Burn

12

Taste

The girl looming over me is painfully familiar, her dark hair hanging in wet curls around her round face, and my heartbeat quickens.

My mouth drops open in shock. "Rae, what're you doing here?" I find myself asking as I slowly sit up, shivering.

She just shakes her head, bending down to do something, and that's when I see Royce hovering behind her, his eyes locked on me. Why is she with him? Hadn't she seen the bruises he left on me? Hadn't she been the one to visit him in the hospital after his parents had him admitted?

"You're so stupid, Chloe," she tells me, her voice deathly-soft, and her face is hard and black when she straightens. The skin on her collarbone is exposed and it looks inflamed; she's gotten a new tattoo. Something in another language.

I'm shivering now, wrapping my skinny arms around myself; I can't help but think I'm like a rabbit, scared, terrified, unable to move under the stare of the snake. "W-what do you wan-ant, Rae?"

"What do I want?" she hisses, her face suddenly in mine.

I jerk away, hearing the heart monitor's noise spike. While I'm trying to get the sound under control, she begins to talk, low and fast, the words oozing resentment and something pitch-black that makes me shrink away.

"I want a normal, happy family. I want the boy I've wanted since freshman year to want me. I want him to quit talking about you. I want him to be alive, but, thanks to you, Chloe, he isn't. You killed him," she tells me.

There's a loud, wasp-like buzz in my ears as I stare at her. How is any of this my fault? I hadn't done anything! "I-I didn't—" I try to say but she cuts me off, swiping a plastic bottle off the floor and swishing the contents. It's dark red and thick like paint. My stomach dips. Unease crawls up my back.

"I didn't do anything! You did. You took everything from me. My friends, my family, him, oh, especially him, and maybe I'm being petty for doing this specifically—mostly—over Royce but I've wanted him for so goddamn long and you came in and you fucking took him without trying." She's climbing onto the bed now, her knees pinning my legs down.

I try to struggle but it's futile.

"Now shut up and let me—hold still, damn it!" One hand is on my chest, not on my tits though, and pushes me, pinning me to the bed.

Her other hand pinches my nose and I'm left gasping through my mouth, sucking in air to scream for a nurse, but then it's full of something richly dark like wine but bitter and a bit strange and fuzzy.

I have to swallow it in order to breathe but I don't know what's in it and I'm not sure I want to. The wide, almost malevolent smile on Rae's bronze face makes me solidify my initial reservations about swallowing the rich concoction, but then her fingers are pinching tighter and it's getting harder to breathe and I just do it.

I'm left sputtering and gasping, flecks spraying from my mouth.

"Drink up." She presses the opening of the bottle into my mouth and I have to swallow since she's still got me pinned. When I'm done, she slaps me once across the face.

"Now sleep."

She climbs off and heads out the door.

My morning starts off with being wheeled into a visitation room and I wait for everyone to show up—Derek, my aunt, Simon—while I drink a cup of orange juice.

"How was your night, Chloe?" a voice that makes my heart beat faster laughs.

Rae doesn't sit down, instead inclining her head down to watch me. Her hair is pulled up today and her t-shirt is dark, long-sleeved, and obviously Royce's since she's never listened to Blue October.

"What did you do to me?" I ask, glancing around for an orderly.

She laughs again, a mean, dark sound, and leans in close.

I'm at eye-level with her tits and I look at the new tattoo. It says mors mihi lucrum. She giggles.

"Oh, this? It means 'Death to me is a reward.' Just like Royce. As for what I did last night? It'll help me rip everyone and everything from you. I've got things to do, people to see. It was nice seeing you."

No sooner than I can blink, she's up and walking out the door just as the other side opens. Aunt Lauren, Derek, and Simon are inches from the girl who's destroying my life, and they have no idea.

I watch them get closer and closer as Rae gets farther and farther. I feel sick.