Jus Accardo - Ruined

“Stay calm,” I said, withdrawing my arm.

I closed my eyes and fought hard to keep control. The excessive waves of panic rolling off Sam made tucking the monster away that much harder. “The worst thing you can do right now is panic.”

“Don’t panic?” She pounded the dash. I almost pointed out beating up the car wouldn’t do a damn thing either, but now wasn’t the time to play the asshole card. Not with her on the verge of losing it and the demon licking its nonexistent lips at her fear. The taste of it had the thing churning, restless, and hungry. “Are you kidding me? We’re going to die!”

“We’re not going to die.” My voice deepened. Shit. I was losing it. “I can get us out of here.”

The car slipped beneath the surface and the water rushed in through the floor and vents. It was cold and rising fast. “Really? Did you develop gills while you were away?”

“Sammy, calm the fuck—” The ache in my muscles ignited, turning into an all-consuming fire. It stole the air from my lungs. Her fear was too much.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, fighting like hell against the darkness. If I lost control, Sam would drown. The demon wouldn’t care about anything except self-preservation. It pushed. I pushed. But it was a losing battle. The black thing convulsed, driven by the heightened emotions, and with a flash of sharp pain and a flare of bright light, I became a spectator hovering on the edge of consciousness in my own body.

The demon wasted no time. Though faster and physically more powerful when in control, it was still subject to most human vulnerabilities while living inside my body. It made me tougher and stronger, but if my body died, the demon died with it.

It made a move to grab the door, but Sam intervened. She grabbed its face— my face—and pressed her lips to mine as the water inside the car closed over our heads.

Danger.

Sammy.

Death.

Sam.

Violence.

Samantha.

Pain. Sammy…

The instant our lips met, the watery inside of the car was gone, replaced by a wooded area surrounded by large rocks. Two teenagers—one angry boy and a damaged, but determined, girl stood in the center.

It was a memory—one I remembered all too well, but it was different somehow. This was from someone else’s perspective. It took a second, but I realized it was the demon’s memory. The thing was remembering Sam and the kiss we shared the night I left. A rush of emotion hit hard. The soft, warm feel of Sam’s small body crushed to mine. The way her hair smelled like raspberries. Lips. Longing. Need. A moment of absolute peace and perfection in a life full of violence and pain.

The memory faded, and Sam pulled away and opened her eyes—then her mouth. The mist bled into the water around us, swirling like colored ink. The dark blue of sadness tainted with regret and mingled with smoky gray fear. The demon was in control, but I felt it all. The sensation was overwhelming. It was pleasure and pain and necessity.

A single bubble escaped Sam’s mouth and her eyes closed. I let out a rage-filled roar—or maybe it’d come from the demon. In that moment, we were so tangled up and twisted, I couldn’t tell where I ended and it began.

Just when I was sure it would abandon her, it gathered Sam in my arms, shielding her, and crashed through the glass, kicking hard for the surface.

Sam

Before I dared open my eyes, I moved a finger. One by one, each in turn, they did as commanded. Next came the toes. All ten piggies wiggled exactly as they had before. An arm here, a leg there, my limbs appeared to be attached and functioning properly.

“Samantha?” asked a voice thick with concern. “Samantha, baby, are you awake?”

Oh, God, no… Someone put me back in the river.

The voice belonged to my aunt, and I made the decision to keep both eyes closed tight. No doubt the moment they opened, Kelly Merrick would be flinging disapproval like monkey shit at the zoo. The unsafe car—which she just happened to be right about; the decision to drop out of school; my less than snow-white past—she would have whored me off to Chase at fourteen if she could have legally gotten away with it. Everything in my life was subject to the older woman’s constant nagging.

It was the main reason I’d applied to an out-of-town college. There’d never been any real interest in school for me. I was nineteen and had no idea what to do with my life. I had sketchy people skills, and no marketable hobbies. The only real talent I had came from my earlier years of troublemaking. I could pick a lock and hot-wire a car in record time, but the chances of turning that into a lucrative career that didn’t end in the pokey was pretty nil.

As far as I was concerned, there was plenty of time to decide. Life right now should be about hitting up frat parties and pulling all-nighters ending by 7:00 a.m. at the local diner with a missing shoe and no memory of the evening. Living off mac and cheese and wearing flip-flops all winter. Proving to Aunt Kelly that I could stand alone. Huntington was supposed to be the path to finding myself and where I belonged in the world.

Or, it had until I’d walked away from it all. Nowhere in my wildest fantasies had there been anything remotely resembling scenes from a B-movie horror flick.

Lately disaster seemed to follow me around. There’d been a string of increasingly bad accidents since I’d turned tail and run from school, and my mind had been nudging the possibility that maybe there was something bigger going on. But this was an accident. The car was a piece of shit. Brakes failed—especially when you didn’t have the money to maintain them.

“Are you happy? This is your fault,” Aunt Kelly spat at Jax. “You’ve always been a horrible driver. Disaster just follows you along wherever you go, doesn’t it?”

“Kelly,” Chase said from somewhere to the right. He sounded tired and in need of caffeine. “Jax wasn’t—”

“I’m responsible for global warming, too. Haven’t you heard?” Jax snapped. “I bet you could place me at the assassination of Lincoln if you tried hard enough. Oh. And I killed that stupid deer, too. What’s its name? Bambi?”

Kelly gasped and I felt an internal eye roll coming on. The surprise over Jax’s response was nothing more than an act played by an old pro very much deserving of an Emmy. Where she viewed Chase as a saint—an exemplary specimen of a man that could do no wrong—Jax was the devil incarnate.

“Do the authorities know you’ve come back to town?”

Jax ignored her. “What’s the rabbit’s name? Humper?”

Chase sighed. A sound like paper crumpling was followed by, “Thumper. The bunny’s name was Thumper, Jax.”

“That’s right,” Jax snickered. “Thumper. Made excellent stew.”

Kelly gasped again. Really, it was a wonder the woman didn’t pass out more often. “You are a menace. How many people will you harm while you’re in town?”

I waited, sure he’d declare his innocence, but Jax remained silent.

“The best thing you ever did was leave,” she continued, no doubt interpreting his silence as an admission of guilt. “Everyone’s life was better without you here!”

Jax hadn’t done anything wrong—this time—other than being his not-so-charming self. There was no reason for Kelly to rip him to shreds for my mistake. They were standing over me bickering like five-year-olds. I’d almost just died, for Christ’s sake.

I’d almost just died…

Everything came crashing back and my heart began to pound. The car had gone over the edge and into the river. Under the river . A shiver ran through me and I could almost feel the icy water kissing my exposed skin again. No wonder Kelly was flipping out. She thought Jax was driving and had almost killed me.