The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

KAI

He didn’t know where he was, or how he’d gotten there. He only knew that it was a hot summer night and that every breathing fibre was searing with hellish pain.

It was the same dance every time, and it always ended like this: with a kick to the nuts. An angry snarl rose in his throat as he clutched the dirt between his fingers, rolled over, and pressed his back against the ground to rub his burning skin into the soil. That’s right, it was August—the worst month of the damn year. Scorching hot surfaces, screaming children on summer vacay, smog, heatstroke, and everything that belonged in hell. August was a bitch even the devil wouldn’t want to fuck.

His fingers clawed deeper until the ground turned cool. Grabbing a fistful in each hand, he smeared the dark soil over his face, desperate to make the itching stop. His scalp was crawling under the thick, dishevelled mess of black hair. He could smell blood under his fingernails, so he picked out the tiny clots while waiting for his vision to adjust. These eyes saw colour. The psychedelic effect of reds, blues, and greens bleeding into the world took a few moments to stop. Above him were shapes swaying through the air, and behind them loomed a dark expanse he assumed was the sky. Long, thin wisps slowly came into focus: willow tree branches.

Kai took a deep breath as the familiarity of this place flooded him. He’d woken up under the giant willow many times before, but he could never find it when he wanted to. Instead, it always found him.

Under the earthy scent of bark and dirt, he detected the faint undertone of death hanging in the air, tugging his eyes towards the unmoving heap several feet away. It was a woman—a dead one to be sure—her eyes wide and her blue lips parted in an expression that was both vacant and surprised. A thin, gold chain encircled her bruised neck, its imprint etched in her flesh.

Kai tried to remember where he’d last been, but nothing came back to him. It wasn’t the first or even the second time he’d woken up to a dead body, but it remained an unwelcome surprise. Either way, Kai was pretty sure he hadn’t done it. Strangulation wasn’t his style, and there wasn’t any blood.

Regardless, he had no intention of hanging out with a corpse. His clothes and what little money he’d had were lost, and now he had two choices: ravage the donation bin outside the local second-hand store or beat someone up and rob them.

Pulling himself up, he cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, then dragged his feet, one in front of the other. Gradually, he picked up his pace, grateful that it was at least after dark.

Once out of the forest, he heard the swings from the playground—and they sure as hell weren’t swaying from the wind. Some weirdo was there, staring at the moon. Normally, Kai would have skipped around them, but it was difficult to go unseen in an open field. He really wasn’t in the mood for crawling, so he kept on his path without much concern. It was likely some dumb teenager. They’d be scared off soon enough.

The swinging came to a stop, and the person—a girl, he discovered—fixed her gaze on him. Her posture was rigid, and no sooner had he sensed her unease than she was dashing away like a frightened rabbit. Kai shrugged and continued on his way. He hadn’t seen her face, and he was sure she hadn’t seen his, either.

Only one road led into the downtown core of Black Hollow, but Kai knew the woods better than he knew the lines of his own face, and that opened up other options. Once he settled into his body, jumping wired fences and stalking through private property wasn’t even light exercise. The streets were empty, with only the occasional passing car warranting some evasion. For the most part, there wasn’t much to be wary of.

As Kai approached a local sports bar, the smell of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette smoke hit him in a dizzying wave. On a better night, he would’ve been inside, racking up a tab before betting it on a game he couldn’t lose.

But tonight, he wasn’t looking for cheap thrills. He was hunting for prey.

Up ahead, several men were gathered around a pickup truck under a flickering neon sign, laughing loudly and taking swigs of beer. A faint orange glow emanated from the bar’s greasy windows. Dark shapes danced across the pavement around the truck, distorted by the murky tapestry of thick, cracked glass. The light passed briefly over the men’s faces as people walked by inside, illuminating their features just long enough for Kai to discern which of them was the most intoxicated. He watched from the shadows as one split off from the herd and headed into an adjacent alleyway.

Slipping around the parked cars, Kai sneaked after the man into the narrow passage. It was darker there, well out of the shine of fluorescent lights. His target was standing by a garbage dumpster with his legs apart, rocking back and forth while holding his pecker in both hands. The scent of urine mingling with rotting trash wafted through the air. Kai wrinkled his nose in disgust. Couldn’t this asshole take a leak on something that didn’t already stink?

Soundlessly strolling up to the stranger, Kai reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. The man whirled around, yelping in surprise.

“What the hell?” He stumbled back as he looked Kai’s naked form up and down.

