My Soul To Take

My Soul to Take

The Holy Trinity
Trilogy: Book Two

By

Madeline Sheehan

My Soul to Take

Madeline Sheehan

Copyright 2012 Madeline Sheehan

Smashwords Edition

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For Marissa, my biggest fan and the best little sister a girl could have.

"I have been here before, but when or how I cannot tell:

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before - How long ago I may not know:

But just when at that swallow's soar, your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore."

-Dante Gabriel Rossetti

PROLOUGE

SPRING

Tahyra Petros glanced over at her big sister and sighed. Trinity was twenty-two years old and as innocent as a baby bird. Currently munching on a cone of pink cotton candy, she was staring fearfully up at
The Assassin
, a roller coaster at a Spring Carnival they had happened upon during their road trip across New York State.

Trinity shook her head. “Sorry, Tay. I just can’t do it. Something could go wrong and we could end up plummeting to our deaths. Do you really want to return to mom as a big, bloody splat?”

She rolled her eyes. Just convincing Trinity to leave Long Island for spring break had been like pulling teeth. Instead of enjoying her twenties, Trinity spent all her time studying, hanging out at home…and when her sister was at her most adventurous...she ventured out to the grocery store with their mom.

She did not have any interests, any friends and she never had a boyfriend. It wasn't that guys weren't interested in her. She was beautiful. She was, after all, a Petros. Tahyra wasn’t being conceited; she was just aware how attractive her family was. All three of the Petros sisters had inherited their Grecian father's black hair and flawless olive skin. While their facial features were delicate like their Irish mother's, they had their father's strong jaw line, giving all three of them striking, unforgettable faces.

Nevertheless, Trinity wanted nothing to do with the opposite sex. Teodora, their older,half-sister, was on the opposite end of the spectrum, going through men as quickly as she went through disposable razors. Tahyra supposed she was somewhere in the middle.

“Going to the bathroom,” Trinity murmured, still staring wide-eyed at the roller coaster. “I’ll meet you by the merry-go-round, ‘kay?”

Gods. The merry-go-round? Were they toddlers?

“’Kay,” she muttered. Pushing through the crowds of people, she made her way towards the
freaking merry-go-round
. Instead of getting in line, she sat down on a nearby bench, took her blackberry out of her pocket and began typing out a text to her mom.

Update: Small town near the Catskills. Trin is as lame as ever. Call soon. Luv ya.

A minute later, her phone vibrated.

Tay, give your sister a break. Eventually she will come out of her shell. Love to you both. Mom.

“Hey.” She glanced up as a guy sat down next to her and draped his arm around the back of the bench, precariously close to touching her.

“Hey.” She jerked her head to her left as another guy sat down on the other side of her and turned his body towards hers.

Apprehension fluttered through her. They didn’t look like serial killers but one could never be too careful. The guy on her right was tall, leanly muscled with a bleached-blonde Mohawk that ran from his forehead to the nape of his neck. With his dark eyes and distinctively unique facial features, he was damn fine. The guy on her left was a little shorter, thickly muscled with thin black dreads that hung all the way down to his waist. Seriously, his waist. Wow. Just wow. Everything about him – from his hooded eyes to the sarcastic twist of his lips – screamed arrogance. Even so, her libido did a little happy dance. The guy was fifty different flavors of sex all wrapped into one beautiful bronzed package.

She gave them a hesitant smile. “Uh…hey?”

Dreads grinned at her and she was pretty positive she had a mild heart attack. “You want to party, fată?”

Her brows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“Party,” Mohawk said. “Get wasted? Smoke an ace? Fuck?”

Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

Dreads raised an eyebrow. “We never joke when it comes to partying.”

She snorted. These guys were too much. “I’m only sevente
en.” She gave Dreads a derisive shrug. “Definitely not legal,” she finished sarcastically.

Mohawk laughed. “I’ve got a good lawyer; want us to make you a woman?"

“Sorry Blondie, my high school’s running back already beat you to it.”

Dreads ran his knuckles down her bare arm and she quickly jerked away. “
Fată, whatever that little boy did, I’m sure I can do better.”

She was sure he could, too. But there was no way in Hades she was going anywhere with these two. She might never leave. Moreover, even if she did, she doubted it would be with her dignity intac
t. She stood up. “Sorry boys, you’ll have to keep trolling today.”

“Too bad,” Mohawk drawled, giving her a lazy smile that was sexy as hell.

Dreads leaned forward, looking like a panther about to pounce. He gave her a blatant once over and a slow smile. “You sure we can’t change your mind?”

“I’m pretty sure,” she said, dryly. Dreads was the ultimate bad boy; the king of broken hearts; he was where virgins went to die.

“I’ll be thinking of you…” Mohawk murmured, “when I’m balls deep in someone else.”

She didn’t bother masking her disgust. “Lucky me,” she muttered, stalking off. She spotted Trinity halfway to the bathrooms.

“Who were you talking to?” Trinity asked, peering around her.

“A pair of douchebags.”

“The one with dreads is cute.”

WHAT?

"Okay," she snapped, pulling Trinity away. "If you're suddenly interested in men, you need to start out slow and believe me when I tell you that guy back there is anything but slow. His level of hotness equals experience. Far too much experience. You need a total dork, someone just as inexperienced as you, and then we'll talk about moving on to the finer things in life."

“But he’s cute,” Trinity protested.

