Cinder X (Death Collectors, #2) (3 page)

I chase after it, my legs and hands moving on their own as I retrieve the knife and burst through the door to the outside and into the cold breeze. It’s nearing wintertime and the ground is glazed with ice; the moon massive in the starry sky. The buildings that enclose the alley are vacant, boarded up, closed down. The only signs of life are coming from a burning barrel down the alley to my right with a few homeless people standing around it, talking and drinking what looks like a bottle of whiskey.

I don’t see the Reaper anywhere, but I hear the flap of a cape to my left, so I dash off into that direction.

Hurry, faster.

My legs and fingers tremble as I chase death, even though I don’t want to. At all. Reapers only have one purpose with me and that’s to fuck with my mind and try to drive me to the point of insanity. What if it’s Cameron? What if I get lost in him like I did in the cemetery? What if he tries to take over my body again?

Stop thinking so much and just go to him.

I round the corner of the small building the club’s hidden beneath, slamming to a stop in the dark alley. There’s nothing at the end other than a chain link fence and shadows. Everywhere. Dancing all around me. I’m not sure what’s causing them, although some of them move like the one that was in my room.

Wanting to get the hell out of there while, at the same time, feeling the connection of whatever made me come here breaking, I spin back around to leave. Mid-turn, I hear someone walk up behind me and a soft flap of a cape.

Kill them.

My muscles tighten as I turn on my heels with the knife aimed out. Seconds later, the tip of it knocks against something solid and I end up slashing it straight across their chest. Deep, too. I horridly feel the sensation of the knife enter the fabric then the muscles, nicking a bone. Then blood gushes out as the knife snags their skin and tears it open. As the warm blood splatters over my skin, hair and clothes, I realize that the Reaper is no longer wearing a cape but a jacket, jeans and a torn T-shirt.

Because the Reaper’s not a Reaper, it’s a human.

“Oh my God.” I drop the knife to the ground.
I just stabbed someone.

I stare at the person I just stabbed in horror as they clutch their chest and collapse to the asphalt, our gazes locking as he fights to breathe and keep his heart beating.

“I didn’t—what did I...” I drop to my knees beside the guy, the wound still spurting out blood. He looks around my age, blood soaking his hair and clothes, fear in his eyes, like he can see his death, see what’s coming for him. “Shit….” Shock waves through me. I have to do something. Stop this! Help him!

I glance around the empty alleyway and then press my hand down on his chest to attempt to stop the bleeding. As blood soaks against my hand, his death omen soaks my mind.
Knife. Stab. Blood on hands and ground. Me, kneeling over him as he takes his last breath.

Oh my God!

What should I do? Run? Call the police?
Finish him off?

I shove the last thought from my head and put more pressure on the guy’s chest as it unstably rises and descends. “Just hang on,” I beg, reaching for my phone in my back pocket, knowing that whatever happens, it’s the right thing to do.

He continues to look at me, gasping for air, his lips parting. “I know where your father…” he gasps, choking on a mouthful of blood.

Every muscle in my body winds tightly into knots. “What about my father?”

He shakes his head, blood trickling from his lips and down his chin “I don’t…” he gasps again then the movement of his chest stills and his head slumps to the side.

Terror courses through me as I realize what this means.

Murder. The word weighs heavily in my mind. I’ve been called a murderer many times since my father disappeared, but there’s never been any real truth behind it.

Yet now there is.

“No,” I whisper, panicking, my hands trembling against his unmoving chest. I straighten my legs and drag my bloody hand through my hair as I stagger back. “No… no… no—”

“No matter how many times you say it, he’s still going to be dead.” The sound of the voice sends a shiver of fear and anger through me. When his breath then caresses the back of my neck, my hairs stand on end. I know I should run, but I’m bound in place, my feet no longer under my control.

“I’ve missed you, princess,” Cameron whispers against my ear then nibbles on my earlobe.

The slight sting of his teeth grazing my skin snaps me out of my trance enough that I’m able to turn around and face him. Through the dark, he still looks as hauntingly beautiful as he did the last time I saw him. His long, black cape flows to the ground with the hood drawn down so I can see his perfectly carved facial features. His eyes blend in with the night, his hair pale as the moonlight, his skin like porcelain and his long, lean arms are outstretched towards me, begging me to come closer.

“Stay away from me,” I manage to say, however I’m unable to back away from him; my arms remain at my sides and my feet are frozen in place. “You have to go… I don’t want you here and if I tell you to leave then you have to.”

He mockingly waves his finger at me, tsking. “Now, Ember, be careful what you ask. I just might do what you tell me to do.” His gaze skims to the dead guy on the ground just behind me, “and then you’ll be left by yourself to clean up the mess.”

“I don’t want your help,” I hiss. “Now leave.”

“Are you sure about that?” he questions with mockery in his tone. “Are you sure you want me to leave you to clean up this mess alone?”

“Y-yes,” I stammer, my confidence draining from me as I stare down at the dead body just behind me and the pool of blood on the ground around him.

