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I sit and watch them. They might be sleeping, they are so still. For a little while, I run through the different ways I could kill them. How fast I could be, how slow. Imagining them screaming helps cool the hot need, but it doesn’t soothe in entirely.
I shouldn’t be thinking of killing my friends. It’s Under getting in my head and trying to twist me further. Like I haven’t paid enough for the sins I can’t even remember, assuming there were sins to pay for in the first place. And I’m no longer sure there were.
Not now I have met Julie.
I have heard her talking to the other two. I have seen the way she behaves.
Perhaps Joe did kill his father, but it seems like the man deserved it. Michael’s terrible crime was to go to a party and do something that he wanted.
None of this makes any sense, except that they believed they were horrible people. So maybe I did too. If I wasn’t a horrible person before, I am now.
Although I’m not a person anymore.
For once, I wish I could sleep. Sleep to pass the time and to stop my thoughts from chasing around my head. For how many nights have I sat up thinking of ways to kill them, while at the same time wishing that I could lie next to them?
Julie stirs and rolls over, turning away from Michael to face Joe. She seems to feel affection for both. Does she see through their fearsome exterior? Or does she not care?
For a heartbeat—or longer since I can’t actually feel mine beat, though I assume it does—I am disgusted that such a soft and delicate human would let two monsters fuck her the way they did. The need to kill is replaced by the much bitterer jealousy. It scrapes my insides raw. I want to be the one fucking her, making her moan out of pleasure, not pain. I want to feel her hands on my body. Her lips on mine.
Instead of spending the night thinking of blood and death, I think about what it might feel like to touch her and not make her bleed. I replay the memory of Joe fucking her this morning, but this time I imagine it’s me beneath her.
My blood heats in a way that hurts. But I want the pain, I want to feel. And I want a body to feel with.
By the time the sky lightens I am wound tight, though not with blood lust. I almost enjoy the change. Though I know it hasn’t changed me. No, someone needs to touch me for that to happen. I need to sate this hunger.
11
Julie
Someone is shaking me, forcing me to wake. I don’t want to leave my dream because I know I’m safe there. Cookies are baking, and almost ready. There’s a fire going, and I can smell hot chocolate. I must be at Gran’s.
“Julie, wake up.”
I must have nodded off at the kitchen table. I jerk awake. Only to find that there are no cookies and no hot chocolate.
There’s not even a kitchen.
I’m still in Under.
Homesickness grabs me around the throat, and I can’t breathe as the memories flood back. I bite back a groan as I force myself to sit up. My back aches from sleeping on the ground. I would kill for a bed.
Literally kill.
The ferocity of the thought catches me off guard, but the need to spill blood is like a hunger. One I will not feed.
Joe offers me a handful of weeds. “You need to eat.”
I open my mouth but stop short of attempting to say thank you. I give him a smile instead and take a bite. They are not cookies. Did he stay up half the night thinking about what was in the notebook and looking for weeds for me to eat?
“Theo scouted around to make sure we are alone and found them. I don’t think he slept.”
I lift an eyebrow at Joe. Did he sleep?
“A little.” He runs a knuckle up my cheek, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “I spoke to him some and then I thought about a lot of things as I lay near you. I watched Michael a bit and wondered what we were both like back when we met.”
I put my hand over his. It doesn’t matter what they were like, it matters who they can be. Who I can be. This place wants to shape us, and we can’t let it. We must carve our own path and if that means doing the opposite to what is expected, then so be it. I lean in and kiss him.
But he leans back.
