Dead Inside: Book I

By Lilly Black

At seventeen, Elodie Bettencourt became obsessed with Kalle Lystad, the dark and disillusioned singer of a metal band. When he decided to check out, her life was never the same. After the death of her husband eight decades later, with access to illegal time travel technology and limitless scientific possibilities, she has returned to the 1990s with a young, new body, bloodthirsty fangs, and the power to remake the world in Kalle's image. Trigger warnings: Suicide & self-harm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lilly Black
• Release date: May 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005292041

Lilly Black

Lilly Black resides in the southeastern US with her late husband's cat, Evil, slowly and steadily descending into madness.

Book preview

Book I

by Lilly Black

© 2021 by Lilly Black

Cover Design by Lilly Black

Photos by: Аrtranq

www.lillyblackauthor.com

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition

Lilly Black's Books

Gods of Earth Series

Book I: The Deadfall

Book II: Shadow of Nevermore

Book III: Coming Soon

The Jaded Series*

Book I: A Jade's Trick

Book II: A Deeper Shade of Jade

Book III: Precious Jade

Book IV: Unjaded

Novella*

Sugar Magnolia

*These are not at all what you would expect after reading Dead Inside, especially the novella. It is straight up romance, nothing creepy or bloody at all. Sorry about that. I was going through a phase. The Jaded Series is a billionaire/BDSM trope. It's a little bloody and violent and involves a serial killer, but otherwise more like romance than whatever the hell genre Dead Inside would be considered. I had my reasons.

The characters contained herein are fictional. This story is in no way an account of the life, personality, or death of anyone who ever existed. Putting words in the mouth of a real person would seem saccharine and false, and writing sex scenes about a real person would feel wrong and twisted, only not in the way I like things that feel wrong and twisted, which brings me to the warning that this book contains graphic sex. So, enjoy that... or don't. Some of it is pretty fucking disturbing.

This book remains the sole copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial use.

Acknowledgements:

Dedicated to this world's beautiful monsters, dead or alive.

Trigger Warning: Self harm and suicide.

Book I

by Lilly Black

Chapter 1

I had just turned seventeen when my family spent a month driving around Europe in the spring of 1991. I was with my dad, my mom, and my cousin Syd, who they brought along so I wouldn't be bored out of my mind. I was still bored out of my mind most of the time, but there were highlights, like our first day in Germany.

I can't remember the exact date or even the town we were en route to visit, but we were between destinations when my dad pulled into a gas station. Near us, there was an old van filled with young guys with long hair, so of course they had mine and Syd's attention. We wanted to talk to them, but the opportunity didn't present itself as we loitered near the rental car, watching while they finished up and piled back into their vehicle. They left one door open, and one of them yelled something in broken English. It must have been directed at the last passenger to return from the station because a few seconds later, the most beautiful man I had ever seen came walking toward the van. He was tall and lean with long, blonde hair, and he had an endearingly shy smile as his eyes were chased away when they met mine. I smiled back, and he stole one last, quick look before getting into his vehicle.

We have to follow that van, I said excitedly, jumping into the backseat. My father sat behind the wheel after pumping our gas while my mother looked at the map.

Don't be silly, Elodie, he said. We have to get to the apartment before seven or we won't be able to get the key. I can't be chasing around a carload of boys for you.

But, dad, these are... What was I going to say? Really hot boys? I mean, some of them were, but it was more than that. I was drawn to the guy with the golden hair in a way my young mind would have been embarrassed to attempt to describe to my father. I sighed and sank back in my seat, disappointed as Syd got in clutching a piece of paper.

Does that look like him in the picture? she asked, and I stared at the flyer that she told me had fallen out of their van. It was hard to tell. The guy in the picture had paint all over his face, and it was just a black-and-white, photocopy of a snapshot. He was taller with fairer hair than the other four guys pictured, but I couldn't reconcile the bashful person I had just seen with the monstrous-looking metal musician on the flyer.

I'm not sure, I said as I handed it to my dad who spoke enough German to get by. What does it say?

It looks like there's going to be a concert tonight at... He trailed off, taking the map from my mother and carefully scrutinizing it.

Where? Where is it? Syd and I begged him.

We pass the venue en route to the apartment, but Elodie, I don't know if I want you going to this. It looks like it could get violent.

I'm sure it's just an act, Dad. You know how metal is, I said with an eye roll because I knew it was what I would be doing that evening. Whether the guy I was looking for was in the band or just with a group of friends going to see the show, this was where he was headed, so it was where I wanted to be, and as usual at that point in my life, I got my way.

We arrived at the venue late. Outside, it was cold as hell, and there was no one on the street as the doorman scrutinized our fake IDs, which made me nervous. Then he looked up and smiled.

You don't seem like the type to go to a show like this, he said.

I'm looking for someone, I explained.

Who? Maybe I can help.

