Darkest Descent

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1

Alice

I sucked in a lungful of chilly air, spilling from my parent’s house with my brother at my side. He was quiet beside me, stiffer than usual, like something was wrong. But when I bugged him to make him tell me, he wouldn’t. Every time I asked, he looked uncomfortable and ignored me.

We’d always been close. Liked each other, shared the same friends and never argued beyond petty bickering. But lately, he’d been closing off from me. When I nudged him and he only gave me a weak smile, I sighed.

“That was more awkward than usual,” I commented as I slammed the front door closed a little too hard and we continued down the driveway to the car. Mother insisted we park outside the gate, because Asher’s vehicle was a piece of junk he’d bought for himself after working evenings in a cafe. He hated using our parents’ money for anything. More so the older he got. It took a lot of persuading by me for him to let them pay for his college education.

“Agreed,” Asher huffed, his voice gruff.

Neither of our parents had walked us to the door. They considered their parental obligation complete once the chef-prepared food was placed in front of us once a week. We had to stay with them on Saturdays, eat with them through Sunday night, then we could fuck off back to our lives. Neither of them appeared to enjoy our company, but they paid our bills - despite how much it annoyed Asher, we were at college because they paid for it. They hung their wealth over our heads like a noose, always a threat to use it for our benefit or detriment. And it was beginning to seem more of a detriment, based on how low Asher always was afterwards. It took him days to recover, then the dread of the next incoming weekend began to weigh on him.

Asher and I huddled together, him tucking me under his arm when I shivered at the sounds of animals rustling in the bushes. Or wind. It must just be the wind. But I imagined little creatures with glowing eyes staring at us and it creeped me out.

I loved our parents, I did, but they were cold, distant. Always had been. It was a big relief come Sunday night when we could walk away for another week .

The gate opened, and we walked through, waving at the camera to say goodbye to the staff who were manning it. Asher held the car door open for me, looking all over while I settled into the passenger seat. He was on edge tonight. I watched him hurry around the car, noting the way he winced when he thought I couldn’t see. He was in pain somewhere. When we were eating, he kept glancing out the window with a furrowed brow and twitched whenever someone touched him. He recoiled from Dad when he patted him on the back, then scrunched his face up in what looked like fear or some sort of anguish. It bothered me so much that I didn’t know. Something was wrong, and I hated that he wouldn’t tell me.

“Are you going to talk to me?” I asked Asher when he started the car and pulled away. Thick, heavy trees lined the street, making that eerie sensation sink even deeper. We had a thirty-minute drive in silence if he didn’t fucking say something.

He shook his head and looked back through the rearview mirror.

There was a single car driving behind us, the headlights shining too bright, the glare reflecting on the mirrors. But it was keeping its distance, following at a safe gap. Still, Asher remained on edge, his eyes drifting to the mirrors every other second, shifting his weight in his seat .

“Fine,” I huffed when he still said nothing, turning the radio on, settling back to the sounds of a late night DJ – some crappy soft-rock I started singing along to. The kind of music everyone knows the words to, but no one remembers how or why.

Asher turned it off. “Don’t,” he said.

I rolled my head on my seat to look at him with my biggest puppy dog eyes. “You either need to tell me what’s wrong, or you gotta listen to me sing. I know what I’d choose.” I sang the last few words like shit on purpose, making my voice crack and break.

Asher’s face broke into a reluctant smile, and he flashed me his warm eyes before returning them to the road. We shared those eyes, big and expressive, but they looked so much better on him. I always felt bug-eyed, but on him, it was handsome.

“Fuck, you drive a hard bargain, little one,” he laughed.

“I’m older than you,” I spat back, falling with ease into our lifelong banter. At ten years old, that extra five minutes made all the difference.

“I’m taller,” was his typical response. So I gave him a gentle whack on the arm and the tension broke between us a fraction. Since he shot up and over me by over a foot when we were fourteen, he called me his little sister. It always brought him joy to see my irritation. Eight years later and it still worked.

I encouraged him to share with my eyes burning into him, and he loosed a long sigh at last. “Just something in the air tonight. I can’t really explain it.”

“Liar.”

The car following us came up closer, and Asher drifted to the side to let it go by, but it slowed down again, staying behind, but still a tiny bit too close. “Weird,” Asher muttered. “Mustn’t want to pass.”

“Asher…” I encouraged, ignoring the car.

A minute passed in silence and he turned the radio back on. I didn’t make good on my promise to sing our way home. Instead, I grumbled and stared out the window, watching the darkness zoom by. Eventually, the car behind us fell away, not appearing again after we went round a bend in the road.

Still, Asher didn’t tell me anything more, and dropped me off at my dorm with a squeeze of my arm and a whispered goodnight. I watched him go, his car turning the corner at the end of the building just a moment later. I kept hoping he would turn round and jump out, spilling what was wrong so I could help him through it. But disappointed and shivering, I turned to get into the building, fighting my low mood because he hadn’t opened up. He’d closed up on me bit by bit for months now, and I hated it. We had always been inseparable, so this didn’t seem natural.

Headlights lit me up as I reached the door, slipping the key in the lock and stepping inside. It was rare for there to be any other cars on the road at this time of night, so I watched it for a moment, seeing if I recognized it. I had a few friends in this dorm, but it kept going.

