(The Following Morning) "Hotness."

Annabeth, who had been sitting numbly on the corner of the bed as far away from Jeff as possible, started and raised her head slightly as his rough voice cut through the emptiness in her mind. Still, the moment her eyes touched him, she looked away, unable to stand the twisted, despicable, loathed sight in front of her.

Apparently her refusal to look at him pissed Jeff off, and he snarled, "Look at me when I'm talking to you."

The teenager did no such thing and completely ignored him. Whatever he was going to do to her for being disobedient couldn't be anywhere near as terrible as what he'd done last night.

As soon as her thoughts touched that subject, she immediatenly regretted it, wishing she could somehow snatch it back. Annabeth's body gave the faintest shudder as images of last night bombarded her mind. Remembering what had transpired filled her with fear, shock, disbelief, fury and most prominent amongst them all: hatred.

A rough, leathery hand grabbed her chin in a vice-like grip and forcefully turned her head, forcing her to meet Jeff's eyes - they were filled with impatience and anger. "I told you to look at me when I'm talking." the killer spat at Annabeth.

Not in the mood to deal with this bullshit, Annabeth glared at him, twisting her chin out of his grasp and ignoring the pain that came with the action. "What do you want?" she retorted, making sure to keep her voice icy.

Quite unexpectedly, Jeff backhanded her out of the blue.

Stress, trauma, fear, and rage were starting to get the better of Annabeth, mixing together in her gut to form one pig puddle of negative emotions. Irritation rose in swiftly in her body, and the throbbing on her cheek where the killer had struck her only added gasoline to the flames. She wanted to shout, ask Jeff what the fuck his problem was, but forced the question back down her throat. Keep a cool head, Annabeth. the teen reminded herself. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of snapping at him so that he'd have another excuse to use her as his punching bag.

"What I want," Jeff continued, emphasizing the last word to make a point, "is for you to stop being a stuck-up little bitch!" he was practically shouting now, for reasons Annabeth couldn't wrap her mind around, but then again, this was a volatile, unbalanced, homicidal, blood-thirsty psychopath. A sane person like her simply couldn't understand how his mind worked.

"You think your life is so fucking hard? So terrible and shitty and unfair? Well - " Jeff grabbed a fistful of Annabeth's tangled golden locks and forced them nose-to-nose. She could feel his breath on her cheek and tried to twist out of his grip, but it was no use. " - it's not. It's fucking not. Do you even know what the hell you put me through every day since you've come here, bitch? You're so damn stubborn and thickheaded that you make me want to slam my head into the concrete sometimes. Why the fuck do you have to be such a callous bitch?" the killer ranted, his death-grip on her hair tightening with every passing second until Annabeth was sure the roots of her hair would be ripped right out.

Despite that, she could not believe his scathing words. Was the retarded piece of shit saying that...was he saying that she made his life hard? That she was the villain here and he was the victim?

Anger rumbled in the pit of her stomach, rising like lava in a volcano. She wasn't anyone particularly heroic, and she may have done some bad things in her life, like all human beings, but she wasn't the bad guy - especially not in this case. It was Jeff who'd stalked her. It was Jeff who'd kidnapped her. It was Jeff who'd abused her physically and verbally her. It was Jeff who'd raped her.

And he wanted to act like he was the victim here?

Annabeth had tried to hold in her fury - she'd really tried, knowing it wouldn't be a good idea. But right now, she just couldn't. The past week had been hell for her, and yesterday night it had all come to a culmination when this asshole had raped her. His backstory was utter shit, and Annabeth admitted that Jeffrey Woods had been a victim of cruelty - and the Jeff the Killer was the result of it. But that didn't excuse anything. He - all of the psychopaths in this mansion - killed and tortured and raped for living. For sport. A traumatic past didn't always give one the excuse to be a maniacal serial killer, and it didn't give one the right to take their pain out on and involve others in their mess, because they felt so damn sorry for themselves. Jeff had raped her - that wasn't going to change. She needed to get some things off her chest - she had the right.

"You - " the girl breathed out. "You're a hypocritical, retarded piece of shit."

"What the fuck did you just - "

"My life wasn't the worst, I'll fucking admit it! But lately it's been nothing short of hell - hell - because you decided to show up and ruin it all! It was your choice to stalk me, and it was your choice to fucking rape me! And you want to act like you're the victim? I can understand why you're always wallowing in self-pity - I know enough of your story, and it is terrible, and I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through all that! But that does not give you the right to take it out on others - to act like the world owes you something! Whoever bullied you - those three bullies, whatever their names were - they're dead! They're gone! It's been decades since they died! Everyone else living in this world right now - none of them have anything to do with your past! News flash, Jeffrey - the word does not revolve around you! Your past doesn't give you the right to kill people that have done absolutely nothing to hurt you! If you can't face that - if you can't realize that you're nothing more than a pawn on a chessboard just like everyone else in the grand scheme of things, then you..." she, for once, grabbed the collar of his hoodie and yanked him face-to-face with her. Reflected in his cerulean orbs, Annabeth could see herself, and she was surprised by how fierce she looked.