Kai grumbled and pointed at the man’s jeans. “I need those.” He took stock of the buffoon, still holding his dick for dear life. “Try not to soil them,” he added dryly, taking a step forward.

He grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off the ground in one smooth motion, feet dangling. Slamming him into the wall, Kai heard a hefty thwack as the man’s head hit the bricks, his brain rattling around inside his skull before shutting off. Kai released the dead weight—who was lucky to have a pulse—and watched him crumple to the ground with a thump. Crouching down, he checked every pocket, disappointed when he found only a measly twenty-dollar bill. It pissed him off. So much so, he felt his hand curling around the man’s throat without his say-so, his fingertips digging into the soft flesh around the jugular vein.

Hey there, monster.

Kai’s every muscle turned to stone. It was that thing again—the voice of his nemesis—egging him on as he held the fragile life of this moronic human between his fingers.

Do it. Tear his throat out with your teeth. Relish in the taste of his life on your tongue.

Kai snarled at the empty air, and had it not been for the frantic voices calling for their missing friend, he may very well have gone for the kill.

“Hey! Get away from him!” a large, lumbering man shouted as he closed in.

Kai straightened, not bothering to turn as the air moved behind him. He side-stepped to avoid the incoming swing, and his attacker tumbled forward onto his knees. Kai kicked him in the stomach, leaving him lurching before his two companions arrived at the scene.

Their drunken flails were clumsier than a toddler trying to catch a butterfly. Kai evaded each one before his counterattack hit them twice as hard—one in the jaw, the other in the kidneys. It was like playing pi?ata without the blindfold.

The alpha managed to find his feet again and pulled a hunting knife from a sheath clipped to his belt. He lunged at Kai, stabbing erratically. Backed into a wall, Kai blocked one of the blows that came down towards his shoulder. The blade nicked his forearm, but he pried it away with brute force. Turning the knife around, he drove it into the man’s side, then headbutted him in the face, revelling in the satisfying crunch of a fracturing nose. Blood gushed down the man’s face, and Kai shoved him away as he screamed, the sound vibrating painfully in his ears. He wanted to fold them shut, but his anatomy didn’t allow it, so he kicked his attacker in the head.

Kai sneered as the man crumpled to the pavement. “Goodnight, you glass-faced fuck.”

The other two were already scrambling away, abandoning their wounded friends. Kai watched them flee, and some part of him took pleasure in their terror. He flexed his fingers around the knife handle sticky with blood from his hands. Red trickled down his jaw, dripping from his chin onto his toes. He caught the droplets on the back of his hand, then sucked the blood off his thumb. A slow, wicked smile spread across his face at the sight of the retreating figures, his shoulders starting to shake as he tried to suppress the laugh rumbling in his chest.

You enjoy watching them run.

“They’re pathetic.”

That’s why you should have killed them.

“Not worth the bloodstains.”

You’re no hunter, the voice mocked. Just a coward who likes playing sadist.

“You taught me well, you whimpering bitch,” Kai growled back. “Now teach me how to get rid of you.”

Get rid of me? Raucous laughter thundered in Kai’s ears. There’ll be more blood before you earn your release.

As if Kai would spill blood for the monster’s entertainment.

Poor little Elle. Didn’t know the Big Bad Wolf lived under the willow.

“I know I didn’t do that.”

But do you remember?

No, he didn’t. Sometimes, Kai wondered if he was crazy, but he’d seen crazy and knew this wasn’t it. No, this was something else. This thing wasn’t part of who he was. It followed him, but it sure as hell wasn’t coming from inside him.

There had to be a way to break free of it.

Kai returned to his original target and stripped away his clothes. After throwing on jeans and a hooded jacket, he looted whatever money and valuables he could find on the two men left behind: a few bills, a wristwatch, and a Zippo lighter. He hung on to the knife, swiping the sheath from the leader’s belt. By the time he finished, the voice had quieted, leaving him in peace for the time being.

Kai quickly deserted the scene. Whipping the hood up and shoving his hands into his pockets, he strode out of the alleyway. His stomach growled. He slowed as he passed a local grocer, reaching out and testing the knob. It was locked. Normally, he didn’t have money when he went into stores. Now, he had money, but the stores were all closed.

“Fuck this.” He kicked the bottom of the door before addressing his stomach. “And you too, you goddamn black hole.”

He wondered what Alice would think if she was still around. Would she feel sad that he’d sunk to this? Ashamed, maybe?

Kai slumped his shoulders and sighed, trudging towards the forest from where he came. He reminded himself that Alice wouldn’t—or rather, couldn’t—care.

The dead had nothing to be concerned about.