Asher’s unsettled feeling washed over me, and I was glad to be behind a closed door as the night’s darkness seemed to suffocate the world. I needed to find out what was up with my brother and help him fix it.

But first, I wanted to wash away the weekend with my parents and get to fucking sleep.

“I did not!” my friend, Jasper, shrieked, flailing his hand out and sloshing his drink.

We were in a busy bar, myself, Jasper and three more of our friends, all halfway to wasted, and almost fully exhausted. It was only a Monday night, but we’d all got out of a long lecture and needed a beer. Hours later, we hadn’t left the bar.

“You so did!!” another friend yelled back, laughing like a loon at Jasper’s mock-angry expression. I didn’t pay much attention to what they were bickering about, though, because Asher wasn’t answering my texts. I even tried to call him, and nothing. It was so unlike him to ignore me, and it had my concerns firing off and making my belly ache. Especially after last night, his strange behavior and standoffishness.

He was supposed to be here. Well, I’d invited him as we walked from the lecture hall, and he never turned me down. We were always together when we could be. It was weird. And after yesterday, when he’d brushed me off, I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. I tried calling his phone again and wanted to scream when it rang out for the twentieth time.

The bad vibe in my gut rooted deeper, curdling with the beer and wine in my stomach. I needed another.

Ignoring my friend’s argument, I left the table and weaved my way to the bar. For a Monday, it was heaving with people. College students, mostly, but I did note the odd older person in stuffy office wear, frowning at all the sweaty twenty-somethings taking up all the space.

“Hey, sexy,” one man said, coming up to me with a sloppy mouth and a stain down his front. I recognized him from one of the frats and rolled my eyes. He was here a lot, causing a ruckus and hitting on everyone .

“Hi,” I replied, to be polite, but my mouth was tight. I just wanted another fucking drink, not to be hit on by a man so drunk he couldn’t see how disinterested I was.

“Wanna kiss my cheek?” he asked, patting his face, jabbing his nose and his chin. He might have been charming if he didn’t stink of a stale distillery. “For a bet. Need a—”

“No thanks!” I yelled over the music, pushing through the crowd a little more to get closer to the bar. But a hand wrapped around me and tugged me back, making me yelp and stumble. The drunken frat dude had me in his grip, tight enough that it hurt. “Let go!” I yanked, but his fingers dug in deeper.

“Kiss me first,” he slobbered in return, lunging for me.

I shrieked and jumped out of the way, gasping when he fell into the crowd beside me, getting swallowed up by other sweaty bodies. For good, I hoped. Creep.

“You okay?” a man asked when I reached the bar, and I turned, ready to roll my eyes at him too, but a warm gaze waited for me, staring curiously. He was handsome, his smile charming and the wrinkle between his brow endearing. “I saw what he was trying to do. Was about to step in, but you more than had it handled.” He flashed a grin, and my stomach fluttered. I leaned on the bar and smiled back .

“Thank you, it’s all good though,” I replied, my hands flying to my hair to fluff it up, growing self-conscious of my disheveled appearance. “He was just a harmless drunk.”

The man nodded. “A lot of them around, unfortunately.”

“At least they’re harmless. Harmful drunks would be much worse. Or just harmful, sober people.” I winced at my words, but my throat thickened as the man’s gaze darkened a fraction, something shuddering over before he blinked away. That little niggling instinct in my gut shifted, and I tried not to sigh.

He nodded and nudged his arm against mine. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, his eyes intense on me.

The ball in my throat grew, but I ignored it. I was on edge because of Asher, that was all. And that annoying drunk. No sense in assuming everyone is a creep. But…

“No thank you,” I replied, smiling through my discomfort. “I’ll get my own.”

The handsome man gave an amicable nod, but I noticed more tension in his jaw as we both looked away to flag down the bartender’s attention.

I was looking in the opposite direction from the man, deciding whether to have a small or large wine, when hot breath ghosted over my ear, and a heavy hand landed on my ass, squeezing hard. “If you let me buy you a drink, I’ll let you suck my cock in the bathroom,” the scumbag of a man — no longer handsome — whispered, licking his tongue into my ear. I balked, recoiling away as my instincts proved correct. Creep. Never far from a creep.

Turning to him with shock on my face, I shoved him off me with all my might. “Get the fuck off me, you ass,” I shouted, incredulous that I’d run into yet another lowlife in such fast succession. Something must be in the damn water tonight. All my instincts were firing, confused.

“Ah, it’ll be nice!” he yelled as I weaved my way through the crowd, shoving and fighting against sweaty bodies until I was clear away from him. My heart was pounding as I settled right at the end of the bar and got the bartenders’ attention, ordering an extra large red wine.

Panic tickled at me. It felt as if all eyes were on me, like the world was closing in as I tried to just move through life. For a long time now, I’d felt watched. I’d grown used to the sensation of it, so much so it was almost a comfort. Like I was never really alone. When I spoke to Asher about it, or my friends, they told me I was nuts.

But in that moment, it grew more intense, like there was a monster at my back.

Or one with his hands on my ass.

As a hand squeezed my backside, I saw red.