will never be free.” Yes, free from the curse somehow, but never free from me.

Watching him match my tempo and create music that fits with mine, following my mood because he seems to read me like no one else can.

I’m a lit match, and Krypt will throw me onto any accelerant, encouraging me to burn the world around me like he burned my home.

“Look at me. Let me see you. If you’re going to watch me break, I want to see your face while you witness my downfall.”

“You break so beautifully, hero,” he says, voice not as jittery as usual. “Does it hurt to shatter?”

Because when I die, I want to leave this world with the feel of him all over me. In my mouth and on my tastebuds, over every inch of my skin, and in my goddamn soul. I want him to infect me before he snuffs me out forever, and if these are my final six minutes, I’m going to have him for every one of them.

Because I’m not leaving this world alone, and when I go, I’ll take every fucked-up part of him I can rip free from his body.

“Oh, you’re fucking broken,” he tells me, that jittery edge back in his voice. “Mind finally snapped, did it, hero?” “I’m no hero,” I rasp at him, pulling him free from his pants. I roughly drag my palm up his shaft and squeeze the head hard enough to make him hold his breath. “So don’t fucking treat me like one.”

“When I fuck you,” he starts, voice abrasive and raspy, “there will be no timeframe. No limits. No fucking windows where the world can see what’s mine. Your body is meant for me and only me, Remiel.”

“You made a deal with a devil, hero, and now you live in my hell.”

“You’ve done it now, Remiel.” “Done what?” I’m breathless and boneless. “Woken me up.” I should be more scared of that than I am.

“Any suicidal thoughts lately, Mr. Sauder?” Plenty, but only if Krypt is the one doing the life ending.

He is a monster. But I’m one, too.

“More,” I demand. “Scare me! Terrify me! Show me who the fuck you are!”

Because I’m sick, too, and I want him to know he isn’t alone. He practiced. He opened me up. He prepped me in secret because he’s ashamed of his inexperience. He’s triggered because of a word, and I want nothing to overpower him. Not his shame. Not a word. Not me. Krypt is a sick king, and it’s time he claims his title.

Fear lights me up from the inside out, and when I look in the mirror above the dresser, I see it in my eyes. It’s brought me to life. In pain and suffering because of him, I’ve never felt more revived.

“Because you gave me no other choice but to want you! Because your sickness calls out to mine and makes me feel alive! Because whatever lives in your eyes is so fucking alluring to me that I’m even sicker than you are.”

Because, once again, he’s proving a point. I’m the one going to him. I’m the one giving in to everything he’s thrust upon me. I’m the one being warped and shaped by his unforgiving hands, and I’m stalking towards him like I want more. Because I do.

“Whatever makes you sick is so fucking twisted that it heals me.” I sink down on his cock, mixing pain with agonized bliss and confusion because I hate it and want it together. Krypt cries out in angry pleasure. “I need it,” I tell him as he sits up to latch his mouth to my chest, sucking more marks into my skin and fucking me from the bottom. “I need your sickness more than I need anything. Fucking give it to me, Krypt.”

“Why can’t I hate you and want you? Why can’t I be disgusted by the things you’ve done and need you anyway? What are the rules here, Krypt?”

“I get a thrill out of having you. The method doesn’t matter.”

“And you want to be ashamed of it, right? You want to hate yourself for being raped and liking it.” He pulls back. “I didn’t like it!” “No?” He hesitates. “Not the first time.”

I want him to be my secret, my saviour, and my downfall. Because I’ve always been sick, but Remiel makes me sicker.

“What do we do now?” He laughs, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the sound. It’s deep, prickly, and unhinged. “We hunt.”

Tonight, the Vile Boys are sick and twisted, ready to be let loose inside their own house to complete my bargain. I asked for this. I made a deal for this. Which makes me their devil tonight.

Seven. Orange. I’m fixing his guitar. Monster. Yellow and agitated. Riot, the one in white from the other night. Menace, the one in blue. The one who took Cain… Facts. Burnt copper. Twitching. Ransom. The stoic one in red. Kyd, the energetic one in pink. Glitch, who is literally glitching with the need to chase something, his neon green mask tilting from side to side.

My brother. Ghost. The teal face of his mask warped into a disgusting smile.

And Krypt. My monster, who contains his own monsters. Tonight, he will willingly let his sickness shine, and I hate that a rush of adrenaline lights up inside me, excited to...

My brother comes up behind me, joining Krypt at my back. “Welcome to chaos, brother,”

I understand why Gregory Malone haunts me now. Tonight, I get to be the death omen.

“Fingers tight. Breath steady. Eyes open, Remiel.” He fixes my grip on the knife’s hilt. “Stalk him.”

Virtue In Lives Exchanged… it’s the Vile House motto, and I want to play by its rules.

Krypt lifts his mask and looks at me, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Matterson is in his final six minutes, and Krypt has a question from before. So, I ask it this time. “What are you thinking about, Reeven? In your moment of death?” Krypt’s sick grin greets me, and I fucking love it.

“Six minutes,” Krypt says. “Just a drop in the time span of his life. Isn’t that right, Remiel?”