Right now, I can't help but think-
Once, I had a nightmare- More than once, but that time I was dreaming about my parents. The night God chose me-
I had a fever again, and I woke up crying, trying to get the blood off my hands. All I could do, but it was still there in the dark, burning red on my hands. He heard me... It stopped, when I realized he was there. He held me until I stopped crying, made sure the blood was gone, and he just lay there with me, holding me until I went back to sleep.
I'm holding him the way he was holding me, that night. I'm holding Tiki, and I can't... This time, I don't want the blood off my hands. I'll hold him until he wakes up. I'll wash my hands with this blood- The blood of the ones who did this to him. Blood? Oh... Tiki's blood, on my hand. Red on white, so hot. Move, Tiki, move for me- Do something? Don't move. Don't fucking move, you've played my game badly, Allen-
Rhode, Rhode, took an axe,
and gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one.
Once, there was a girl who lived in a perfect house, with the perfect parents, and a perfect murder. I don't like heavy dresses, I don't like going to school. She's not my mother, and I hate you both. Getting sick, and dying one night, because you can't wake up with that much blood on your shift and not be dead, of course. I was once a ghost, and I saw the deaths of my parents before they happened. I saw them, and I did what God told me to. I am the Child of God- We are the Chosen Ones.
You don't play games with the family.
Once, Tiki told me something. I thought it was funny at the time, I laughed and crawled on his shoulders to play with his hair while he was talking.
"I love humans, and I kill what I love."
"Don't you love me, Tiki?" I was braiding his hair, the strands straining in my fingers as I pulled those few strands together into thin ropes.
"There's a difference between them- The kinds of love, I mean." He had let a breath of smoke drift upward, a ghost without a soul that floated upward. "I love humans for the way they are... I love you because of who you are."
My face had fallen, I guess- He had looked up, smiling a bit sheepishly the way he always did when he'd said something and I'd taken it the wrong way.
"Not just because you're a Noah. Because you're Rhode. A silly little girl, who doesn't do her homework and stays up all night to play with her toys."
"It's weird to kill what you love."
Tiki laughed when I said that- I like it when Tiki laughs. He pulled me down from where I had perches on his shoulders, poking me in the side where he knows I always squeak and jump away. "You're lucky I don't kill what teases me."
"Even if you are weird, I love you because you're Tiki..."
"Don't move." I feel it coming on again, the touch of red to my vision, a pounding in my chest as I pull Tiki close to my heart and run my fingers through his curly, sweat-dampened hair.
Kill what you love... I want to kill him now, Tiki- so badly, Tiki, and I'll kill him from the inside for you. I'll kill what he loves for you. If you wake up now, I'll take it back- I'll give you a kiss, because you deserve it more than he ever did.
"I'm not myself, and one of you must pay... "
I'm never going to kiss you again, Allen.