Free The Vampire Diaries: Out of my Mind (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Jenna Elliot Page B

hers.
    “Kiss me,” she says, squinting, stepping back.
    I don’t want to but then I do. I feel the tug of her fingers in my hair but it’s nothing like the pull of her mind on mine, like a hook spearing through my will. She is too far away but I reach, God help me, I will rip my arms from my hands but I have to kiss her. I feel my left wrist tearing.
    “Come closer,” I beg.
    “No.” She flashes a sickening smile.
    The tendon tears and I am sobbing from the pain but I am closer to her lips, one more fraction of an inch and now I’m close enough to feel them. Relief. Horrifying, ugly pain but the hook in my brain is out.
    “Finally,” she says. “Now we can get started.”
    I moan. I want to be done forever. “Why don’t you just kill me already?”
    “Because then I can’t play with you. And what good is revenge if it’s not fun? I’ve even prepared. I’ve done research.”
    I tremble in fear. I actually tremble. She is everything and I am an aching, terrified nothing. This is what it is like to be entirely at someone’s mercy.
    She runs her fingers through my hair and it’s tender in a way I pretended to be tender with her. It reeks of mockery. Then her hand is a fist in my hair and my neck is craning too far again and her eyes lock on mine.
    I can feel the hook poised there, ready to stab through my mind.
    “I want you to hurt Elena. I don’t care how. You’re a smart boy: be creative. Impress me. Take your time, but break her. Oh, and no more vervain for you.”
    She looks away but the hook is in and it hurts more than all of the cuts combined.
     

Chapter 2
     
    A new dream, the same game. Soft footsteps from the hall, closer, Stefan’s silhouette. My mind crouches to spar with Rebekah. “This was much different in my head,” I say, as if this isn’t in my head. As if she isn’t.
    I can tell it’s not real because Stefan doesn’t care. I am howling from every pore and he looks disappointed.
    “Klaus, I’m here,” he calls into the enormous echoing room. “Let’s do this.” He’s carrying a giant duffle bag full of firewood. Firewood? No, stakes. Our stakes. Good lord, she knows. How does Rebekah know about the stakes?
    Rebekah is here and so is Klaus. The stakes are news to her. This is worse, so much worse: this is real. Stefan is spilling it, all of it, every bit of what we had over them, pouring it out like sour milk. It is too horrifying not to be real and if I get out of this he will never get to be in charge of plans again. He wants to trade our only chance against them for my life and I am the most dangerous weapon of all.
    A wave of old pain rises, crests, breaks. It feels stale, brittle. My eyes roll back.
    Stefan says there are eight stakes but there are eleven stakes, eleven, I whittled them my damn self and I am going to sing like a twelve year old mafia canary.
    Klaus wants to know, Rebekah hasn’t told him about our game, he wants to test if the vervain is out. He whispers in my ear to go home. I refuse to admit in front of Stefan that I can’t deny him. Even without his eyes in mine I fight not to obey. “No,” I growl. Stefan can’t know and maybe that is pride but maybe I want to keep it a secret so I can do what Rebekah told me to do. No, I will not hurt Elena.
    Rebekah’s hook tugs against my impertinence and I swear I feel my head yanked to the side.
    Maybe I will, a little.
    Another tug, harder.
    Maybe a lot.
    Klaus grabs my face and tears the slit in my neck again and he insists. Two hooks now but this one is barbed and requires my immediate attention. I say goodbye to my hands and pull, I pull. The wounds grow wider, tendons stretch too far, they are not elastic. I grunt. I bear down against the searing, impossible sensation of flesh being torn from muscle.
    He is laughing. “Stop, stop, before you hurt yourself.” I stop. Hilarious, you sick fuck.
    Now he asks me so I can finally tell him there are eleven, I can tell him every detail, how you can still