“Jake? You fine?”
Jake touched his face, and the smear left on his hand was as black as tar and just as sticky. “I’m fine!” he yelled and made a dash for the door. This was exactly why he needed the room to himself.
The brush of fingertips against his arm made his anxiety skyrocket. He twisted away from Vars’s hand and plunged into the corridor, shaken by the oil-like substance that was now drizzling down his neck on either side.
A weakness came over him without warning, and he stumbled against the wall, desperate to get to the bathroom before his brain turned into sponge. If Jake fainted, Vars helping him would have been yet another humiliation. He could fight through the dizzy spell as long as he poured cold water over his head. It had always worked whenever he got a particularly strong punch.
Relief hit him as soon as he burst into the empty restroom and stuck his head under the faucet. He didn’t even fight the gagging this time.
Dripping with water and heaving, he leaned against the sink and looked into the dimmed old mirror covered in black spots. The gooey substance wasn’t going anywhere. If anything, he’d only managed to smear it all over his face, creating gray smudges. A violent bout of coughing made him choke up more of the black substance onto his palm. Did people even have something of this color inside of them? Was it the light playing tricks on him?
But no, it was like thick ink, not a trace of the reddish hue of blood.
Chapter 4 - Vars
Something tingled along the line of Vars’s jaw. He slept on, his mind too muddled to care about spiders using his face as a new local park. But then the tickling turned into pressure. Before his brain could catch up, a searing sound originating right next to his ear tore through the air and startled him awake.
His chest sank, limbs too heavy to lift, but when Vars opened his eyes, he saw twin blades glinting in the dark, and beyond them - a shadowy figure looming above the bed.
Vars’s lungs rapidly expanded, flooding with air. He grabbed the assailant’s wrist and pushed it away, jutting off the mattress at the speed of a torpedo. With light still scarce, details were fuzzy, but his body was already tensing in anticipation of a blow.
What would it be this time? A bullet tearing through his insides? A saw to cut off his limbs? Would he be sedated first so that he couldn’t fight or scream for help while his flesh was slowly peeled off him, to prolong the agony? A wire slowly tightening around his neck until it cut into skin and choked him?
Would cold water replace the oxygen in Vars’s chest, engulfing him in darkness?
The blades fell to the floor with a clatter, and Vars blindly punched the attacker in hopes of knocking him out.
The grunt of pain made Vars hiss in satisfaction. He must have caught Damon by surprise, because it was a rarity to land a hit so strong. Hands grabbed at Vars’s neck like claws, but Vars wouldn’t wait for the bastard to recuperate and delivered blow after blow, until he sent Damon to the floor.
That wasn’t enough though. The victory shot flames into Vars’s veins.
He charged at Damon with all the fire the sonofabitch had never managed to drown out in Vars. “You fucking cunt! You think you can follow me here after what you’ve done?”
But the whine of pain and hands grabbing at his wrists to force away another punch had nothing of Damon’s skill. It made Vars stiffen and strain his eyes in the dark to take in the contours of the smaller body under him.
“Stop!” Jake yelled. “I’m sorry!”
Vars rapidly let go, pulling himself up to his knees and raising his hands on either side of his head. He only now breathed in deeply.
“What. The fuck?” he choked out, rolling off the floor and blindly patting the wall until he hit the light switch, illuminating their room.
His gaze was immediately drawn to the fallen blades, but it wasn’t a weapon, just a pair of paper-cutting scissors.
He hadn’t been in danger after all, Damon wasn’t here. Damon didn’t know where he was and wouldn’t look for Vars, still convinced there was nothing to search for beyond the empty grave in Cypress Hills Cemetery. Still, his body was shuddering from cold sweat, and each and every muscle inside him twisted, ready to fight off an attack.
Jake rolled to his side on the floor with pain twisting his features. “Christ, man! It was just a prank! Didn’t know you’d be so touchy about your beard.” His words were followed by another whine when Jake put his hand over his ribs protectively.
Vars’s stomach knotted, and he frantically touched his face where the burn mark had been left on him. Relief made him sag against the wall when he found it still covered, but the uneven bit on the side of his beard was just an inch away from Magpie’s sigil.