Read Cinder X (Death Collectors, #2) for Free Online

thin line of ash.
     
    It’s what brings them together, yet rips their feathers apart.
     
    They can never truly be together as light and dark.
     
    Unless one makes the ultimate sacrifice.
     
    Blows out their candle, and joins the other in the dark.
     
    It’s the poem that I read on Cameron’s wall, but three extra lines have been added.
     
    Or if the one dares to fly across the line and steal the other’s light
     
    To force them to cross over the line and join the darkness of life.
     
    I’m not gone, princess. I will come back for you until you give in.
     
    —Cameron
     
    “You know, I’m never going to give in to you,” I tell him, drawing the closet curtain back as I duck inside. “I’m going to figure this out, so you might as well just leave my mind alone.”
     
    You really think you will? He questions . Because I think you’re more lost now than you were a few days ago. I think with each day you grow weaker, more desperate. Lonelier. More willing to stand here and listen to me talk to you inside your head because I’m the only one you have to talk to anymore.
     
    He’s painfully right. I’ve been feeling lost and lonely a lot lately. I want— need —some sort of connection again, like I had with Asher. I want to be touched and touch someone else without death screaming in my thoughts, haunting me and letting me see things I don’t want to see. With each passing day, I can feel myself slipping into the darkness, into the insanity, and ultimately, into the Reapers’ world.
     
    I miss Asher.
     
    No, you don’t, Cameron snaps harshly . You just think you do.
     
    “No, I really do.”I ball up the black sheer shirt and jeans I took out of my dresser and grab a red undershirt hanging up inside my closet. “And just so you know,” I say, descending further into the closet, knowing it’s pointless to try and hide out, since Cameron seems to be everywhere, but still it’s dark towards the back and hopefully he can’t see me when I undress. “I hated the taste of it.”
     
    His laughter fills my head again, a low chuckle that causes goosebumps to sprout all over my skin. The taste of what, princess?
     
    “Your life.”
     
    If that’s what you need to tell yourself, he says . Then I’ll let you, but deep down, we both know you’re lying.
     
    I stop talking, quickly changing my clothes as I attempt not to think about the fact that he could be watching me undress, although I’m not sure how exactly it works; if he can see what I’m seeing or if he’s a ghost, watching me.
     
    After I get dressed, I slip on a pair of black boots, pull my hair up, and leave the quietness of my room to go check my emails. There’s nothing other than junk in there so I heavy-heartedly go into the kitchen and eat some breakfast.
     
    I’m relieved that I haven’t heard a word from Cameron since I stepped into the closet, but at the same time, I’m slightly disappointed because I want answers. Not just about my father, but how he’s managed to enter my head.
     
    I attempt to talk to him a few times, but he stays silent, so I pour myself a bowl of cereal, trying to ignore how my skin is starting to burn beneath my gloves, knowing it’s coming from the lines, reminding me of what I did the other night with Cameron. It’s early afternoon and the house is quiet and untouched from last night. Ian never came home and I have no idea where he is, or who he’s with. It’s torture, but all I can do is keep calling him and leaving voicemails.
     
    I’m running a little late this morning and should be getting ready to go to class, but I’m considering skipping today, mainly because I don’t feel like seeing Raven. Plus, I’ve got these nasty lines on my arms and the last thing I need is for the town to think there’s something wrong with me; other than the fact that they think I’m a murderer, of course.
     
    I finish off my cereal, reading the headlines of the local newspaper. My attention zeros in on