Insidious(126)

Only the purest of evil.

I wasn’t evil! I didn’t want this! I never asked for any of this!

“Make it stop!” I wept, bundling my fists into the fabric of Blaine’s shirt. I was the one now pulling at him, burying my face into his chest.

He knew what I meant, and he only held me closer. “It’ll get better—”

“You did this to me! You made me into a monster!” My balled up fists slammed against him, but he wouldn’t budge.

“You need to calm down,” he murmured. “You’ll only make it worse—”

“Why?!”

And that was it. The fever roared harder than ever. Blaine’s voice fell distant over my unbearable cries. I couldn’t control myself anymore. Every inch of me ripped apart as my vision went black.





Chapter 36

Bring Me To Life





I didn’t know how I got inside the SUV. I didn’t know where we were driving to. I didn’t even know how long I had passed out for. One thing I did know: Blaine was driving without any keys in the ignition. The very thought sent a strange wave of crackling electricity into my fingertips. Could we manipulate electronics too? My mind jumped back to the stranger landing on the hood of my car. He—Blaine—had shut down the entire dashboard by merely laying a hand on the vehicle.

The burns from my neck and hands had died down to a small ache, but the rest of me… I couldn’t put it into words. Between the unspeakable pains tearing through me and the fever that was at its very height, it took everything inside of me to stay conscious. Blaine’s hand cupped the bottom of my face, urging my bobbing head back upright.

“Hey, stay with me. You’re gonna be okay. Just hold on a little longer.” His voice was so assuring that it made me laugh. It came out as nothing more than a grievous sigh. Talk about déjà vu. For the second time, Blaine was driving me ‘somewhere safe’ as I sat in the passenger seat feeling like I was about to die.

His arm was bandaged in makeshift bindings that looked like a ripped up t-shirt. Blood soaked it all the way through, leaving tiny droplets to paint the center counsel. I whipped my face away from him, letting my entire body slump against the door. Everything blew past the window in a blur of black and blue hues. The moonlight caught the very tops of the towering oak trees, but darkness consumed everything below.

A single pale light flashed by in an instant, and I blinked to make sure I’d even seen it. Sure enough, another light flew past us as well. There was something on the other side of those trees. My vision dazedly swung to the front window just in time to see an advertisement sign that read, “Slippery Pete’s: Best Bourbon in New England - 0.5 Miles.”

We were down near the pier, right by the shopping district. I knew from the extensive bus ride I’d taken last week that the road up ahead would soon curve around a bend to the coastline where only recluse houses built into the hillsides occupied the area. As soon as we’d pass the docks, we’d be leaving civilization behind for miles.

Whatever Blaine had prepared for me wasn’t going to be pretty. He was going to use me as some mindless weapon in his perverted plan for power, and I refused to just sit back and play victim. I’d been manipulated and toyed with long enough. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s captive. Not anymore. If I was looking for an out, this would be the best I’d get.

My fingers slowly pressed into the seatbelt release button. As soon as I felt the clip free, I leaned back toward Blaine, suddenly throttling my elbow up. His reflexes were better than I had anticipated, because he managed to turn his head away just enough that it didn’t hit him in the nose. My blow did, however, connect with his cheekbone. Before he even had the chance to react, I tore off the seatbelt and threw the passenger door open.

“Kat!” He reached for the back of my jacket, but I was gone.

My survival instincts turned out to be better than my calculations, because I completely missed the patch of overgrowth I’d been aiming for. Tucking and rolling, my world spun as I collided into the ground with an excruciating hit. My body skimmed across the roadside in a whirl, kicking up debris and gravel along the way. I expected the grass up ahead to cushion my blow, but I slammed to a halt the moment I reached the meadow, feeling my ribs break on impact. Every curse word spilled from my lips as I cried out, only making the pain worse as my lungs expanded. Peeling myself off the sizable rock hidden beneath the lush grass, I could feel the dampness pooling underneath my shirt. But I didn’t have time to bleed.

The Cadillac’s tires screeched as Blaine’s voice called out from down the road. The vehicle suddenly came hurtling back toward me in reverse, urging me to take off into the thicket. Blindly stumbling over broken tree branches and taking low hanging twigs to the face, I ran as fast as my legs and lungs would allow through the shadowed forest.