Beneath the Neon Moon by Theda Black Page A

lost. It was excruciating to watch. It was terrifying to know what lay at the end if he failed.
    Zach held Mal's wet face between the palms of his hands. "Don't listen to that crazy shit in your head. Remember what I told you. It's not you. Listen to me." He wiped tears off Mal's cheeks. "Look at me, look at my face, okay? Trust me." Zach pushed Mal's sweaty hair off his forehead and kissed it.
    Mal's face crumpled. He let out a short sob before he opened his eyes, ashamed, trying to smooth out his face.
    "This isn't your fault. Not any of it. They did this to us, okay, and whatever happens, we didn't do anything to cause it."
    "I dream all the time now, even when I'm awake." Mal's voice faltered. "I won't, though. I won't."
    Zach didn't ask what it was he wouldn't do. "Me and you, Mal. We're all that matters, right?"
    Mal nodded, touched his forehead to Zach's. Standing helped him keep focus, kept him from falling into black dreams. His hands roamed over Zach's skin, under his shirt, palms smoothing over his chest, tracing down the middle to his stomach with two slow fingers.
    He leaned in and brushed his lips over Zach's. "Help me, please, help me to stay here," he whispered, and Zach didn't know if he was talking to him or praying.
    The light bled from the cellar little by little. Zach and Mal stood together and listened to the sounds of each other's breathing, touched foreheads and mouths and bodies together.
    The floodlight came on outside, turning the sky behind it into black ink and laying a square of white light over the earthen floor of the cellar.
    Mal's grip on Zach's waist grew tight. Zach leaned away from him, trying to catch his eye. Mal swayed forward with him, his grip growing uncomfortable and then painful, fingers digging deeply into Zach's flesh.
    Zach's heart thudded hard and fast. Instinct told him not to try and pull away again. He opened his mouth, tired and scared and angry. "What is it you want? You want to crack me open, want to hurt me, Mal, is that it?"
    Mal's eyes narrowed. He pressed closer until the long line of his body pushed all along Zach's. "No. But they want me to. And you knew." Mal's eyes were green and brown, wide and heated and wild. "Why didn't you tell me?"
    "Because there's nothing you could have done about it. You'd have tortured yourself over it. I didn't want that for you."
     Mal's shoulders slumped. The wildness faded from his eyes and his grip slackened. "Zach," he whispered, "I don't know if I can do this much longer. Stop me, please just stop me. Any way you can."
    The hopelessness scared Zach more than anything else had. He made his voice deliberately hard, even while fear spread and shrilled inside his body. "Stop yourself. You said you would. You wanted me to believe you. I believe you. Now do it. Don't you let me die."
    Mal's face went whiter than paper, his eyes like black holes in his face. His mouth twisted. "Isaac. Biblical all right. Aaron and Kane gave you to me, a sacrifice from my brethren." He laughed, his voice deeper, coarser. It hurt to hear, forced through vocal chords already beginning to change as the night took hold. "Only they're not my brethren. I don't know them. I owe them nothing but payback for what they've done. They're a pack of wild dogs running the streets, and I'm going to put them down. They just don't know it yet." He moved closer again. "You know what I dream of, don't you? Your blood filling my mouth, your body ripped apart. You're afraid of me, and you should be." His body touched Zach's, so hot, a furnace. "But you weren't wrong to believe me. You're not the one I'll take apart." He pressed still closer. Zach felt the burn of him sink into his skin. "I'm still in here, I swear it."
    "Stay with me," Zach implored. He buried his face into the crook of Mal's shoulder. "Don't leave me, don't forget me."
    Mal kissed the nape of Zach's neck. "My chain's meant to hold me, strong enough for a wolf. Yours is strong enough to hold a human. No wolf