32. Negative Creep

I'd been holed up in this cheap motel for a week, maybe longer. The days were blurring. They kept threatening to kick me out because of the noise, and I kept paying people off so that I didn't have to deal with them. Which was what I was currently on my way to do.

A squat, unattractive woman opened the door, a cute chunky baby sitting on her hip. I held a hundred out to her.

"I'm trying to write an album," I slurred a bit. "You might wanna change rooms."

"Are you the one with that horrible music all night?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

My eyes narrowed. "You think Nirvana is horrible music? You're in fucking Seattle in a junkie motel! Kurt Cobain is your GOD!"

"Whoa, whoa!" I heard Seth behind me. "Ma'am, we'd be more than happy to cover your bill if you'd like to switch rooms," he said, handing her another hundred.

"Un-uh!" I yelled, fully in belligerent mode. "We don't give money to unenlightened trash!"

"Liz," he snapped. "Go back to the room, baby."

I made fart noises with my mouth and whined. "Fiiiiiiiiine."

He wanted to laugh, but he held it in as I stomped back off towards the room I'd been occupying.

It was kind of gross in here. Not like my band's apartment gross, but definitely not clean. Clothes and liquor bottles littered the floor. Notebooks strewn everywhere. Fuck it.

Seth came in then and eyed me. I'd been driving him nuts.

"I have an idea!" I said. "Let's just rent the whole floor so that I don't have to talk to these fucking idiots."

He chuckled and shook his head at me. "I'm sure they're equally as pleased to talk with you, honey."

I tried to stand near him and fell onto him instead. "Fuck. Them. And fuck their stupid shitty vacations, too."

"So angry today." He started rubbing my back gently, trying to lull the beast to sleep.

"I need it right now, baby. I have to finish writing this." I popped my head up and smiled. "Or... we could throw a massive party. I could use a little break."

"You want to take a break from drinking by yourself... by drinking with a bunch of other people?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm open to other suggestions."

"I have a few but they all involve you taking your clothes off." He started to slide his hands up under my shirt slowly. "Or you could sober up and we could visit Leah and Lexi."

I frowned and made a sad sound. "I want to see them but I don't see sobi - sobree - so-bri-et-y happening today." I'd already hit the point of no return.

"Alright, so party it is," he eventually said.

"Invite the pack," I told him excitedly. "I'm going to the desk, and then I have a lot of phone calls to make."

He caught me by my arm. "You have to eat something," he urged, pointing to a bag of fast food that I rolled my eyes at.

We packed the place by nightfall with wolves, witches, imprints and even a regular person or two. More and more people kept piling in and things were getting wild as the night raged on. People were spilling out onto the balcony area and below, which would have concerned me for a number of reasons had I been with it enough to give a shit about anything besides dancing and consuming alcohol and cigarettes.

I was sitting in a narrow stairwell with Mark, my head resting comfortably on his shoulder as he passed a smoke from his mouth to mine. "Where's your mind, dear?"

"Thinking... remembering random parts of my life. People that mattered, habits and routines that died over the years."

"Shockingly clear statement from someone that claims to be physically paralyzed," he laughed.

I started to sit up and he jerked me back easily. "Take a minute. You need it."

"I'm not sure if staying down is going to help or make me pass the fuck out." I sat up, eyes wide and smiling and started to dance in my seat. I was still on the verge of blanking.

He smiled and shook his head at me. "You're adorable."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "I need to go to my room. Will you help me stand up?"

"Yeah," he said, jumping up and placing me easily to my unsteady feet. "Want me to get you up the stairs?"

"No, no," I shook my head. "I got this." I had to shoulder the wall the whole way up and it took longer than it should have, but I made it to my floor on my own. I followed the wall to the first door, the only one that was closed off to the rest of the party because it was mine.

I was trying not to fall, trying to get my eyes to adjust, trying to get the key card out of my pocket, then trying to unlock my door. I wasn't having much luck with any of it when an arm shot out to steady me. It took the card from my hand and opened the door for me.

"Thanks," I mumbled, my head hitting the wall again.

"You okay?" a voice asked.

I blinked toward the tall figure of a man I didn't recognize. "Buhhh," came out of my mouth before I started to slump once more.

"Easy, babe." He caught me in his arms and leaned me back towards the wall before smoothing my hair out of my face. He was holding the door open with his foot and I tried to raise my body enough to stumble through the open space.

I fell into my room, and then I was out.

Waking up, the first thing that registered was that something was very, very wrong. Even my sub-conscious realized that. My wrists hurt, my ankles hurt, and I couldn't move. Something heavy was on top of me and it was hard to breathe.

Something was inside of me.

My first thought was Seth. Had I passed out while we were making love? Where were we? Why was he hurting me?

I started to cry before I even understood what was happening. Seth's body didn't feel right... not hot enough, not as solid as I knew him to be. Then the hands were wrong. The smell was wrong. The lips were wrong. The pain...

It took everything in me just to open and adjust my eyes. I started to scream and his lips covered mine and bit until I tasted blood on my tongue. "Don't fucking start that, now," he said into my ear.

My body was still being sluggish, but my brain was fully alert now. I was tied up, and all that I could focus on in that instant was getting free of my restraints. I was working on the ties, beginning to unravel them with my mind when the door suddenly opened.