I don't know his name, but I met him earlier today. He's tall - 6'3 or 6'4, long blonde hair, early twenties maybe...

The only guy I've seen that fits that description is the singer of tonight's band, he said, then he pointed to a copy of the flyer on the wall beside the door. Is this him?

I can't tell with all the makeup, I said.

Well, if it is, I don't think a nice girl like you wants to get involved with somebody as fucked up as this guy.

What's fucked up about him?

His band lives in the shadow of Dracula's castle in Romania where they say he sleeps all day in a coffin, and he's supposedly covered in scars from drinking his own blood.

Really? I asked, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. He had expected it to freak me out, but it only fascinated me, even if it was just hype.

Oh, yeah, he confirmed. The guy's fucking crazy. The music's good, though.

Cool, I said, and he told us to have fun as he opened the door.

Once inside, we had to stand in the back where we couldn't really see because everyone in front of us was taller, but being one of only a handful of females in the crowd, it wasn't hard for me to snake through, dragging Syd along behind me until we had a better view. As we slipped past all the boisterous young men, they stared at me as if I didn't belong, which was not unusual. It didn't happen at regular metal shows because the guys there were hoping to hook up with girls like me, but when the more hardcore bands were playing, this was the reception I had come to expect. Syd was never looked at that way because she was androgynous from her clothes to her behavior. She wore no makeup and could pass for one of the boys if she let her hair fall in her face while I stood out with my long, golden tresses and girl-next-door looks. Even in head to toe black with heavy eyeliner, I may as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign; I just didn't know exactly what it would say to these guys. Probably poser, and honestly, they would have been right. It kind of got on Syd's nerves because I was only willing to go to a hardcore show with her if one of the guys in the band was hot. But that night in Germany changed me. The entire crowd, their judgment, and my own superficiality just disappeared once I had a better line of sight to fully experience the man who stood center stage.

It was him.

I was utterly captivated. He wore white makeup over his already pale skin with black around his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks that made his face appear sunken and corpse-like. His clothes were all black with a long, thin coat that dragged the ground, and his deep, guttural vocals rattled as if his lungs were filled with the soil of the grave he crawled out of. Only his hair marked him as the man I had seen earlier, and even though he had been a heavenly vision in the light of day, now his overall look was no longer that of an angel but of something darker, creepier, deader.

If I had walked in here with no prior knowledge of him, I might have been unnerved by what I saw on that stage, but I wasn't repelled by it. I was attracted. I could see through him. I could see the shy smile behind the paint, and when he began mutilating his own body, I could see the sadness inside.

He pulled a knife out of his pocket, took off his coat, and stabbed himself repeatedly in the left shoulder area, spattering the men on the front row in blood. Standing on my toes to watch over their shoulders, a drop hit my cheek, and I felt my breath seize as I caught the singer's eyes for a brief, intense second.

That moment defined me.

I wanted to cry and die and scream and fuck and bathe in his blood. He'd uncovered a deep well of dark and mystifying emotions that had always existed beneath the surface of a perfect girl who had her lawyer father's future as a politician to consider. Before that moment, unremarkable metal music and a passive fascination with the occult had sustained me, but because of him and the music that had embraced and assaulted me that night, I would forever need more. I was obsessed.

Syd and I left the club right after the show, looking for him. Of course, I wanted to meet him, but moreover, I wanted to check on him. Some of his wounds seemed deep, and though my mother hadn't worked since marrying my father, she was a nurse. Plus, the apartment we were staying in had extra bedrooms, and experience had taught me that bands who traveled to play clubs often slept in their vehicles or found some random place to crash if they didn't drive back home the same night. This band came all the way from Romania.

Ready with an offer of medical attention and much nicer accommodations than they probably had, I called out when I saw him standing with the bassist in the street by their van. I didn't even know their names. He may have introduced the band members before we arrived, or maybe he never did. He wasn't a prolific talker on stage, but the band name had been on the backdrop, so I shouted it as we approached.

No, the bassist grunted, rudely waving us away. I stared only at the blonde man. He seemed really out of it.

I just wanted to offer... I tried to explain before I was cut off.

Are you fucking serious? the bassist barked impatiently. My friend is hurt!

Which is why... I began again, but this time Syd stopped me.

He thinks we're groupies trying to fuck his bleeding frontman, she whispered, and admittedly, if he turned out to be well enough after losing so much blood, I would have dropped my panties like they were on fire. Syd knew it, but she still had my back. She turned to them and yelled, Do I look like a fucking groupie to you? Her mom's a nurse, and...

Just fuck off, the bassist said, and as the singer stared blankly ahead, I wasn't sure if he was even coherent enough to understand what was going on around him. Maybe it was blood loss. Maybe he was drunk or high on something. Either way, I knew I had to give up. I was more concerned about his wounds than my own desires, and fearing that further interference on my part might delay him from seeking medical attention, we turned to walk away, almost crashing into one of the other guys from the band.