He cocks an eyebrow at me as I return my attention to him. “You don’t sound so sure.” He reaches forward and brushes a finger just underneath my chin, shutting his eyes as the moonlight highlights the blissfulness in his expression. “God, how I’ve missed the feel of your skin… so soft.”

For a moment I get swept away by the sound of his voice, but then Asher’s face flashes through my mind and I fling Cameron’s hand off me and stumble back. “How can you miss something you barely touched?” I ask. “You only touched me a few times and only because you took away my willpower.”

His arm falls to his side and a hint of anger flickers in his eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel better about everything you did with me?”

“I did nothing with you,” I protest. “Nothing I wanted to do, anyway.”

He steps forward, reducing the space between us. “Are you absolutely certain about that? That you felt no connection at all with me? That I didn’t make your body feel things it never has before.” His voice drops to a husky tone as his fingers graze my hips. “That it was all mind control? That your mind is so weak that I can make it do whatever I want just by whispering to you.”

“I…” I open my mouth to argue, but the words are thick in my throat and I realize something. “You’re the one who compelled me here, aren’t you? Like how you made me stay at the cemetery with you—confused me and made my body immobile?” I ask. His silence and condescending expression says it all. “Do you know something about this?” I gesture at the body, remembering what he said just before he died. “The guy said he knew something about my father…. Do you know what he’s talking about?”

“Would you feel better about all of this if it was me compelling you here? That I have that much power over you? That I affect you that much?” he asks, avoiding my last question about my dad. “Or worse?”

“I don’t know…” I feel incredibly confused.

“You know what,” Cameron says haughtily. “I think you secretly like me and you won’t admit it.”

I scowl at him. “I…” The words won’t leave my mouth.
What is wrong with me? Is it me or Cameron making it impossible for me to deny that I have feelings for him?

The longer the silence drifts between us, the smugger Cameron looks until his ego is so swollen that I seriously want to smack him upside the head. Instead, I reach up and touch his face. His skin is unshaven and rough against my fingers. He lets me feel his face as his eyes stay unreadable. I don’t know why I’m doing it; why I’m touching him. Whether it’s him possessing my mind or that the time I’ve spent away from him has made me realize… something. Everything is so vague, so unknown. All I know is that I can’t control myself.

Finally, he breaks the connection by leaning to the side and glancing at the ground behind me. “That was quite the brutal slaying. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Oh, my God. How have I forgotten in just a few moments that I’ve killed someone? Reality slaps me in the face, hard and cold and sharp.

“I didn’t mean to,” I stammer, my expression falling at the sight of the body and vomit threatens to rise up my throat. “I thought it was you.” I look back at Cameron who’s watching me intently. “And I…”

A wicked smile spreads across his face. “So you were trying to kill me?” he asks amusedly.

“I have no idea what I was trying to do… maybe
you
should tell me since you seem to have so much control over what I do.”

He assesses me closely, just a few steps away from me. “Well, you missed, if I was the initial target.”

I shake my head. “Obviously.”

“You don’t seem that upset,” he speculates as I rub my hands up and down my arms from the shivers of the cold or perhaps shock, I’m not sure which one.

“I don’t feel anything,” I admit, noting the sudden lack of feeling in my body. “Why is that…?” I abruptly shove him back, but he barely budges. “Wait, are you doing it to me?”

He shrugs nonchalantly while staring at me stoically. “Maybe. If I was, would you want me to stop?”

I hesitate, afraid of feeling the pain that comes with taking a life. How bad will it hurt? As bad or as worse as when I lost my father? “I don’t know…” I struggle with what’s right and wrong, ultimately I nod. “I want to feel it... feel what I did.”

“Very well.” He stares at me and seconds later I’m blasted with emotions so powerful that it feels like I’m going to split open from the pressure. “Are you still sure you want to feel it?” he asks, observing me like I’m the most fascinating thing that’s ever existed. “Because I can numb your body. It’s one of my many talents.” He says it with pride.

“I don’t want to be numb.” I wrap my arms around myself, piercing my fingernails into my skin as I collapse to the ground on my knees. It feels like thousands of needles have lodged into my skin, tearing at me as they fill me with remorse and guilt, fear and confusion. My head is pounding, my heart racing. I feel like I’m going to explode. Or die myself. It’s unbearable. Aching. Noisy

Then it abruptly gets quiet and still.

I angle my chin up at Cameron. “I said I want to feel.”

Cameron rolls his eyes and then bends his knees and crouches down in front of me. “Quit being a drama queen over nothing.”

“Over nothing?” I question through gritted teeth. “I just killed… I just killed someone.” I nearly choke on the words. “Someone who might have known something about my father, unless you put those words in his mouth.”

“Yeah, but I can fix it,” he says simply, avoid the questioning about my father again. “All you need to do is ask me to.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

He’s indecipherable, untrustworthy. He’s death in its evilest form, yet I find myself saying, “Then do it.” I hate to go to a place where I might owe him, but at the same time, I don’t want to be responsible for a murder, especially when he said something about my father. “If you can, then prove it to me. Bring him back.”