Page 193 of I Will Break You
“The day you finally tether your soul to mine.”
My feet make an abrupt stop. “You still want to get married?”
His eyes narrow. “And you don’t?”
I glance down at my shoes, my insides twisting into knots. How do I explain to Xero that I don’t want to be tied to anyone when there’s a chance I’ll be abandoned to the wolves? I only agreed to get married because it was the request of a man about to die.
“Shouldn’t we deal with the immediate danger?” I mumble.
He laughs, the sound resounding through the hallway of skulls. Shivers skitter down my spine and settle into my bones, making me wonder if I’m swapping one form of peril for another. At times like this, it’s easy to remember Xero has probably killed more people than everyone in X-Cite Media put together, not to mention him having torn out a woman’s still-beating heart.
“You forget that I am the immediate threat. I’m the phantom who sneaks into rooms at night and punishes the unworthy. I’m the killer in the dark.”
“So, I should marry you or die?”
His fingers slide around my throat, and he eases me against the wall. Dozens of forgotten human remains push into my back, making my heart pound so hard that its vibrations reach his fingers. Xero glares down at me through incandescent eyes, his angular features exaggerated in the dim light.
“The sooner you realize you belong to me, the sooner you’ll stop fighting your fate.”
“Which is?”
“You and me, together for eternity.” He leans so close I can smell my spearmint toothpaste on his breath.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my jaw clenching. “But I barely even know you.”
“You already have my heart,” he snarls, his lips grazing my ear. “You came to me as a little damsel, begging to be saved. You bared your pretty soul and gave me a taste of your paradise. You don’t get to take that away.”
“This is insane,” I whisper. “You can’t expect me to commit after you terrorized me for weeks.”
“Is that right?” He releases my neck and pulls back.
My eyes snap open. Xero is already six feet away and striding down the corridor.
“Xero?”
He doesn’t answer.
I glance from side to side, wondering if I should follow this maniac or find my way back to Parisii Drive. Then I remember I’m soon to be homeless. Not to mention there’s a snuff movie company after my blood.
What the hell am I doing? Xero is my only chance of getting out of this alive… Although I’m not sure what horrors he has in store for me afterward.
“Xero?” I jog after him. “Wait.”
He breaks into a run and disappears around a bend, making my heart plummet to the uneven ground. If I think too closely about what’s beneath my feet, I won’t stop screaming for a month, but the people who built the catacombs had to have a place to store the body’s smaller bones.
I pick up my pace and give chase through the hallways, all the while trying not to think of skeletons. Phalanges, ribs, pelvises, spines, vertebrae, clavicles, coccyxes, teeth. Why do I only see skulls?
Xero runs up ahead, his large body a beacon of darkness in an already creepy corridor.
“What are you doing?” I yell, my voice carrying to goodness knows where. “Stop.”
He darts left, and I pump my arms and legs, trying to keep up with the insane maniac. If this is his indirect way of telling me I need him to stay alive, he’s made his point. Xero is the devil I know, and I should stick with him until he’s vanquished the worst of my enemies.
My steps slow toward a gap in the wall that leads to a narrow, unlit hallway. This is where Xero disappeared, but it’s so dark here that I can only see the first few feet of its interior. The walls here are made of much smaller bones. I barely passed biology, but even I can tell that they’re humerus, radius, and ulnar bones with ghostly fingers filling in the gaps.
“Xero?” I whisper.
“In here, little ghost,” he says from within the dark.