She pressed the paper towel against her skin to stop the bleeding. It burned badly but that was the whole point. She could handle the outer pain way better than the inner pain. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to make the pain inside go away.
They were fighting again. It seemed to be all they were doing these days. They seemed to forget her in all this and still she was the center of it all. They were fighting because of her but they didn't actually include her or sit down and talk about it like she wanted to.
"If you want her so fucking bad, then take her!" Seth's angry voice reached her.
He was always the most hotheaded one of the three. There was a time where she believed he didn't actually mean it when he lost it like that. She wasn't so sure anymore. The fights had started around a month ago, slowly increasing in volume and intensity.
A week in, three weeks ago, they stopped sleeping in her room or asking her to sleep in their rooms. That was when she started doing it again. The cutting, the self harm, turning the inner pain to an outer one. A pain she could control. They hadn't noticed. They didn't really look at her anymore. They still had sex for the next two weeks but no sleeping together through the nights. A week ago they even stopped coming into her room all together.
"You think you're so fucking smart, don't you?" Dean shouted.
She removed the bloody paper towel and placed it on the nightstand next to the razorblade. There was a time where she kept her razorblades hidden far away from them but there was no reason to anymore. They didn't go into her room anymore. She pulled down the long sleeve to cover up her crime and left her room. Her feet moved silently down the hallway towards the livingroom and their angry voices.
"Just shut the fuck up! Both of you!" Roman shouted.
She stopped in the open doorway and looked at them. They were still the same men, her guys, the ones she loved, yet everything had changed over the past month and she didn't like it one bit.
"What are you doing in here?" Seth asked.
"I don't like it when you fight," she said lowly.
She fiddled with her sleeve, making sure it wouldn't accidently move up and reveal her dark secret. It was in the past, or at least so they thought. They didn't know she had started doing it again and she didn't want them to know.
"Go to bed, Megan. Nothing's going on," Roman said.
Typical him to try and bury the truth and smoothen out things but she couldn't ignore it like he wanted her to. Her family was being blown to pieces.
"I love you," she said lowly.
She craved to hear it back, at least just from one of them. She looked at Dean briefly but as always he remained silent when she entered a heated situation. She wasn't sure if it was because he didn't want her to know anything or because he knew he would hurt her if he opened his mouth and spoke what was on his mind.
"Just go to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning," Roman said.
She nodded and turned around. No one was saying it back. They didn't love her anymore. She had suspected it with all the fighting but it wasn't until that moment she knew for sure. Her family was dying and it was her fault. She was the one killing them.
She walked into her room, put on her boots and zipped them. She grabbed her car keys, phone and the razorblade from the nightstand. Silently she walked down the hallway again, in the other direction this time, and exited the front door. The cold air hit her immetiately and bit into her bare thighs. She had only been wearing a pair of boy shorts along with the long sleeved blouse since she had been planning on going to sleep.
"When did she start sleeping in long sleeves?" Dean asked after a few moments of silence.
Roman and Seth looked at him. As soon as he put the words out there, they were all thinking the same.
"Do you think she started cutting herself again?" Roman asked.
"Fuck!" Seth shouted. "Megan!"
They all ran to her room, only to find it empty. Dean walked over to the nightstand and picked up the bloody paper towel.
"This is our fault," he said.
"Where did she go?" Roman asked.
They heard her car start and they all ran outside but she had already driven away before they made it.
"Get the car keys!" Roman pointed at Seth.
Her phone was on silent but the light from it lit up the car when someone tried calling. She reached over to the passenger side to flip it upside down without looking who it was.
"Come on, baby girl, pick up!" Roman felt uneasy. "Damn it! She's not picking up."
"This is out fault. With all our fighting, we drove her away," Dean said. "When is the last time any of us actually slept with her?"
"Weeks ago," Seth said.
"And the last time any of us saw her naked and didn't just fuck her with the lights off or half her clothes still on? When I think about it, she's been wearing long sleeves everyday for a while," Dean said.
"Fuck!" Roman growled. "I don't remember. Maybe a month ago."
"Around the same time we started butting heads," Seth said.
"If only she knew we're fighting because we love her so much. Not because we don't love her anymore," Roman said.
"We've been idiots. Why the fuck did we think only one of us should have her? She loves us all and we fucking drove her away," Dean said.
"We'll find her," Seth blew out his breath loudly. "We have to and we will. We know all her favourite spots where she likes to go to be alone."
She parked the car and picked up her phone. Missed calls from Roman just as expected. Again he was the one trying to smooth out everything. He couldn't fix it. Not this time. She was hurting them and she didn't wanna see them fall apart because of her. She typed in a short message and sent it to all three of them before putting her phone back down on the passenger seat and leaving the car. She walked on the dirt trail, hearing the water from the lake on her left. The sound of the water calmed her down, took her in, embraced her, told her it was alright. She was doing the right thing.
They had driven to the beach first, knowing she liked being close to water, but there was no sign of her there. Just as they got back in the car, all three of their phones went off. They all stared at the four words she had sent to them.
"I'm setting you free."
For a few seconds everything was dead quiet around them while they turned that around in their head.
"Fuck, no!" Seth growled.
He stepped on the gas and sped out of there.
"She doesn't get to leave us! She's our girl!" He continued.
"The old campground!" Roman shouted. "I bet she's there."
"It would make sense. She knows we'll check all her normal hideouts first and she rarely goes there," Dean said.
"And there is a lake. You know how she is with water," Roman added.
Seth drove as fast as he dared and soon the broken down sign for the campground appeared along with her parked car. A unison of sighs of relief could be heard in the car.
"She's here," Roman said.
They walked to her car and Dean picked up her phone from the passenger seat.
"She clearly doesn't want us to get in touch with her," he said.
"She's not getting a choice," Seth gritted his teeth. "She's coming home. I don't care if we have to drag her kicking and screaming."
They walked on the same dirt trail, hearing the water on their left as they walked towards the old cabins. It was dark out there at night so the light from one of the cabins shone through brightly.
"Guess they didn't cut the electricity out here yet," Dean said.
"Cabin number 13. Always her favourite number," Roman chuckled.
They ran towards the cabin, opened the door and barged inside. Seth dropped to his knees in the open door while Roman ran to her lifeless body lying on one of the beds. The razorblade was on the floor and the dusty sheet had a giant bloodstain from where she had let her open vein dry her out.
"No! Wake up, baby girl!" Roman shouted.
He fell to his knees in front of the bed. He pulled her into his arms and dragged her out on the floor, crying and begging, even demanding for her to open her eyes and look at him.
Seth still sat there in shock, just watching Roman trying to get her to wake up. Next to him Dean started howling in pain while destroying everything he could get his hands on. The empty bunk bed next to him soon laid in several pieces before he too dropped to his knees like his two brothers.
"Wake her up, Roman," he begged. "Please."
"I can't," Roman cried.
"Roman," Seth whispered.
"I can't!" Roman yelled and buried his head in her hair. "Come on, baby girl, you gotta wake up. Wake the fuck up! Please! Don't leave us like this."