Title: Girl of Prey
Setting: College [AU: College, as requested by the prompter on LiveJournal.]
Genre: Horror/Psychological/Thriller
Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura
Rating: T - for Psycho!Sasuke
Summary: Sakura's head swam with a vertigo, unexplainable. "Good. You're awake now." Quiet and still - where was she now? Sasuke's fingers, tugging her chin up to meet his eyes, lightless. Oh God, oh God. (Shining with triumph, of capture.)
Notes: originally for the Scream Meme on LiveJournal. Please review! I'm obsessed with reviews I admit. [BTW, I don't own.]
"Even so, I must admire your skill. You are so gracefully insane."
- Anne Sexton
:::
::..Girl of Prey..::
She wanted, oh so desperately, to be a Kappa girl.
Sakura had for so long, how long has it been? - longed to slip inside that huge, looming mansion situated on campus and become one of them, an honor fraternity girl, a poised and intellectual girl. Konoha Kappa Phi house, reserved for the best.
And it's driving you mad because you're smart and pretty enough now, you want to be one of them, that's all...
Undergrad life had been very harsh to Sakura, paper after paper, re-writing and staring at the clock mournfully, You have to pass to get your degree! And this house seemed to beckon her with a happiness she wanted that all the girls in it possessed.
That's when she noticed him walking through compacted snow that covered the pathways to the massive mansion.
Sakura hesitated - then called out to him, her voice wavering at first:
"Hey!...Is this house going to rush?" Sakura forced the words to come because his face was ivory, a stark contrast to eyes deep grey, dark with intelligence and something else, he seemed hardly real. So this was the Kappa house!
He spoke. "Maybe in Spring."
And Sakura almost felt herself fall into love - but would not, she resolved, at 'first sight', she knew as she continued her walk to the dormitory and the boy walked to the Kappa house, because there was hardly enough room in her heart anyway.
::::::
The longings and the wonderings kept Sakura from waiting.
She applied lipstick called 'Cunning' and put on a delightful party dress, wine red, and those calf-length boots that made her feel lusted after, sleek black.
Sakura was going to go to the party.
The party, heard of around the entire campus, whispered about in the back rows of the lecture hall, amongst other Greeks, it was going to be one hell of a party. Sakura wanted to go only when she heard the name of the place - Konoha Kappa Phi, the one girl informed the other, a party tonight at KK Phi...
She tugged on her jacket. Sakura's heart fluttered - she wasn't 'Greek' yet, hadn't even pledged yet - but she needed to see the inside of the enticing place that she would one day call home!
::::::
Inside everything exploded with noise and a volume that wracked everyone to the marrow of their bones.
It was absolutely terrible that the housekeeper being gone for one night, resulted in something forbidden such as this wasn't it?
Sakura walked through the crowd - people everywhere, dancing and touching and some too close and others staggering already drunk only by 10 PM - as she protectively guarded herself against the sloshing tequila in plastic cups, because she really loved this dress (dry-clean only).
Her heart was racing, exhilarated - her first Greek party! But then, Sakura thought nervously as she surveyed the large sitting room of the fraternity house, what could she say if someone asked where she pledged? She did not pledge here, not yet, she'd say, she was going to get in during the Rush but spring was too far off, she only wanted to see if she liked it here first.
But yes, Sakura was already falling in love with the huge wood burning fire place, as the Greeks stood sipping wine around it; and even at this party they were all wearing some kind of pin, a Greek pin, glowing in the fire-light. The plush carpeting, elegant portraits on the wall, a winding staircase that belonged in a book! It was beyond her imagination, it was worth coming for -
"I know you."
She jumped and turned only to see the boy with dark grey eyes - the Kappa boy whom she'd only spoken to just two weeks earlier...
Sakura smiled - she would feel sexy because she needed to be just as witty and 'cute' as the Konoha Kappas girls were, she could be, she was -
"Yes, you do," she spoke softly in the dim glow, as the bass pulsed in the other room and the party continued on, reckless.
