CHAPTER 2: THE EVE
1467 Words
CHAPTER 2: THE EVE
ELODIE'S POV
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Sweet Jesus.
The words hit me like a strike to the chest, jolting me out of whatever fragile calm I thought I had. Happy to see him? I freeze in place, my throat going dry, my brain scrambling to stitch some sense together as my eyes lock on the figure standing at the doorway.
It’s him. Or it should be him. My dad.
But every fiber of me knows it isn’t right. He leans casually against the frame like he owns the air in the room, the silhouette familiar and yet wrong, wrong in a way that scrapes against my bones. That same face I’ve known all my life, and yet a stranger’s—his expression twisted, carrying an undertone my mind refuses to recognize. Even the air shifts with his presence, and an invisible stench—something not of this world—clings to him, crawling over my skin like frostbite.
I stumble back a step, my breath catching. My eyes widen until they ache, my pulse hammering in my chest, drumming so loud it fills my ears. I force a nervous chuckle, like if I laugh hard enough the scene will reset into something normal. My voice shakes when it finally tears itself out of me.
“Dad… why are you looking at me like that? What’s going on?”
He raises a brow, and that small, subtle motion cuts through me sharper than a blade. My heartbeat doubles, racing so violently I swear he can hear it. Something pours out of him—waves, energy, whatever it is—that seeps into me, flooding my veins until I blink rapidly, lightheaded. The air thickens, heavy and suffocating, like an unseen fog crawling down my throat. The atmosphere feels choked, unnatural, laced with a presence that does not belong here.
Slowly, deliberately, he steps into the room, shutting the door behind him with a click that sounds like a lock sealing my fate. His gaze doesn’t falter, doesn’t wander—it’s fixed, unyielding, like I am the only thing in his entire existence worth seeing.
Then he smiles.
That smile slithers over his lips, and with his fingers, he traces along his chin, brushing the beard I’ve admired so many times before—the comforting sight of it now desecrated, corrupted into something sinister. My eyelids flutter as though the weight of his stare is magnetic, dragging me in, pinning me down, daring me to look away and refusing to let me succeed.
I manage a shaky laugh, my hand twitching as I rub at my neck just to ground myself, just to do something human. “Hi,” I whisper, my gaze darting around the room as though an escape route might manifest if I look hard enough. At last, I tear my eyes from his, gasping quietly at the small freedom. “I was just… cleaning up. I didn’t know you’d be coming. I would’ve—”
He interrupts with a chuckle, shaking his head slowly, savoring my unease.
“No, no, no, no, no, my sweet, beautiful Elodie.”
The words coil around me like chains. My teeth dig into my bottom lip as dread unfurls in my chest. That—he doesn’t say things like that. Never. Not once in my entire life. The sound of it, dripping from his mouth, makes the walls close in.
“What’s going on, Dad? Why are you suddenly calling me your sweet, beautiful—”
He cuts me off again, his steps brisk, sure, predatory. His hand finds my shoulder, warm and firm, and every muscle in me tenses.
“Is there anything wrong with that? Can’t I give you some nice, sweet, endearing names?”
I blink hard, confusion tangling with fear. My lips part, desperate to push out a protest, but he speaks over me once more, commanding the space, leaving no cracks for me to slip through.
“Anyways, I’m here because… it is your…” He pauses, his lips curving, eyes glinting as though the moment is delicious to him. “This is the eve of your eighteenth birthday, my dear. I just want to hope you’re in a very perfect state for what is about to happen to you.”
The smile that stretches his face is wrong, wrong, wrong. My stomach knots as his words settle into me like poison.
“What are you talking about, Dad?” My voice cracks, shaking with confusion.
He chuckles again, deeper this time, velvet laced with cruelty. “Oh, you don’t understand?”
I shake my head quickly, panic starting to choke me. “No. I don’t. You’re… you’re really making it so hard to understand what’s going on right now.”
“Let me put it out plainly for you, baby girl.” His hand tightens on my shoulder as he guides me backwards, each step slow but inevitable, until the back of my legs brush the edge of the bed. He presses me down, makes me sit, towering above me like a shadow blotting out the light. His grin is devilish, teeth gleaming as though they’ve tasted sins I can’t name. “This is going to be the phase that will start dictating the moment in your life where everything takes a very, very dark turn.”
The tremor in his voice is not fear but excitement, a feverish anticipation that coils through every syllable. It’s as though he can’t wait, as though he’s savoring every second of unraveling me.
I scoff weakly, shaking my head, my eyelids sliding shut for a breath that doesn’t come. The air burns in my throat, too thick, too heavy to swallow. “Why… why does it feel so hard to breathe right now? What exactly is going on, Dad?”
He studies me, his silence dragging out until it frays my nerves to threads. Then, slowly, he bends, lowering himself until his eyes meet mine on level ground. His hand snakes around mine, capturing it with an unnatural tenderness. And then—his lips brush against my palm, feather-light, pressing kiss after kiss.
A shock ripples through me. Strange sensations ignite at every point of contact, seeping up my arm, winding through my body like serpents. My heart skips, stumbles, races.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” My voice breaks, my free hand clawing at his to pull away, but his grip is unyielding, unbreakable.
His stare holds mine, eyes shifting into something I cannot describe, something feral and mesmerizing. My chest heaves as my brain reels. Because I know. I know deep down that this is wrong. My father has always been attractive—so much so that sometimes my own thoughts blurred at the edges with things I didn’t dare admit. But this…
This isn’t attraction. This is darkness. A pure, unfiltered darkness that crawls beneath my skin, threading its way into my blood. His eyes strip me bare, relentless and unblinking, and every instinct in me screams the truth.
Hell no. This is not my dad.
He smirks, as if plucking the realization straight out of my skull. “I expected you to have gotten the memo by now.”
The way his voice pours out—silky, hypnotic, dangerously hot—wraps around me like smoke, sinking into my skin. My thighs clench involuntarily, a heat blooming between them that makes me shiver against my will. That ache I’ve wrestled with, buried, locked away—it surges back tenfold, an ache I can’t ignore.
He sees it. Of course he does. And he smiles.
“Very, very good,” he drawls, his tone slow, deliberate, every word dripping like poison-coated honey.
He straightens, towering above me, looking down with something ravenous flickering in his eyes.
“That is exactly how I love you to feel.”
I frown up at him, my pulse racing to the point of pain. “Dad… what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his hands press against my shoulders, firm and immovable, pushing me down until my back meets the bed. The mattress dips beneath me, swallowing me whole. My chest rises and falls erratically, breath coming in shallow bursts.
“I want this to be the reminder,” he murmurs, leaning closer, his voice silken and lethal. “The perfect visual to show you what to expect in the forthcoming days of your life.”
His words hang heavy in the air, thick as the darkness that coils around me, pressing down, suffocating, sealing me into a fate I don’t understand.
And I look up at him, trapped in his shadow, wondering with every fiber of me what the hell is going on.
- Writer
