Ghosts of Halloween: A Dark Why Choose Romance

The pain in my chest becomes an insistent, dull weight, something I think I’ll carry forever now. Unless I can cut it away. Even though my attempt was thwarted, that urge to end it right here, right now, is a constant buzz in the back of my skull.

From the corner of my eye, I see the knife just beyond the threshold. If I could only get my hands on it and run…

But I’m too weak. With that desperate rage, all my strength poured out of me, and now I can only sit limply, Silas’s murmurs like a meaningless background noise. I can’t discern his words. He might be talking nonsense for all I know.

For a moment, I wonder if it’s truly the same man. The way he holds me so tenderly is jarring after what he said just now.

It’s your fault Noah’s dead. It’s your fault we died.

Silas’s words will haunt me forever. So it’s confusing that after saying that to me, after driving that pain so deep in my heart, he feels sorry for me.

But the hard-edged, mocking enemy who wanted to punish me so badly is the same person who guessed I was raped. He’s complicated, and in my current state, I don’t even try to understand him.

I’m wiped out, and yet in pain. It’s a strange, hollow state, someplace between waking and a nightmare. Silas’s voice becomes distorted, his whispers gaining a dreamy quality, and I blink slowly, the room blurring before my eyes.

I am warm, I am lost, and it feels so good to just let go… Which is why it needs to end.

I don’t deserve this.

“Let me go,” I say, trying to get free.

Silas grows silent, his hands on my back stilling, and he clears his throat.

“Harlow, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean…” He exhales, his breath warm on my nape, and shifts under me. “Please, let me make it better.”

“No.” I try to push him away, but his hold only tightens, and next thing I know, my hair wraps around his hand, and he holds it in his fist like it’s a leash.

“You don’t get to tell me no, angel,” he says, voice raspy. “I was taught that if I break something, I have to fix it.”

I laugh bitterly at that, because I was broken long ago and deserved it, as it just turns out. Everything bad, horrible, cruel that happens to me—I deserve it all. The pain inside me solidifies, growing hard and dark. I can’t process the extent of my blame. It hurts so fucking much, the agony pulsing deep with every beat of my heart, and I can’t even feel sorry for myself. I am the villain. I don’t have a right to hurt now. I don’t have a right to tears or hugs, or anything good.

Even my emotional display just now fills me with shame. I killed my brother and his friends. I don’t get to throw tantrums.

“Fix it,” I repeat when my laughter dies on my lips, hollow and meaningless. “Yes, I’ll fix it. Whatever it takes. So tell me.” I shift in his lap, taking his face in my hands, eyes staring into his as I whisper, “How do I set you free?”

Silas shakes his head and his skin, rough with a day’s growth, rubs against my palm. Behind me, Jack releases a frustrated breath, and I don’t look at him, even though everything inside me burns with the craving to see him.

But I can never look at him again. I don’t deserve him.

I can look at Silas, though. He is not exactly good. There is a cruelty inside him, a burning craving for primitive justice, and I crave it, too. I want to desperately undo what I did and make it better, but if that’s impossible… I want to suffer.

“There is a way,” he says, surprising me, and something terrified yet eager swoops in my chest. “And I’ll tell you. After I fix my mess.”

“What mess?” I say with scorn, trying to pry his fingers off my hair without success. He holds me tight. “You only told me the truth. I made the mess. And I will fix it. So tell me how!”

Behind us, Caden clears his throat, and I hear Jack moving. He gets up off the floor and paces, sharp breaths matching the rhythm of his steps. I don’t look at either of them, because I can’t handle it. They gave me so much, and neither of them said a word about this, even though they knew.

I feel… betrayed. They shouldn’t have kept the truth from me. In my ignorance, I took things I don’t deserve. I took from them even though they are dead because of me.

But even worse, my heart swells for them. Because how good they truly are? I don’t even have a scale to compare. To treat me with such loving tenderness after what I did, to look at me with anything but disgust, takes a saint.

I don’t deserve saints. I deserve demons.

Which is why I grip Silas’s face harder, the nails of my left hand digging into his cheek until he growls under his breath, instinctively tugging on my hair.