His name, he told her, was Sasuke, as he led her to find someplace quieter where the music wouldn't resound into their hearts. She took his hand because it was what all girls did; innocent unlike the boys, they liked to hold hands.
Sasuke opened a door and quickly she slipped inside; he glanced around to see if anyone was looking. No. They were completely alone.
Every wall had a bookshelf against it. The sofa in the corner was blue and a desk in the center of the room was antique. A special room. "What's this room?" Sakura asked him.
"The housekeeper's office." Spoken like he went in all the time.
Sasuke took out two glasses from the second desk drawer as she looked on in slight confusion (poor little girl, still naive!)
"Would you like a drink?" Sasuke asked, and smiling - it was the first time Sakura saw him smile, despite her denial it made her heart turn, an aristocratic slight half-smile that could make any girl's heart turn - he opened the bottom drawer and took out a liquor bottle.
Sakura looked anxious, since he knew she wasn't a Kappa yet, was this OK? But he hadn't said to leave - "come with me", he'd said. He'd picked her.
"So...the housekeeper is a drunk?" Sakura asked with a coy little smile, a raised brow, playful.
"Just an occasionally drinker, we think." He gave her the glass and she sipped. The drink pooled in her stomach with a familiar warmth, and Sakura - she kissed him on the cheek because it felt right.
Then she turned red with shame - what had she been thinking? - so apologetic. "Sorry, sorry!...I don't usually kiss strangers it's just -" I'm fascinated, you're handsome, the ideal Konoha Kappa Phi, you could help me rush -
"We aren't strangers, though," Sasuke said, and his eyes were once more dark, endlessly dark. "Are we?" The back of his hand against her face. Sakura shivered, her teeth clinking against the glass as she nodded, as she drank. Because it was a winter night, only 37 degrees, and it was so cold.
::::::
Could she recall the time, passing out so drunk and being taken and strapped to the hospital bed, and the vacuum snake slithered down her throat?
It had been a high school party. Ino - her friend before college and never spoken to after that, when had they decided to no longer speak? - told her it was 'a little spiked' but Sakura drank it regardless -
Kissing Naruto on the mouth after the fifth cup, laughing at his odd blurry expression and it was all so funny!- then everything was dull and edgeless like an old unsharpened knife, in the frigid dark.
The arm of the sofa as she's pressed down, hard against her neck, her head - then, it's black.
Never drink again, don't do this again! her mother pleaded in the hospital room and Sakura was hardly half-conscious but she promised, Never again will I do this I swear.
He's going to take her off somewhere.
And her father had been so angry, his eyes sharp while asking her Why? She'd thought about it and she knew- I only wanted to run away for one night, from everything, just this once.
The door clicks shut as he leads her out to the car and nobody sees.
Just some drunk, being taken home.
::::::
A light; then heat too close to her skin. Wake up, she heard, Wake up, it's time to WAKE UP.
The bile, rising quick in her throat, Jesus she was going to be sick all over her nice new dress! But Sakura's heart was beating too fast, too fast to care much...tachycardia, you're heart might just burst.
Fragmented, the images returned to her. Sasuke's eyes so dark as they bore into hers, Sasuke kissing her and it felt nice - Sasuke pushing her down on the arm chair, trying to push Sasuke off; this boy, Sasuke, she'd talked to in the snow -
Sakura looked up, and her head swam with a vertigo unexplainable; she was too dizzy.
"Good. You're awake now." Quiet and still - where was she now? A ticking timer, tickticktick, in her ears, imaginary or real?
His fingers - Sasuke's fingers digging into her flesh -
- tugging her chin up to meet his eyes, lightless.
Oh God, oh God.
(Shining with triumph of capture.)
Malevolent. Sakura had learned in school: POS; adjective. Definition; Appearing to wish evil to others! Sasuke's eyes, pitch dark and MALEVOLENT.
