The blackness tried to swallow us whole, kill us, ruin us, capture our soul

“I’m not marrying you for the pleasure of calling you my wife, esclave. I’m not marrying you because it’s the evolution of a relationship. I’m marrying you so I have claim on you forever. Your soul will be mine for eternity. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, you will belong to me. And I will belong to you.”

Q brought me closer, whispering his passion into my mouth. “Don’t think this is a contract between two people in love. Don’t think this legal document is something flimsy and insignificant. By marrying me, you’re taking all of me. Everything that I am. All that I will be. You’re accepting my lightness, my darkness, my fucking eternal spirit. By signing your name to mine you are no longer Tess Snow.”

“What am I?” I murmured, accepting his feather-soft kiss.

“You’re Tess Mercer. Now and for always. Forever and ever. It’s done.”

But our demons didn’t play well with others, the beast broke free to make them suffer

“Do it, puta. Kill her.”

“No! Stop this. I’m done. No more—”                                

“Yes, more. Every night, you’re ours. Every time your pretty fucking eyes close, we’re waiting. Every time you succumb to sleep, we’re waiting to drag you into insanity.”

It’s not real. It’s not real.

No matter how many times I screamed the truth, the dream would never free me. Leather Jacket somehow tricked my mind into leaving the sanctity of Q’s presence, yanking me into the depths of despair.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Blonde Angel moaned.

I didn’t want to. I never wanted to hurt another living thing again.

“Don’t think about disobeying, puta. You know what happens.” Leather Jacket flickered into two monstrosities: one moment the man I knew—the man who’d tortured, hit, and taunted me—then another moment, the drooling carnivorous Jackal who’d raped Blonde Angel only minutes before Q found me.

The smog, the fog, crept over my mind, swarming around me with sickly warmth. “No! Not that.” I never wanted to be held hostage by chemicals again. Drugs made me forget. Drugs made me become them.

“Do it, precious. Otherwise I’ll do something worse,” Leather Jacket cooed.

My heart sank into the depths of my soul. Every night they visited. Every night they shattered my healing, throwing me back to a past I couldn’t forget. Every night they reminded me that pain was atrocious. Pain was the devil. Pain was horrendous and terrible and cruel.

Pain.

My nemesis.

My burden.

I shook my head, standing over Blonde Angel. Our eyes met—just like hundreds of times before—and I wordlessly shouted my grief, my sadness, my lifetime of apologies.

But it made no difference.

Just like the drugs made me incapacitated in Rio, the dream had power over me in the present.  I wouldn’t be free until I gave into the inevitable. I wouldn’t wake until I killed her.

 A heavy crowbar rested in my sweat-slippery hands. I tried to scuttle backward but some ominous force pressed against my shoulders. The phantom pressure raised my arms against my will—stealing all motor control, leaving me screaming until my throat rivered with blood and rawness.

Mildew and reeking rubbish clouded my nostrils even though I knew it wasn’t real. The only scent I should inhale was the comforting notes of citrus and sandalwood of my master sleeping beside me.

The master who swore to protect me from everything. The master who failed every night. How could a man fight nightmares? How could he slay men he’d already killed from taunting my mind in slumber?

Simple. He couldn’t.

Every night was the same. Q fought to save me from demons he couldn’t fight, and I fought to stop dreaming. 

Once the nightmare claimed me, I couldn’t get free until the horrible conclusion. It happened differently every time. Sometimes by bullet. Sometimes by axe or blade. But no matter how I did it, committing murder was the only way to hurtle me back to consciousness.

If I concentrated hard enough I could feel him. If I squeezed my eyes and searched for the tether to my mortal body, I knew I wasn’t lying quietly and serene. My body was sweat-dewed and thrashing in tangled sheets; my cheek smarting from a stinging slap as Q tried to rouse me.

More pain.

Pain on top of pain.

It all had to stop, before I went mad.

“Little girl, I won’t ask again,” Leather Jacket sneered.

The crowbar was no longer heavy in my hands; the unseen malicious entity arched my back, swinging the weapon, high and deadly.

No. No, no, no. Not again.

Close your eyes. Don’t look. Don’t fill your mind with yet more killing.

Blonde Angel crawled backward, cradling her already broken wrist and knee. Her mouth twisted into pleas. “Don’t. Please don’t. Haven’t you done enough? You killed her! You killed the other girl. Do you have no mercy?” Her eyes were wild, green and clear as cut glass. Her blonde hair no longer shone like gold but hung in bloody clumps.

“I’m sorry!”

My heart-filled apology only made her snarl. “No, you’re not. You’re one of them. You’re lying to yourself, to him, to me. You loved killing the other blonde so much, you thirst to murder. You’re a monster. A fucking demon spawn.”

My lungs suffocated with her hatred, drowning in sorrow. The crowbar swung above my head, controlled by the puppeteer of this horrible dream.

“That’s it, pretty girl. Do it. What’s another life? You obeyed so brilliantly before. Every night you fucking murder. Every night you come back to us.”

The man who’d owned me. Who’d drugged me, sold me, and ultimately broken me, appeared from dream-mist. White Man looked suave and immaculate in a white shiny suit. His feral touch landed on my chin, cupping my jaw, holding me prisoner. “You’ll never be free of us. We took your mind back in Brazil. Your bastard of an owner might’ve slaughtered my men and whisked you away to safety, but you know the truth.” His mouth descended on mine, his monstrous tongue diving past my lips, making me retch.

Breathing hard he pulled away. Manic anger glowed in his blue gaze. “Tell me the truth.”

The truth?

What truth? I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Was my mind so twisted the truth was only visible in my sleep? Was I deceitful every moment I was awake—pretending to deplore pain and horror when really I craved it? Craved to inflict it. Craved to kill.

Questions and uncertainty sprouted like vile weeds, growing thick and fast, suffocating all reason and clarity.

Am I truly what they say? I’m no longer a protégé. I’m truly the devil.

I squeezed my eyes, blocking the dream, grasping with panicked fingers to latch onto the weak tethering of awareness.

Wake up, Tess.

Please.

“Tell. Me.” White Man’s breath fanned my eyelashes, smelling of candy floss. Why did the demon of my nightmares smell of innocence and sugar?

Shaking my head, I whimpered, “There’s nothing to tell.” My arms stayed raised above my head, holding the crowbar in an unnatural pose. I had no control. None.