Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

They’ll recover. His hands work up my arms, squeezing gently, spreading warmth.

I could have killed them, Jou. I would have, if you hadn’t stopped me.

This time. Next time you’ll know how much you can take. Stay, sweetness. See how much you can become here.

I jerk back from him, feeling the drag of his grip on my arms, much more substantial now. No.

Sweetness—

No, Jou! You promised. You said no part of me would stay here. In and out, you said. You’re drawing me here. I can feel it. I can feel YOU. I shake off his hands.

He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me for a long moment, his eyes filled with that hard neon blue light.

My breath catches in my not-throat. He’s going to keep me here. I see it in his stance, in the cold light of his eyes. For all my power here, I have no idea how to get back. And in that moment, I know that no matter how strong I am, Jou is stronger. His will, his drive, will always be stronger than mine. That iron determination is the very core of him.

I let him draw me down into Hell and now he’s going to keep me here. Just like I let him tie me up and he used it to bind me to him. Why do I keep trusting him?!

Jou’s arms drop to his sides. You won’t forgive me, will you?

I look up at him. Shake my not-head. Maybe someday I’ll be ready for this, Jou, but I’m not yet. If you keep me here now—

You could learn to be happy here. An’ to forgive me.

Could I? I reach down within myself. No, no, I couldn’t.

I want you here. More than anythin’.

Jou, please, don’t do this. You promised. Please, that has to mean something. If there’s even a chance of us being together, that’s got to mean something.

He reaches for me again, his hands no longer misty or insubstantial, but solid and golden and so here that I can see the light from the magma fountain gleaming on the fine, dark hairs on the backs of his arms. I shrink from him, but it’s a futile gesture. If he decides to keep me here, he will.

He hesitates. Looks at hard at me, then shakes his head, crimson dreadlocks rustling over his bare shoulders. This is gonna come back and bite me in the ass, I can tell. But we’ll do it your way. Go on, sweetness. There’s your window.

He nods at something over my shoulder and I follow his gesture with my eyes. The blue-edged Hellhole that sucked us through my shower wall has appeared again, hovering in the air just behind me. I look back at the demon. Jou, I—

Go on. Don’t give me time to change my mind.

I nod. I don’t want him to change his mind. But I’m afraid to step into that swirling chaos alone. Without the protection of his arms around me. I wait, and when he doesn’t immediately move to join me, hold my hand out to him.

He moves in behind me, and I can feel the warmth of his body. His delicious warmth. I begin to close my eyes, not wanting to see what we pass through when he carries me through the Hellhole. A hard shove between my shoulder-blades snaps my eyes open. I fall forward, into the Hellhole, alone. Without him holding me. Without him behind me. I fall and squeeze my eyes shut at the last second. So I don’t see whatever engulfs me. I only feel the loss of his warmth. Coolness. Nothingness. No arms around me. No body at my back. I’ve gone through without him and I’m falling. Falling and falling with that sick feeling rising up from my belly. That sick feeling of falling when you know there’s no bottom. Of loss, when there’s nothing and no one to catch you.

And then I’m sliding down something cold to land in a heap on the unforgiving ceramic of my bathtub with the shower beating down in freezing needles across my naked skin.

I sprawl in the tub, feeling jabs from my uncoordinated landing shoot up through my knees and wrists. I sit back on my heels, push wet hanks of hair out of my eyes and reach a tentative hand up to the wall behind me.

A wall that’s suddenly much too solid.

I pat across the plastic. Cold, solid plastic. There’s no Hellhole. There’s not even any give to the plastic. It’s as solid as it was when Jou was fucking me against it. Only then he was here and now it’s solid again and he’s not here.

“Jou?” I hear myself say his name in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine at all. A child’s voice. That child’s voice says his name over and over while I pat at the wall inanely, even while I’m thinking that it’s inane, that I should get up and turn off the freezing shower and get the fuck out of my bathtub, except something has splintered in my head and I can’t think clearly. I can’t think of anything except that he’s not here. We went to Hell and he sent me back, alone. I didn’t want to stay with him and he didn’t force me to but he didn’t come back with me either. He sent me back. Alone.

I can’t hear anything except that confused voice calling his name. I can’t feel anything except cold. Cold ceramic under my shins. Cold plastic under my hands as I pound against the shower wall. Cold water beating down on my shivering skin. Cold curling around and around inside me because he’s not here and I should want that except that I don’t. I don’t. And still that voice calls his name, louder and louder until it’s a lost child’s cry, a scream of loss that rises and deepens until its no longer childlike, no longer anything that