Chapter nine: Bathroom blues
My vision grows hazy as tendrils of heavy steam whirl through the air and dampen the bathroom, and my nostrils sting as I inhale the scent of lavender, too pungent, before soaking deeper into the clutches of the bathtub and breaking through the tension of the water. I force the air inside my lungs to remain there a bit longer, in a pitiful attempt to stretch out the drowning of my sorrows—relishing the burning feeling that’s flaring through heavy lungs.
Memories of the evening's events in the library follow me into the water's depths and dance morbidly across closed eyelids. I relive the moment Louise walks statically through the supposedly protective layer of salt on the ground. Relive the moment the monster sinks his teeth into her neck and blood spills to the floor. I’m hit with a wave of nausea coiling within as I recall Louise in that moment, her eyes dull and unresponsive to the turmoil around her, as if a prisoner of her own body and mind. And then…she was gone. She and the monster were consumed into a darkness so black, so devouring, that a heartbeat later all that remained was shadows that quickly dissipated into the moonlight.
My mind flickers back to him, and the sickening feeling inside turns anxious as I recall all of his monstrous features that make him just that, a monster. I see the sharp points of his teeth, the onyx bones protruding from his skull, and the claw-like dark nails that eerily compliment my own painted ones, now chewed up from worry. Other features are pulled to the forefront of my mind, and I rake over his lean but muscular form, sharp and angled in all the right places. His body that emitted rigid and raw strength but softened as he moved, a fluid sort of elegance, and hanging between the solid length of his thighs—
Blue eyes flash bright as they invade my mind's eye, and I jolt, mistakenly opening my mouth to scream and instead meeting a deluge of water that hurriedly invades the exposed space and lunges towards the back of my throat.
I reel forwards and upwards so fast, exploding with choking garbled noises as my lungs panic to flush out water and draw in air.
Thank the lovers that Adrian was no longer around to witness that, I'd never hear the end of it.
A cold sweat meets with the flush of my suddenly warm cheeks. Oh scars, I hadn’t thought about those eyes in a long time, not since the nightmares had stopped happening years ago. How strange to suddenly think about them now when there are so many more pressing matters at hand. I try to go back to what I was last thinking about, what was it again, something about a body and—oh.
Oh gods no.
Nope. Not thinking about that.