And, oh my God. I don’t deserve it. I can’t have it. But his painful touch makes a bright, cold spark explode in my chest, and I press my lips together to keep back a desperate sound as a sweet burst of relief courses through me. For a blissful moment, the weight in my chest lightens.

It’s gone as soon as it appeared.

And though I try to hide it, nothing escapes his notice. Silas frowns, his sharp features growing even sharper as he thinks, and then his face grows smooth, a knowing glint in his eyes.

“You want to be punished,” he says with certainty. “You fucked up and you want to suffer. Don’t you, angel?”

I swallow, refusing to react, because oh, God. The promise I see in his eyes makes me long for what he can deliver. But I don’t deserve that relief. I can’t let this pain go away. It’s mine to hold onto, those wounds better left untreated so they can fester and kill me with time.

I don’t deserve to live when they are dead because of me.

But Silas leans closer, his nose brushing against mine, and I instinctively close my eyes, squeezing them shut, tightening my face to block his proximity as my hand on his cheek twitches. I have no idea what he wants to do and I’m afraid I will enjoy it.

But I’m also terrified it will be more than I can take.

Silas tugs hard on my hair. I gasp, a cool, sweet spark of relief bursting behind my eyelids, and when I open my eyes, he grins wolfishly.

“We’re more alike than you know,” he whispers, his other hand digging into my waist until another sweet ache blooms under his fingers, briefly releasing the crushing weight in my chest. “Well, angel. I spent two years planning how I would punish you for what you did. I dreamed about causing you pain and watching you writhe on the floor at my feet. I can deliver all of that now. Do you want me to punish you?”

Behind us, Jack curses quietly, but I only have eyes for Silas. God, I want to. I want the pain and punishment he offers so badly, but I know it will wipe away my blame, at least partly. I know it will help me deal with it, my sins cleansed and burned away.

“I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to feel good again,” I whisper quietly, looking away in shame.

“But I do,” Silas says, voice growing hard as he adjusts his hold on my hair, gripping so tight there’s a constant, sweet pressure at my scalp. “I deserve to do everything I want to you, my sweet angel of death. Will you really tell me no?”

I stare at his face, shocked. I didn’t think of it this way. He looks sly, narrowed eyes glinting, mouth quirked just slightly, like he’s suppressing a smirk. I feel like he’s playing me, and maybe he is. But that’s not the point.

The point is, can I deny him anything? Can I do anything but subject myself to him, and to Jack and Caden, completely and without limits?

Of course not. They died because of me. The least I can do is offer them everything that’s left of me.

As I make up my mind, numbing terror at what Silas wants to do to me mixes with relief that I can atone, after all. It’s a bittersweet ache that pulses alongside the dark, all-consuming guilt inside me. I’m sick with nerves, my hand suddenly so clammy, I let it drop off his face, my fingers curling tightly in my lap.

And even though my terror grows until I hyperventilate, I force myself to look into his dark eyes that hide such complicated depths, and nod.

“I won’t,” I say hoarsely. “You can do everything you want to me.”

“Fucking hell,” Jack spits behind me, coming closer until his hand is on my chin, and he tugs it to the side, forcing me to look into his green eyes. “He wants to hurt you, baby. Fuck, even I… This will be hell. You don’t have to do it like this.”

I close my eyes, escaping his beautiful gaze before it makes me collapse in tears. I bite the inside of my cheek hard to help me focus.

“Then give me the knife back,” I say, the roiling black pain inside me pulsing, stronger and stronger the longer I wait. “There is no other way. I have to… I have to do something. I don’t even get why you… You should hate me.”

Jack releases a frustrated breath and lets go off my face, standing. Silas tugs on my hair slowly, forcing my head back until my throat is bared, and I look up at the ceiling. Jack’s face comes into view as he leans over me, his expression suddenly transformed with something dark and hungry I haven’t seen on him before.

“I did,” he whispers. “Maybe I still do, a little. Enough to break you, princess.”

“I’m already broken.”

He shakes his head, fingers ghosting over my cheek as I swallow with difficulty, my neck hurting from the stretch.

“Not like this,” he says. “Once we start, nothing will stop us.”