Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(35)
Author: Erica Stevens

Here, I was terrified, and on the verge of complete mental collapse. Here, I was going to go insane before that thing finally did me the favor of ending its torment.

Noise, normal noise, screeched back to my tormented ears as a hitching breath ripped from my chest. My hand began to tremble on the gun. It wavered before me. I knew that I should shoot, knew what this thing was going to do to me, but I couldn’t move. I felt like a cobra under the snake charmer’s spell, entranced by the creature coming at me. Charmed into allowing it to strike me, instead of offering up the defense that Darnell had tried so hard to instill in me.

Entranced by its striking similarity to the man I loved.

Its black hair fell across its forehead just as Cade’s had. It framed the most handsome features I had ever seen in my life, features I had given up all hope of ever seeing again. Longing sprang forth in me, for a moment I ached to touch the creature. Ached to run my fingers over the hard cheekbones and beloved face. I wanted it so badly that I couldn’t stand it. My whole body throbbed with the need consuming it. For a moment I really wanted to believe that it was him and I wondered if it would allow me to touch it, even if only for a brief moment, before it destroyed me.

My paralysis was falling apart as my hands began to shake so badly that I could barely hold the gun anymore. My lower lip was trembling fiercely; the sting of tears burned my eyes. It had his mouth, that beautiful full lower lip and hard upper one. It had his body, lean with hard muscles cording it. The dark shirt he wore clung to the sculpted abs that I knew lingered beneath the shirt, or at least they had with Cade. I wasn’t sure if this thing would be that detailed, but it did have gleaming onyx eyes that seemed to penetrate straight to my very soul.

Oh God!

My mind was shattering, splintering. Tears spilled freely down my face, a sob tore from me. It continued to come swiftly forward with the eerie grace and confidence that Cade had exhibited. Beautiful, it was just as beautiful as Cade had been, and it was going to kill me.

My hands tightened upon the gun. I lifted it up, leveling it at the things chest. It seemed to hesitate for a moment, seemed doubtful, but then it kept coming relentlessly forward at an even brisker pace. I wanted to tell it to stop, wanted to tell it to go away, to leave me alone, but words could not escape my painfully constricted throat. My chest was twisted with agony. I was going to kill Cade.

It wasn’t Cade! My mind screamed at me.

But now that it was only feet away from me, I could see it even more clearly. Oh its eyes, I thought longingly. They were dark as midnight when angered, or the most clear and pristine onyx that the world would ever create when loving. They were beautiful.

A strangled sob escaped me. I couldn’t pull the trigger. I simply could not bring myself to put a bullet into that face, or to hurt him in anyway. Even if it wasn’t him. I knew what that thing was, knew what it was going to do to me. I had seen it with Sarah; I had felt it in Plymouth. It was going to kill me, it was going to destroy me in the most agonizing way possible, and I couldn’t bring myself do anything about it.

Weak, I cursed myself. But then Cade had always been my weakness, and somehow these things knew that, and they were going to destroy me with it. I imagined they were thoroughly enjoying my misery and I couldn’t bring myself to care right now. If I put a bullet in Cade, even a Cade that wasn’t, I would be destroyed anyway, I would not recover from it. No matter how much I had managed to put myself together over the past couple weeks, I would never be able to put myself together again after that.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, I thought hysterically. Couldn’t put Bethany together again.

My head bowed, my shoulders shook, as the gun jerked in my hand. “No,” I moaned.

I hated myself for this weakness. I should be strong, I should fight. I should take this thing down with me. I should destroy it for mocking me, for mocking Cade, and the bond that we had shared. I should want to put a bullet in its face and destroy it for its derisive cruelty. Instead, I could only weep like a baby as I watched my death stop before me.

I winced, bracing myself for the killing blow, bracing myself for the tentacle that would fly out of it, smash into me, and destroy me the way that it had destroyed Sarah. The way that it had torn into my arm, wrenched into my bones and muscles, and seared into my veins. It reached out and seized hold of my hand. I was surprised by the warmth that it radiated, or maybe it just felt that way because I was so unbelievably cold right now that even the deadened awfulness of this thing felt warm against my iced skin. I was surprised by the fact that it still was a hand and not some snapping thing that sought only to drain me of my blood, and my life.

“I am not one of those things.” The voice it issued was hard, grating. It sounded parched.

My eyes flew up as it descended upon me, they could speak? Instead of destroying my face, and skull with a deadly tentacle, its mouth claimed hold of mine. I recoiled slightly, stunned as its hands seized hold of my face and throat. Why was this thing doing this to me? Why was it tormenting me so? Yes, I had fought against them, but I was of no real importance in the fight. I was simply a survivor.

Its thumbs stroked over my cheeks as its hands rested against the tender hollow of my throat. It was going to choke the life from me instead of draining it from me, I realized dimly and yet I felt no fear. I didn’t think there was much fear left in me right now. I was too broken for that now.

Then its words sank in and something strange began to happen. Words actual words. Those things did not speak, they never had. But we were learning new things about them every day. And they were learning new things about us every day. Things that only aided in their attempt and desire to destroy us. 

But my body was beginning to react to this thing in a way that it had only reacted to Cade. My mouth began to warm, and then my throat and face. Heat seeped slowly through my whole body. My chest expanded, air burst into my stricken lungs. My heart exploded with the blood that had seemed so restricted before. It pulsed violently through my veins again, rushing through my nerve endings as my body was set ablaze.

Every cell within me came to life; all of them seemed to be screaming forward, rushing to the place where my lips met the thing kissing me. The cells seemed to swell at the touch of this thing, seemed to refill with life as its hot lips moved over mine in a gentle caress that left me aching and trembling for more. The aliens could mimic us, but could they mimic these sensations, these emotions? I hadn’t felt this right, this wonderful and whole in so long. I hadn’t felt this since…