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Chances were I wouldn’t need it anymore. Not with a rent-free roof over my head and three square meals a day provided by my aunt’s tuition payment, but if I couldn’t do what she expected, I’d wind up right back where she found me on the streets of Lennox. Not fucking happening. I’d die before I went back to that shithole.
I set my blades right outside the door to the shower and stepped inside, hoping I wouldn’t need a manual to work the thing. I jammed a few buttons, cursing when nothing happened.
“Come on,” I groused, hitting the up arrow to increase the heat. “Let me simmer in my hell water you stupid fucking—”
I gasped as water sprayed from not one but five different places. Cool at first, but growing in temp until my skin flushed red. Just how I liked it.
I rushed to the bathroom,the sound of sirens in the distance getting closer by the second. My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out all other sound as I crashed through the door, hands scrambling to turn on the rusted faucets, smearing them with blood.
“Come on,” I urged, as though by sheer force of will I could make the plumbing in our tiny trailer cooperate just this once.“Come on!”
My entire body trembled as the first flickers of red and blue lights swept into the trailer.
No.
If I could just get it off, they wouldn’t know. I just had to get it off.
I scrubbed at my hands until they were raw, ripping the tips of my nails off when I couldn’t get the blood out from beneath them and prodding them down the drain.
Fists pounded on the front door. If they hit it any harder it would collapse and they would come inside. They would find me. They would see what I’d done.
Hot tears pricked at my eyes as I shut off the faucet, ready to strip the crimson-soaked t-shirt off next, but not knowing where I could possibly hide it in the closet-sized bathroom.
The pounding began again, and I heard a muffled groan from next to the bathroom that could only be Mom waking up.
“Get fucked!” she slurred in a drugged stupor, groaning. Something shattered in the room as the mattress springs groaned beneath her. “Now look what you made me do!”
I turned off the taps and whirled, vision blurring at the edges enough that I had to slap myself back into the present. But something sticky and wet was left behind on my cheek, and I knew what would come next. I knew because it was what happened every time. A hopelessness filled my bones, weighing them down, and I sank heavily to my knees.
My hands were coated in his blood again, and I let them rest against my dirt-streaked jeans, giving in to the nightmare. I couldn’t beat it; I’d tried so many times before. It didn’t matter if I washed it away again, it would come back as if I never even fucking tried.
I clenched my shaking hands to fists and set my jaw, waiting for the officers to come and take me away like they always did. But I wasn’t shaking because I felt guilty. My breaths weren’t coming short and sharp because I regretted what I’d done.
No.
It’d been a rush unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and I wasn’t sorry. As the darkness had finally taken over, pouring strength into my adrenaline-addled muscles and malice into my mind, I’d smiled. The bastard deserved it.
I’d do it again.And again.
I only feared what kind of monster that made me. I only feared a life in a cage.
I awoke with a startled gasp, my chest covered in icy sweat as I heaved to get air into my lungs. No matter how deeply I breathed, it was like there would never be enough air to blow away the shadows clinging to my bones.
“Fuck,” I muttered, throwing back the covers and rising on shaky legs to strip the bed, tossing the damp sheets and pillowcases into the wash basket. The more I moved, the more the fluttering beneath my ribcage came under control. But only once I pulled on a pair of joggers and a loose hoodie, sliding my sneakers onto my sleep-numbed feet and my earbuds into my ears did I truly feel a sense of calm.
I hesitated before grabbing my blade, hand trembling before I came to my senses and snatched it up, tucking it into my pocket and keeping my fist curled around it.
It didn’t matter that it was barely dawn, or that it was cold as all hell as I crept through the room, down the still-vacant halls, and out into the early morning.
My breaths came easier as fresh air finally filled my lungs. I did a quick stretch before taking off toward the back of the old building, thumbing my phone until the haunting tones of Ruelle poured into my ears, singing to me of a game of survival.
A game I would win because I couldn’t afford to lose.
I sang along, setting a brisk pace, relieved when I found a trailhead beyond the manicured field and gardens at the rear of Briar Hall. The trees welcomed me into their shaded embrace, and I breathed in the heady scent of petrichor, finding a sense of calm I hadn’t had in days.
Had it really only been that?
Days?
