Page 34 of Ashes to Ash’s

“We’ll start with your uncle,” Ash said, and for once he was right. That asshole, Gordon, had to fucking die first. Look at me plotting murder, when I’d been raised to live by the commandments, and rules according to the fucking bible, and their interpretations of it.

“It should be violent and bloody. He needs to die screaming,” Ash was saying, his fingers stroking my throat lightly, instead of gripping it now.

I caught his hand and stopped his lazy caresses, fixing him with a serious glare.

“We’re talking about murder, Ash. This isn’t something to be taken lightly. This is the biggest sin there is.”

He grinned, and it just kept widening, like the joker’s twisted smile, until it became a laugh. He was laughing, at the idea of murder. At the idea of killing my blood relatives.

“Ash, dammit!”

He pressed a finger over my lips, with the hand I wasn’t still hanging onto like a lifeline, because of the insanity we were discussing.

“Baby, I knew you were meant for me. My sexy little killer. Choir boy just turned mean, and I fucking love it. I’m so hard right now, I could spunk all over your junk. In fact, I think I should totally do that right now, don’t you? What better way to celebrate the planned demise of your entire bloodline, than to jerk off onto each other?”

“Ugh, everything’s about sex with you!” I hissed, trying to shove him off me, but his balance was fucking solid as a rock.

“It’s going to be, I can promise you that. Once you get your head out of your ass, I’m gonna shove my cock right up there, Cal. You’re going to be filled with my cum every chance I get. Gonna breed your ass like it’s a pussy, and you’ll take every drop like my little whore.”

Ugh, I suddenly knew that he was going to start touching himself or me, or both of us again, and my mind was too fucked up to cope with it. If he touched me, I’d scream, because I couldn’t take it right now.

My nerves were screaming at me for so many reasons, my anxieties were clawing at my chest, like they were literal fingers with sharp talons, and I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly I genuinely couldn’t breathe, my lungs stalling, and I started clawing at my own throat, as panic set in.

“Cal? Jesus, Cal? What’s going on?” Ash leaned over me, his fingers brushing against my cheek, and I flinched, feeling completely overwhelmed and over-stimulated, and if he touched me again, I’d lose my mind. I knew it. My brain would fucking explode right now.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ash

I’d seen him stressed, panicked, terrified, resigned, and defeated. I’d never seen him in the midst of panic like this. He couldn’t breathe, and I knew it was an anxiety attack, I mean, why the fuck wouldn’t he suffer from that shit, after what he’d been through? The question was how to help him through it. My sister had them, and she’d either be screaming or catatonic, because hers came from being assaulted by assholes at her school. I guess Cal had been through a different kind of hell, but no less soul destroying.

“Babe? Breathe for me. Jesus fuck, breathe, or you’ll pass out!”

He was still gasping, clawing at his throat over and over, leaving dark pink scratch-marks against his skin. He was doing himself harm, and I hated it. That was my job, anyway, right? I caught his hand and held it in a tight grip, and I climbed off him, because as much as I wanted to stay closer to him, something told me that it could be restricting his breathing too, somehow.

“Do you want to sit up? Would you breathe better like that?” Should I tilt his head, to open his airways? What the fuck was I supposed to do? I dragged him up to sit against the bed, and he was like dead weight, like he had no strength at all.

Fuck! I ran for my phone, and dialled the first number that came to mind.

“Hey, kid. How’s things going?” Thank fuck for dad Dory.

“He’s freaking out. I don’t know what to do!”

Cal was still fighting to breathe, and I was starting to wonder if there was literally some health thing wrong with him, and he needed a fucking hospital.

“Calm down, son, talk me through what’s going on.” His soothing tone had the desired effect on me, because I was freaking out too now. My dad always knew how to calm me down, how to give me air when I felt like it was thinning around me like right now.

“He can’t breathe! He’s… Jesus, he’s gonna pass out if he keeps gasping like this. Is… does he have some medication he needs or something? I fucked up. I didn’t ask.”

Dad called out to dad Gray, and they chatted briefly, which was agonising because Cal was fucking dying on me right now.

“Dad!”

“Yeah, sorry, I was just getting your dad to pass me my laptop. Blaze hacked all his personal data and sent it to us, but I hadn’t looked yet. I’m checking his hospital records. One second.” Now his calm was pissing me off, because what if Cal didn’t have a fucking second?

“Cal, baby, please breathe for me.” I was on my knees beside him again, and set the phone on speaker, dropping it beside me so I could pull his hands away from his throat again.

“Ask him if this has happened before,” dad suddenly said, and how was that fucking helpful? He was supposed to be getting me information, not asking dumb questions. I could have come up with that one myself!