Burn
Embraced
Ten
Royce never leaves me, even as I drift in and out of consciousness, sleeping away the horrible burning in my arms. He slips into my dreams, too; every time it's the same.
I stand in a clearing, dressed in a white hospital gown, my arms and legs scratched to ribbons as I try to catch my breath. A breeze crawls through the forest and rustles trees and, my heart pounding with fear, I take off, my legs flying. Trees claw at my hair, my clothes, yank and tug and poke.
"You'll never escape me," Royce laughs and his voice echoes eerily, bouncing off the open space and floating in mid air.
I pick up the pace, ignoring the stitch in my side as I jerk right and trip over something. A mouthful of wet earth fills my mouth and I sit up, sputtering as I turn and stifle a scream.
A woman's body is lying on the forest floor, her head turned away from me, her red nightshirt see-through from rain. She's tan, like maybe she gets out a lot, and long, blond hair swims around her face, obscuring it.
An ache builds up in my throat as I look at her and my eyes rest on her socks…with giraffes. Slowly, I crawl forward and touch her, her cold skin burning my fingertips.
She doesn't stir.
And then I roll her over and the scream clogs in my chest.
Pale grey eyes stare lifelessly at me, framed by pale lashes, set in a tiny, round face that once glowed with life.
Liz.
I'm so busy and focused on Liz, oh God, dead Liz, that I don't notice him until he has a fistful of my hair, yanking me viciously to my feet. His voice whispers in my ear as he holds the knife against my throat.
"I missed you," he growls with a laugh.
"I missed you," he croons even louder.
Unease rushes through me as Liz rises up off the ground. Terror seizes me as her lifeless eyes blink, her head turning in my direction. A scream erupts in my throat.
"Chloe."
It's a man's voice that says my name as I jolt awake, heart pounding. Actually, it is just Derek leaning over me, holding onto my shoulders gently.
"Chloe, it's a dream."
My cheeks feels damp and my fingers comes away slick with tears as I sit up. I can taste bile on my tongue as he hands me a paper cup of metallic water.
As soon as the rim touches my cracked lips, he speaks. "They're sending you…away."
I freeze, blink hard to rid the blur covering him, and shake my head. "Aunt Lauren—" I begin firmly but he cuts me off.
"She couldn't convince them not to, even as executive chief of staff."
The water churns in my stomach. "I didn't do any—"
The look he cuts me is cold like ice and my skin prickles. "Yeah," he says, looking away to stare out the window.
Outside, the sky is nearly pitch-black, gushing down icy torrents of rain that make me wince just looking at the unfortunate souls caught down below.
"You did a lot."
I stare down at my cup, staring at the slight of my reflection and feel tears fill my eyes. Before he can call me out on crying like a wimp, I settle back down onto the bed and yank up the covers over my head.
"Chloe," he whispers fiercely and shakes me.
The tears that escape burn my cheeks as I listen to him sigh, shuffle around and then settle into the chair beside my hospital bed.
I rub the gauze layering my arms like sweater sleeves and fall asleep with my mouth open.
It's dark outside when they wake me up.
Two nurses shake me awake and I blink away the wisps of a nightmare involving Royce, who, actually, is mooning the female nurse and doing the pelvic thrust at her. It's the little things like that that made me fall in love with him.
"Where…" I begin hesitantly as the female nurse helps me into a heavy sweatshirt that Derek had obviously left; it's about three hundred sizes too big on my tiny frame and says Souza on the back in big, loopy letters. It also smells strongly of pine needles and swear.
"They're transferring you to a mental institution," Royce tells me with a twisted curl of his mouth, mocking a smile. In his eyes lay a glint, scary, as he walks beside me, hands in his pockets.
He's dressed in a white t-shirt today that hides nothing and tight jeans; with every step, his bicep tattoo flashes at me. It looks like three lightning bolts, intertwined with an Egyptian eye, with numbers in the pupil.
"Transferring you," says the male nurse, pulling my hair out of the sweatshirt.
I stare at my feet the entire time they lead me, comfortingly, down to an unmarked white van loitering outside the automatic doors.
A guy about college age drives and the nurses give me a shot, even though I say I'll cooperate.
"It's just a precaution," says the driver, tipping his hat. He looks kind of like Simon, except with really bad acne and curly, red hair pulled into a ponytail.
They nurses buckle me into the front seat as ice chugs through my veins, slowing my thought process.
I slump against the window, staring at the pouring rain. My sneakers are soaked. I shiver as the driver adjusts the heat all the way and blasts it.
"Here."
He reaches behind him and pulls out a comforter that he tucks over me.
"Drive, Danny, " the female nurse whispers.
My head lolls as I struggle to stay awake, feeling lighter and lighter.
It's my cold feet that goes first. They just feel light and not even there; next is my legs, and then my waist area, and then my stomach. Coldness spreads from my fingertips up, to my elbow, to my shoulder.
I shiver as my waist grows numb and light and that same sensation crawls up my stomach, my ribcage. Blackness begins to swarm.
The driver strokes my hair gently, whispering, "It'll be okay, Chloe."
"It never is," sneers Royce. His eyes look demonic in the street light as he crouches on the hood of the car and pitched forward, crashing through glass. He laughs as my lids bob.
Everything goes black.