Southern Hospitality
09
Unearthed
It was hours before the pain faded enough as to allow him to sit up and get to his feet.
Behind him, Chloe had changed into a tank top and sweats, wide-eyed with damp hair dripping a trail down her back. "Wh-what—"
"Panic attack," he whispered, studying his sallow face in the mirror. Blood had dried and flaked on his lip and chin and he closed his eyes, exhausted. He looked like hell.
"P-panic a-at-tack?" Chloe echoed, twisting her hair at the base of her neck and securing it in a bun, wisps escaping and sticking to her damp skin. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, pale skin and pale eyes.
Derek pulled away from the sink to crumble to the floor. His lip was throbbing now and he touched it tentatively, hissing. Ignoring her, he opened the linen closet and pulled out a clean washcloth. "It's…I've had them for years," he admitted quietly, running the water. His hair was damp and his face pallor, more so than usual. He looked sickly, with dark bags under his eyes and his bloodstained lips.
"I've never seen a-a panic attack like that," she was saying somewhere behind him as he wrung out the excess water and gently began to rub the blood off.
He winced with each pass of fabric on his cut but clenched his jaw when he saw Chloe looking through a first aid kit, sitting crossed legged on the toilet seat.
"You've never seen a guy like me before," he muttered.
Her eyes stopped looking but her hands kept moving, shifting and redistributing supplies. "I haven't," she murmured in reply, her eyes rising to meet his in the reflection. She looked so determined that he faltered.
"But that doesn't mean you can't trust me. I'm schizophrenic; I know what it's like to go through an episode of that intensity. Tell me why you have panic attacks so bad that you can't move for hours and bite through your lip several times. I noticed the scars," she told him.
"It's a long story," he said, surprising himself as he continued to clean his lip gently.
She startled him by dropping the box unceremoniously on the floor, hugging herself to keep warm after she picked it up sheepishly with a grin. "I'm all e-ears."
Keeping his eyes fixed on her reflection in the mirror, leaning against the linen closet behind him, he started softly. "I'm not really a part of this family. I…I was adopted, when I was eleven. Before that, I lived with my dad."
"I kind of figured you were adopted, Derek. You look nothing like Kit or Tori or Simon. You may not look like them but you love them regardless." There was something faraway in her voice.
"Zachary Cain wasn't a nice man, by all accounts. He was charming and handsome, yes, but that hid a darker part of his personality that few had seen but all heard of. As for me, he was a frighteningly convincing liar; a very angry one at that. For every bruise he gave me, there was a lie so realistic that everyone fell for it. My mother left Zachary by the time I turned three."
She smiled weakly. "My mother died when I was thirteen."
He looked into her sky eyes and saw a familiar sadness inside them, turning them dark like the ocean.
"I'm sorry," he blurted, watching her face.
Her cheeks were turning red. "I-it's okay," she said, looking away quickly.
"Anyway, I stayed there until I was eleven, when Kit worked as a social worker and whisked me away to live with them. But by then, the damage was done. I was royally fucked up; I couldn't socialize and I didn't even fully realize how bad it was until I turned thirteen. I kind of freaked when the first batch of city kids got dropped off."
"Freaked?"The first aid kit was balanced carefully on her thigh as she twisted to face him, her body leaning towards him.
His lip burned as he tenderly smeared Neosporin across the cut, hissing.
"After they were dropped off, the girls stuck with Tori and Simon took some of the boys. I got stuck with Royce and his goons," he muttered.
"R-Royce?" Her voice trembled.
"Yeah," he rasped out, lip burning still. "I wasn't used to the people, so I ran inside, panicking. Locked myself in the room for most of the day. I had my first panic attack then, and it went on for hours. I'm pretty sure I blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was staring up at the hospital ceiling. Kit was freaked out as hell because my lip was a bloody mess and they had to put like fifty stitches in it. Simon thought it was cool." He shook his head. "Like being so overwhelmed with fear and anxiety that you can't breathe and your brain is leaking out of your ears and your heart will stop beating at any minute is cool." Sneering at his reflection, Derek pressed his tongue against the inside of his teeth.
A thoughtful look crept over her doll-like features. "Was he mad about you staying in your room?" she asked, glancing at him curiously.
"No, not really. He was more worried about my health. And that's why I have panic attacks. From a young age, Zachary Cain taught me that pain would be my only companion in life. Pain motivates, pain pushes your limits, and pain keeps you together." He swallowed hard.
"Zachary Cain sounds famil—"
"He's the Sacramento Slasher. His body count is an estimated two hundred that we know about; there's probably three hundred more unknown."
Her pale face reddened when someone knocked on the door and snapped, "Hurry up, Chloe. Why do you have to take so damn long?"
Rae.
Before the blonde could so much as blink, Derek strode to the door and braced himself.
He threw open the door and met Rae's wide, surprised eyes. "What do you want?" he demanded in a quiet voice.
