Avidity

John needed to tear himself away from her mouth long enough to get the knife he kept hidden, but something kept him at bay. A feeling rippled through his body and it took all he had to focus on it.

Anger made him dizzy. He pulled away from Eden, and slammed her harder into the wall, then pinned her arms above her head. Everything about the way she looked at him now had changed.

She was afraid.

He almost smiled.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly. "That hurts."

His mouth turned up slightly as he leaned over and brushed her lips with his ear. "I'm ending this." He tightened his grip on her wrists so much that she cried out.

"What's wrong with you?" Eden shouted.

"Your existence is what's wrong with me," John hissed. "When I first saw you, I knew I had to have you. That I had to take you. It's all that I think about. It's all that I want - to cut you open and watch you fucking bleed, to watch you stop moving."

Eden's eyes filled with tears and she tried to twist out of his grasp. When he slammed her head into the wall, she saw stars. She blinked, and John had released her. But she didn't dare move. Fear held her, and she watched as John pulled something from his pocket.

"That's why the police haven't contacted me - because you're the one who killed Daniel," she whispered.

He threw the phone down and smiled, then advanced on her. "I killed him for you."

She attempted to kick him, but he stilled her body with his.

"Don't do that," he told her. "If you keep trying to hurt me, I'm going to break your arm."

John gripped her by the hair, and with a knee to the gut, Eden dropped to the floor.