Her skin tingled in panic! The world was still somewhat blurred from the drink, a sick Wonderland. Because he knocked you out, hit your head, everything lost after...
When her eyes met his her body shook. Wanting to cry out as Sasuke got closer still - it was so cramped here. It was a car, Sakura realized - and her heart sank. Arms pressing her down against those seats. The lighter flickering close to her forearm - a sheer glow from its artificial heat.
"Why were you asleep? Am I that boring?" Evil's hands were touching her with a contrived gentleness - Sakura's eyes straining as she screamed, a bloody sound smothered -
As Sasuke pressed the lighter to her skin, and she screamed from the depths of her heart, her chest ached from going concave with every scream!
Hurts, it hurts I'm on fire-
As the glow ate at her skin and an almost tangible pain engulfed her.
After eternity, it flickered out.
"I had to do that. But I'm tired of this." The gag was removed. Sakura opened her mouth - but a hand clamped over it, hard.
"Don't." Velvet voice, voice of the devil, the devil becomes him.
"Be good." Sasuke touching the burn, so painful she sobbed.
"You liked it when we kissed, isn't that correct, SAKURA?" Her name was ghastly when he spoke it.
Then he took out the pocketknife and Sakura's mind nearly broke because she'd walked into her own death, only to be a Kappa! "Don't scream," he said, removing his hand, tracing the blade's tip on her neck. Then the knife was clicked shut in his palm. (Threatening her.) Silence, shaky silence, as her eyes focused only on the back window, as she avoided his gaze.
"I'm depressed," Sasuke said. "Did you know?"
Sakura knew this was her salvation: to pretend. So she shook her head, No I didn't, I will pretend to feel pity if it will save me.
"I'm sure you did," Sasuke said against her mouth, and the visible outcome made tears come: he would rape her, Sakura was certain, it made her sob. Sasuke kissed her, because since they'd met she'd been on his mind. Because he'd been restless, the timing too right...
"You're rare," Sasuke told her. "I don't usually like girls like you." Tugging the roots of her hair. "So shut up and stop crying."
She felt her head press against hard plastic of the door, the handle was so close, Sakura needed to reach. And then it struck her like an arrow to the heart, but one of hope! The bad job he did of tying her bonds when she was in stupor - as she moved her hands, she felt they were loose.
Sakura's lips trembled, because she knew that her act was her salvation.
"I, I, I'm s-sorry, you're-" she squirmed, Sasuke's eyes widened as hovered above her, his eyes were so wide searching her.
"You're lonely," she spoke honey-sweet. "And...and sad," Her own voice so foreign to her, still a little slurred, as she feigned the sexual interest she knew any man would like, pulling her wrists apart but he couldn't see. Those deep (insane) depths searching as she continued, rubbed her leg between his: "But you don't have to be, I like you too," trying to smile, be the Kappa Phi girl again, a girl they'll crave -
As Sasuke leaned in and Sakura pulled her wrists apart, still acting as if she felt the same desperate need while that horrible mouth was on her neck tainting her break FREE -
And she shoved him back with all of her weight, all 115 pounds, FREE! She threw a foot into his gut and he groaned. Hands fumbling for the lock, it wouldn't unlockcomeoncomeon! Shaking with adrenaline, time was running out!
Screaming! Shrieking when he grabbed the other shoe, kicking - Unlocked now, it's unlocked go out out OUT.
And Sakura was out. Her shouts so loud with life! As she ran faster than she'd ever had to the house thumping with life in the short distance - running to go back home and repeat the promise, Never will I do this again I swear. On that small snowy night of the party, heard about all around the campus.
:::End:::
[End note: reviews are much appreciated! I want to know what you think...I love horror and I really need to start writing it more often. Does that happen to anyone else? Really loving a genre, like horror or romance for example, and not writing it enough? Sometimes it happens to me.]