Admittedly, this is also a delay tactic while I suffer from writer's block. I know exactly what I want to write about, but the words have completely abandoned me. This way, I can still make progress on Nevermore, even without writing anything new. It's frustrating, though, since I'm getting into the action chapters and I've been looking forward to writing them for a while. Of course my brain betrays me.
Finally, figlitchat and yalitchat on Twitter had their weekly chats tonight - figlitchat talked about chemistry between characters while yalitchat discussed torture of characters - which inspired me to share a section of my draft. It's rough, but I like it.
That did it. I don’t know why, but it did. I lunged at him, my fingers bent to form claws, aimed at his eyes. I had the satisfaction of feeling his blood gush under my nails before his hands wrapped around my wrists, bending them back until I was sure they would break. Under the blood, he was smiling. He backhanded me across my room and I landed on my bed hard. I got back up quickly, but he was already there, standing over me. I lashed out at him, filled with the same fear and rage I’d felt the first time I had run afoul of the Maulers. He staggered back, his smile gone. A fountain of blood gushed from three long gashes across his stomach; they stopped and healed almost immediately, as had the wounds my nails had made in his face.
I was ready to strike again, confident now that I’d found – for the moment, at least – a source of power. But he was faster than me, and stronger than me, and in an instant I was flat against the mattress, my arms pinioned above my head, his hand wrapped around my neck.
His lips were curved in that horrible, infuriating smirk. Fighting against the growing pressure of his hand, I pushed up to press my mouth to his. And for a second, before I was lost in the hate and the pleasure, I saw his eyes flash in triumph. We rolled together over my bed, while my sheets still smelled like the skin and blood, the life and death of another man.