But even more so, she was surprised by how startled Jeff appeared. Was this the first time anyone had ever given him a good verbal cutdown?

"...you're not worthy to live." she finished.

Silence settled in the room. Compared to the angry shouting of Annabeth, the silence seemed weighted, eerie, tense...in a sense, it was even louder that her yells.

"You..." Jeff growled, lowering his head so his charred black hair fell over his eyes. Annabeth was sure he was about to either scream and beat her into a pulp, or maybe just whip out his knife and stab her right then and there, but another voice from outside the room interrupted him.

"W-what the fu-fuck is going on i-in there?"

At the sound, Jeff abruptly spun around, rolling his eyes (or trying to). With an air of obvious irritation, he stomped to the door and in a terrible, mocking imitation of the other person's voice, asked, "Wh-what the f-fuck do y-you w-wa-nt?"

The door the the bedroom rattled as the person outside - Annabeth guessed it was Toby from the stuttering voice and cracking, popping sounds - kicked it forcefully. Jeff, who'd been standing barely an inch from it, jumped back and complained, "Hey! What the hell?!"

"The b-boss want t-to see y-you." at those words, Annabeth froze, and her insides iced over even more so at Toby's next statement. "H-he says i-it's t-time."

Apparently Jeff was just as surprised. "Already?" he asked. "I thought fuckface needed to find a way into Lord Pointy Horn's dimension first."

"W-what else d-do you think he's be-been doing for the last d-day?"

"That was fast." Jeff muttered to himself, then called back out. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

"W-with t-the girl."

"With the girl." Jeff confirmed irritably.

" G-good." Toby responded. The sound of footsteps echoed through the hall, signaling that the young man had walked away. Once he was gone, Jeff turned back to Annabeth, his expression like thunder as he glared at her. For a moment, Annabeth wondered if he was going to finish what he'd started and beat her ass, and she was more than ready to fight back, body still shaking from rage at everything he'd done to her - then having the audacity to act like he was the victim.

Instead, Jeff turned around, threw open the doors to the small, old closet forgotten at the corner of the room, dug out some clothes, and threw them at her. Annabeth, surprised, fumbled to catch them but managed. Looking down in her arms, she noted that they consisted of a plain black T-shirt, a creamy-white hoodie (which, Annabeth noted with disdain, looked a bit life Jeff's own bloodstained hoodie), a pair of skinny jeans, and black combat boots, which, again, looked a bit too much like Jeff's shoes for Annabeth's liking. Again, she didn't even want to begin to guess where he'd gotten women's clothes from. Instead, the girl muttered, "Do you have a hair tie?"

Jeff groaned, sounding for a moment, just like a normal teenager. "You're so fucking needy, sweetcheeks. Here." he tossed her a small object, and this time Annabeth caught it rather easily. It was a hair tie, just like she'd requested.

"You have ten minutes to shower and dress. Now move your ass." Jeff ordered. Seeing no point in arguing, Annabeth did as he said, letting her muscles relax briefly in the shower before getting out, paranoid that Jeff would try to look in on her. Thankfully, he didn't, and she got into the new clothes relatively undisturbed.

Glancing in the mirror, Annabeth noted how terrible she looked, even after a quick shower. Her face was rather gaunt - she'd barely gotten any food over the week of her abduction and she had, quite visibly lost weight. Her face was bruised from when Jeff had punched her, as were her arms, though the marks there were fainter. Her golden hair was tangled and pretty grimy, and her skin seemed pale from lack of nourishment and sunlight.

How the fuck does Jeff find me attractive in this state? Annabeth wondered as she climbed into the clothes. Then again, his version of beauty was probably not the same as hers. The man practically had the complete polar opposite interpretation of it, actually.

Suppressing a burst of hatred at the thought of what had transpired yesterday night, Annabeth finished dressing and pulled her tangled hair into a messy ponytail. It was a relief to get the damp locks away from her face, she thought. Brushing shorter strands out of her face, the girl took a deep breath for courage and exited the bathroom.

Jeff, once again, was already prepared as he hadn't bothered cleaning himself up. He was still wearing the same, bloodstained white hoodie, tattered black jeans, and worn combat boots. His charcoal hair was still messy as ever. With a smirk, he gestured her over as she came out of the bathroom, eyes running shamelessly over her body.

"Let's go, princess."

_

Whew! This one was kind of long! I feel like Beth was a little too passive considering he raped her...sorry about that.

So the mission is finally about to commence, huh?

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you guys soon!