Burn
Nineteen
Claw
Royce lays with me that night, whispering in my ear, pawing at my sticky sweatshirt that vomits glitter onto the bed-spread.
We don't breathe a word of Derek.
We don't talk about my gaping arms.
He tells me how he missed me, so glad I'm back, and I lean against him, electricity crackling where his transparent skin touches mine.
The scars from those scratches are shiny and vanilla-colored against his mocha skin, catching my attention.
"How'd you get those?" I ask, words falling out before I can filter them.
His muscles are stony, cool as ice under the backs of my knees. "Someone gave them to me," he tells me slowly, sitting up.
I sit up too, our legs touching hip to ankle.
His sneakered feet dangle off the edge of the bed. He looks completely out of place, saturation turned up to one hundred, super bright, super vibrant.
My stomach twists, churning. He leans against the wall, the muscles of his shoulder blades pressing against the fabric of his damp shirt. "Who?" Why, why, why am I asking? He wants me dead, buried under a pile of dirt, pierced through chest, my blood gushing out of my ribcage.
Royce twists and the moonlight splashes across his face, highlighting the deep-set eyes I'd fallen in love with, accenting his cheekbones, cutting away the hard set of his lips. I can still see him, reeling on the backs of my eyelids, dead on the floor, staring up blankly.
"She was very pretty," he says, tracing a scar with his fingernail, digging it in. A bead rolls down his cheek. He wipes it away with the pad of his thumb and licks it off, ignoring my shudder of disgust. "Very, very pretty."
I pull away but his fingers form a manacle around my left wrist and the normal electricity is now painful, his nails digging in, breaking the skin.
"Let me go," I rasp out. The sweater is chaffing my skin, ripping at my stitches, threatening to spill my blood-filled veins and sinewy muscle all over the blankets.
"I can't do that, you stupid bitch," he tells me, leaning into my face.
My legs are tangled in the sheets, sweaty and sticky so I struggle to break free.
"The lady looked a lot like you," he says, blowing an artic wind into my face.
My eyes prickle with tears.
Frost creeps up my skin, turning it black and grey. "Big blue eyes, same hair. Nice ra—"
I manage to rip out of his talons, chunks of flesh flopping between us like peeling paint, and my back hits the floor.
I'm trying to breathe, glaring up at him as he leans over the edge, smiling down at me.
His teeth are like a shark's. He slips over the edge, gliding onto the carpet. A wave of blood washes down his legs, like he's covered in it, and he soaks the carpet. Every step squishes between his toes, leaving his footprints behind.
He swallows my scream with a cold hand before the first note is out of my throat.
I wake up groggy, sunlight flitting in through the cracked blinds. I lift a hand up to rub my eyes. They come away feeling flaky and puckered, like they'd been encased in mud and left to dry.
The sheets crackle when I sit up, electricity loud, static and I notice the walls.
Deep, angry gauges, a pair of scissors hanging out of the drywall, handles spread wide.
Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. My name, over and over and over. Flecks of the off-white paint layer the floor in a dusty blanket.
Never gone. Always lovely. Liar, liar. You're all going to burn in hell. I'll fucking end you.
Horror crashes over me, hitting me across the face.
Why do you bother trying to help anyone? In the end, we're all royally fucked up. All the druggies and cutters and whores are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.
I feel a huge rush of nausea and scramble over to the edge of the bed, the sheets catching around my knees. My elbow smashes into the railing.
I pitch forward, scraping my temple on the edge of my dresser; the hot bile rushes to my lips, spilling out in a gushing torrent.
I feel so sick, my lungs on fire, throat burning as I retch and retch, until my stomach's empty heaving. Tears run down my cheeks, mingling with snot.
The carpet is soaked with something.
Royce's footprints are still there, like footsteps on the moon, frozen in time.
I'm shuddering, gasping for breath, wiping the remnants of vomit, flecks in the cracks of my lips, when the door opens.
It's Ramon, behind him Nate. He looks at me, his charcoal-black eyes staring in surprise and concern, and then he's striding in, shoulder jutting with each step.
Nate gapes, wide-eyed, as he stumbles in.
"Wh-what…" he mumbles, tripping over something lying on the floor.
I don't say anything, looking away instead. My clothes lie everywhere, scattered, soaked with red, ripped to shreds like someone's taken a pair of scissors to them, threads hanging off.
Ramon picks his way across the room, stepping over the huge clumps of wet clothing, fabric tangled together, his sneakers squelching with every step. He doesn't even seem fazed as he sits down on the edge of my mattress, helping me up.
I look away, tears burning in my eyes.
"I—"
"Dear God, Chloe."
Derek's massive frame fills the doorway, trailing behind Dr. Davidoff, whose face pales like snow at the sight of my disastrous room, at the blood soaking the carpet, congealed; at the carvings in the wall; at the shredded clothes and toppled desk and smashed windows, the shards of glass gleaming in the sunlight.
Derek's green eyes stare at Ramon's hands on me, one on my hip, the other on my shoulder, steadying me, and I feel a wave of dizziness rocket through me—is he jealous somehow? Of Ramon?
"How did…" Davidoff trails off, taking in everything, all the chaos, at the vomit on the floor, my rumpled state. "Get the orderlies."
I don't argue.