Your bass player is a dick, I said, and he grinned.

When we got back to the apartment, I told my mother about the stabbing because I had to know that the singer would be okay, and she assured me that if he was still standing and the bleeding had stopped, he would most likely survive.

He did, and though I was disappointed that I missed what I was certain was the only opportunity I would ever have to meet him, it was nothing compared to the disappointment I would feel a year later. I had become obsessed with the band because of the singer and learned all I could about him. He was Norwegian, but after moving from Bergen to Oslo to be a part of the black metal movement there, he left his band and joined a new one in Romania because even the guys in Oslo weren't dark enough for him. He was fucking perfect, and I got my hands on every photograph of, interview with, or article about him I could find, which wasn't easy in the early 1990s in the US. I collected underground copies of bad videos of concerts where I could barely even make him out in the darkness of the bars with the stage lights ruining the shots, and I ordered albums shipped from Romania that would take ages to arrive. Then just a year after I first saw him, that shy, strange, and beautiful man took his own life.

I was shattered. I didn't know him, but he had become symbolic of the darkness within me that always struggled to take the reins of my life. I mourned him as if I had lost a piece of myself when in fact, his death had only set that piece on the path to becoming the whole.

But that would take time.

I graduated high school and went off to college. My father was elected to our state legislature, and in order to appease him and keep his money covering my rent and tuition, I was forced to cultivate a more normal persona. The darkness was pushed deeper within as I settled into mediocrity. I joined a sorority, focused on academics, and graduated with honors. Then for my reward, my father found me a suitable husband to help advance his political career.

It was a huge fight that dragged on for days, and in the midst of it, I realized that the trip to Europe was the last time I had felt love for my father. He had changed. He wasn't my daddy anymore and never would be again. He had crawled in bed with a group of politicians who used religion as a weapon, and I didn't even recognize the man he had become. Now in the US Senate with his eyes on the presidency, I voted against him at every turn, but after listening to my mother beg and offer me a great deal of financial bribery and assurance that the marriage would be entirely for show with no expectation of consummation or reproduction, I ultimately agreed to the sham. It made me feel horrible, but I didn't know how to live without my father's money. I was still a child, unready to be cast out into the world on my own. Besides, after the only man who had ever sparked anything inside me checked out, I was low on hope that I would ever live the life I had once dreamt of.

My fiancé, David, was a disgusting man with whom I could barely stand to share a quick peck of a kiss at our wedding, and that was as close as his lips or hands would ever get to me. He was narcissistic, chauvinistic, and eighteen years my senior. To bring balance, years later when I would meet the man I was meant to marry, he would be eighteen years my junior, but that was a long way off in the 1990s.

There was only one upside to being married to a parasite who made my flesh crawl. He had deep pockets. He bought me a large New England estate, and though he had an office and a bedroom there, he was very seldom around, so when I didn't have to make myself presentable for a fundraiser or photo op, I dove headfirst back into the luxuries of my youth, spending my days dressed in black, listening to dark music, fucking whomever I pleased. No one knew what I was like in real life because David required all of the servants to sign non-disclosure agreements, which he lorded over them with terrifying speeches of ruining their entire futures if they told anyone our secrets, and our home wasn't a place where reporters were able to spy on us as we had vast acreage and only one way in without a helicopter - a single private road that crossed a bridge over a deep ravine.

One night while riding home in the back of my limousine, I saw a shirtless young man on that bridge. He was on the edge as if ready to jump, and as we approached, he tried to slip behind one of the girders to hide. But he was already caught. The metal music in the car was blasting, and when I opened the door to investigate, the sudden loud sound startled him. As he looked down at me, the sight of his long, fair hair and bloody forearm as illuminated by the headlights hit my eyes like a glorious dream from my past, instantly transporting me back to Germany when I was seventeen.

Were you planning to jump? I asked.

I still am, he said matter-of-factly.

You can't see them right now, but there are jagged rocks below. It's going to hurt like a motherfucker, I warned him.

I'm aware, he said.

Someone who meant a lot to me killed himself once, I said as I held out my hand. Give me a chance to talk you out of it. I promise if you still want to die when I'm finished with you, I'll bring you back here and push you off myself.

Intrigued, he accepted my hand, and as he jumped down, I could see writing in blood on the girder behind him. It contained my husband's name. Then several minutes later when he realized I was David's wife, he tried to open the door of the moving car.

I hate him more than you ever could, I assured him, and suddenly curious, he sat back in the seat, riding quietly alongside me until we reached my home.