She gave her an exasperated look. “Cute?
Cute!
Hardly. That guy would screw you silly, kick you to the curb and never give you a second thought.”

“You would know,” Trinity teased.

She smiled at her. “Bitch.”

Trinity laughed then gave her a curious glance. “No merry-go-round?”

“Nah. I’m starving and not for carnival food. What do you say we try to find a place to eat around here?”

“Sounds good,” Trinity said. Everything always sounded good to Trinity. Her big sister was as pliable as putty.

As they neared the entrance, the bright sunny sky began to darken, casting ominous shadows over the carnival. Together they looked up at the gray and black clouds moving in quickly, shielding the sun from view.

“Scary looking storm,” Trinity murmured.

Passing by the ticket box, Tahyra glanced inside and her blood turned to ice, freezing her in place. The man they had bought the tickets from was slumped against the plexiglas; a large portion of his face was missing, leaving his teeth and jaws exposed. His unseeing eyes stared off into the distance as dark red blood streaked down the window.

Horrified, she swallowed repeatedly, fighting back the urge to vomit.

From somewhere behind them someone began to scream.

Then someone else began to scream. Then another and another, until the screaming was drowning out the sounds of the carnival rides.

Oblivious to the carnage in the ticket booth, Trinity was looking wildly around for the source of the screaming. She wasn't nearly as curious. You hear a gunshot, you duck and run. You hear screaming, you run in the opposite direction. There is always time to call the police later. Horror movies had proved themselves a very ingenious source.

Grabbing Trinity's arm, she yanked. “Let's go!”

She knew she was running too fast for her sister. She was taller, her legs longer. She had been on the track team since middle school, but no way was she going to let them get caught up in whatever in Hades was happening back there.

“What's going on?” Trinity shrieked, breathing heavily next to her.

She didn't know and therefore didn't answer. She was solely focused on getting back to their car that unfortunately was at the far end of the field. Footsteps pounded behind them, accompanied by more horrified screams and cries. As they rounded the carnival fence, panicked people had begun climbing up and jumping down to the other side.

She ran faster.

A body flew over the fence, forcing them to skid to a stop and skirt around it. What used to be a man lay faceless and gutted beside them. Trinity began screaming.

Don't think. Just run. Just run. Just run.

Without warning a portion of the fence crashed down and they swerved left trying to avoid the spill of terrified people. They weren’t fast enough and the crowd swallowed them, leaving them little choice but to move with the mob or be trampled. Elbowing and kicking people out of her way, she pulled Trinity behind her, searching desperately for an opening.

The crowd suddenly surged forward causing her to lose her tenuous hold on Trinity. People pushed between them and she lost sight of her sister entirely.

“Trinity!” She screamed, looking frantically for her. “Trinity!”

The top of Trinity’s head bobbed above the crowd. “Tahyra!”

“Trinity!” She jumped in the air, looking over the heads in the direction of her sister's voice. “Trinity!”

“I’m here, Tay! Over he—”

The crowd split just in time for her to see Trinity knocked down. Violently pushing and shoving, she darted forward. “Trinity! Trin—”

Her head snapped backwards and her feet flew out from underneath her. Pain exploded in her shoulder and every nerve in her body flared to life and lit on fire. She both felt and heard her flesh tear and her right arm went limp beside her.

Then everything started slowing down. The screams around her grew faint. She watched in horrified fascination as her own blood poured down the front of her, drenching her pink tee shirt and staining her white sneakers. She staggered for several heartbeats before her knees gave out. Her body folded up like an accordion and she fell face-first into the dirt. Something heavy landed hard on her back, something else across her ankles, cracking the fragile bones. Searing pain shot up through her legs.

She tried to lift her head, tried to turn in the direction that she had last seen Trinity. She opened her mouth, tried to say her sister's name, but no sound came out, only gurgles of blood. She could feel her heart straining, beating erratically, and trying desperately to pump what little life remained inside of her dying body.

Her vision wavered and her eyelids fluttered. Her body hollowed out and cold crept inside of her. She was empty. Made of ice.

Then everything went black.

******

Hunger.

Pain.

Feverish need.

Gut-wrenching stomach convulsions.

Fire. Tahyra was on fire. It crept up her esophagus and exploded in her parched throat. Her insides, her organs were drying up and shriveling, while her veins pulsed painfully, her blood an inferno. She couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but pain. She was curled up in a ball, shaking, dry heaving, probably dying. But she welcomed it, anything to stop the hurt.
ANYTHING.

Then…she sniffed and her senses exploded. Over the stench of death, she caught a whiff of…it was the sweetest aroma she had ever smelled. It was warm, sweet and spicy. It tantalized and teased her until she was drooling, desperate for…

She was flying – no, not flying – running on pure adrenaline, running to the smell that she instinctively knew would take her…gods damn pain…away.

Hot liquid exploded in her mouth, cooling, soothing her ravaged throat, her burning stomach. But it wasn't enough, she needed more, she needed…everything, all of it. It’s very essence.

She blinked. Her vision was back. Sounds were bursting into her ears. Her thought process slowed, sense returned.

She glanced down at the ravaged body at her feet, at the bodies all around her, and she knew she had been forever changed. While her heart still beat, her lungs still breathed, her bodies urges much as they were before, something inside of her had died. Something important had been replaced with a bottomless pit that demanded to be filled.

Her soul was gone.

So she fed on what she would never have again. Life.