His name was Micah Sawyer, and I set him up in my private suite, giving him the bed. I cleaned and dressed his wounds, I listened to why he was jumping off a bridge, and I commiserated with his reasons for choosing one connected to my husband. Micah wanted to die because he had lived a terribly unhappy life in his mere twenty-four years. He was homeschooled, sheltered, and led to believe that the world was a wicked, sinful place, then when he became an adult and went out into the world, he realized that the place he had come from was far more wicked and sinful. He tried to explain his thinking to his family, but he was met with an ultimatum. Conform or be shunned. He chose the latter because the former was impossible with the truths he had uncovered in the real world, and at twenty-two, his entire family and everyone he knew turned their backs on him.

Though he tried to make his way alone with friends he had made outside of his former community, the End is Nigh prophecy of his parents' cult had wired his brain to see impending doom everywhere. Even after he had begun to view the world from a different perspective, he was still terrified by the threats of global warming, mass shootings, and the direction our country was heading. America was at a crossroads, and my husband, David, was one of the horsemen who were on the verge of dragging us back to the Dark Ages if not stopped. Micah's abused brain couldn't see hope, and rather than live in a world run by people like his abusers, he chose to end it because the only alternative in his mind was to go on a vigilante rampage to rid the world of men like David. He chose a more noble path, and he planned to die on our bridge to call attention to David's special brand of false righteousness and dirty politics. Micah planned to write his message in blood, photograph it, put it on social media without any indication of where it happened, then wipe it away before he jumped like some sort of scavenger hunt for his body. It was a weird choice, but it had nothing to do with David specifically. If Micah lived in the south, it would have been another senator/boogeyman preying on the faith of the masses. David, as one of the few northeastern politicians of his ilk, just happened to be geographically convenient.

As my husband pursued his political agenda, much of his time spent away in DC, Micah stayed with me, and though he was much younger, his nihilistic, dark personality and mature understanding of the world made our age gap fade away. Soon, we were sharing my bed, both of us living happily outside of reality. It was beautiful, but I believed it would be finite as I expected him to grow tired of a 42-year-old lover sooner or later. Still, I couldn't help but hope that he would want to stay with me because I hadn't felt drawn to anyone so strongly since I was seventeen.

He did want to stay with me, and he wanted to be more than just my lover. Then three months after I met him, fate made that possible.

My husband and my father were in the back of a limousine after a fundraiser on a rainy night when a tractor trailer lost control on the interstate beside them. Everyone else in the car survived with only minor injuries, but David and my father did not. They might have if they'd been wearing their seatbelts like the chauffeur and the two prostitutes they had hired to entertain them, but as with any other law, they considered themselves above it. The accident left two seats open in the back of the limo and the US Senate. It also left me a very rich and happy widow.

A year later, in a small, private ceremony, I married Micah, who shared my love of things that thrived in shadows and were devoid of mainstream appeal. We lived in a fantasy world of our own creation in our mansion, and everything was perfect.

I no longer pined for the sweet sliver of hell that had become my personal god during the years I was held prisoner by the political aspirations of my father and husband. Life was dark and happy, and other than still listening to his music from time to time, I'd all but forgotten about my obsession with him until one day in a record shop when I came across a rare, original copy of a VHS tape his band's bassist had put out after his death. It was a video of his suicide with a low resolution picture of his corpse on the cover. I bought it because I had to possess it, but I could never bear to look directly at it or watch the video inside. I put it away with my other cherished memorabilia and wouldn't think about it for nearly six decades.

Chapter 2

I turned 99-years-old in the spring of 2073. I could have put that in a way that would have made me sound like the dreary, immortal vampire I'd always fancied myself, but in truth I owed it to science. I never expected to live to see 2050 and damn sure never expected to find myself on the eve of a century of life with indefinite decades ahead, but over the past twenty years, things had changed dramatically on Earth. We had wiped out poverty, hunger, and disease. Global warming and melting polar ice caps were concerns of the past. Time travel technology was invented. Scientists had reversed the aging process and were able to heal nearly every injury and illness through nanotechnology in the form of tiny robots called nanites that lived, reproduced, and died inside our bodies. Of course, I was in my 70s when science found the fountain of youth, so while it did turn back the clock a bit, I still had some wrinkles and lines, but I could pass for my 40s in the right light. Micah opted not to reverse the aging when it came to his appearance, instead having the process stopped where he was, and for the first time, we looked like we actually belonged together.

These would have all been wonderful things. They were wonderful things up until four months before my 99th birthday. While modern medical science kept us young and allowed us to live well beyond our natural expiration dates, there was still nothing that could be done once brain death occurred. That was how it happened with the love of my life. It was a BASE jumping accident that nearly severed his head and stopped his heart, and even though the swarm of nanites in his system immediately went to work repairing the damage, it was far too extensive. By the time medical personnel arrived to revive him, it had been too long for his brain to fully recover, and I had to allow them to honor his DNR.

As his spouse, I could have overridden his wishes, but it was futile to keep him alive as the part that made Micah Micah was gone. I