Mark paused for about a millisecond before he rushed in yelling, his expression close to terrifying. He grabbed the guy and flung him off of me and into the floor. I saw his fist slamming down, heard the loud smack as it connected. I loosened my bindings enough to free myself, then flung Mark to the side with a wave of my hand.

I wasn't thinking straight, but I sure was acting. I gave what I was doing zero consideration as I yanked the guy up to his knees and placed my lips to his. I felt an intense satisfaction as his body first went rigid, then began to convulse dangerously. I flung him back to the floor and kicked him farther away from my feet.

I took a deep breath, listened to Kurt wailing and put some clothes back on as Mark stood up, his eyes on the unnamed rapist. I sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette as I stared at the wall, my back to the scene in my temporary room.

"Liz," Mark said, his voice restrained... fearful. "Are you... I mean." He sighed and moved to sit down on the same edge of bed I was occupying, but with a good foot of space between us.

"He deserved it." I flicked some ashes into the little plastic circle full of them on my bedside table.

"What?" he said after studying me for a long moment.

"He violated me. He had to die."

"That's not even a question... I would have killed him if you hadn't." I felt his eyes shift over to me. "Did he - "

"I don't ever want to talk about this," I said quickly. I focused on one of many cemeteries I was familiar with, a grave marked Robertson that hadn't been disturbed since the eighteen-nineties. I sent the corpse deep under the dirt there without a second thought, never to be seen or heard of again.

"Okay..." Mark said slowly. "But we do have one really big problem, Liz."

"He's already gone," I said.

Mark shifted up onto his knees, peering over the opposite edge of the bed. "His blood is in the floor."

"Will you stay here for a little while? I need to shower." I'd take care of everything else after.

"Yeah, of course I will. Do you need anything else?"

I shook my head. "Just stay."

I threw away my clothes in the small trash can beside the toilet and turned the water to its hottest setting before stepping inside. I stood under the scalding water for quite a while, my eyes fixed on a small flaw in the shower lining in front of me. My skin was red it was so hot, but I couldn't tear my eyes away for the longest time. Finally, I scrubbed myself raw and turned the shower off.

Seth was sitting with Mark when I exited the bathroom, clutching a robe around my body. My first reaction was panic... but as soon as Mark's eyes met mine, I knew he hadn't said anything.

"Hey, beautiful," Seth greeted me with a smile that I couldn't return. He stood up and came closer to me, then his brows narrowed in confusion as he studied my face. His thumb brushed lightly across the small wound on my bottom lip. He took a long sniff of the air around him. "Who's been in here?"

I wanted to lie. The truth meant facing what had happened, and I wasn't really prepared to do that. I wanted to shove it down inside of me to fester where it belonged.

Seth was starting to get angry at the lack of answers as he looked between Mark and I. Something crossed his face before he glared at Mark. "Did you do this to her?!"

"No," I kind of whispered, before clearing my throat. "Mark, go. And thank you."

"You sure?" he asked warily.

"Yeah, it's okay. You can take one of the rooms if you want to stay the night. I'll text you later."

He nodded his head as he stood up. "Okay, call me if you need anything."

I took a step around Seth so that I was between them as Mark loped to the door. He had no idea what was going on and was already making assumptions; the last thing I needed right now was my lover attacking my best friend.

I breathed a sigh of relief once the door clicked shut behind him. I stepped over to the bed, my eyes sweeping the room as I realized that Mark must have cleaned up while I showered. The empty bottles were brimming over the top of the trash can and all my clothes had been piled into a corner of the room. The blood wasn't there anymore.

I sat down and we stared at one another, neither willing to make a move on conversation. His expression finally softened and he came to sit beside of me, wrapping an arm gently around my shoulders as I leaned into his side.

"I should have stayed with you tonight," he said.

"This wasn't your fault." My lips brushed his cheek and I stood up, pulled some clothes on and waved all of my things into my various totes and suitcases. "I want to go home."

"Okay," he said immediately. He pulled out his phone while I slipped my shoes on. "You still here?" he was saying to someone else. "We're heading out. I don't think she wants to ride the whole way," he said inconspicuously.

I popped my belongings to my home, one by one.

"Yeah, that's cool. I'll leave the door unlocked for you." He hung up after a moment, took in the near empty room, then looked at me. "Mark is going to drive your car to the house and sleep over."

"Did I get everything?" Seth would sniff it out if any of my belongings were left behind.

He followed his nose into the bathroom. "Did you throw your clothes away?" he asked, confused.

I walked in behind him and wrapped my arms around him so that we could teleport home.

"Wait," he said, halting me. "Can we fly instead?"

I sighed, understanding the implication beneath his request before blinking us into the sky. I focused on the lights beneath us, the city shining at me as I tried to form the necessary words. "I was attacked earlier," I finally said.

"Mark helped you?" he guessed.

"Yes. He helped me, and then I took care of the problem." I couldn't bring myself to say the words that were ricocheting around in my brain. "Rape" and "murder" would burn like acid on my tongue.

He was silent for a few moments, and we were almost home. "Okay," he finally breathed. "You can talk to me whenever you're ready."

I met Mark later on my back porch and threw my arms around him. "Thank you," I said, though part of me didn't want to. It was the only acknowledgement of the situation I was willing to make for now.

He hugged me tight, and I could tell he was cycling through things he wanted to say before he settled on, "You're welcome. I'd never let anyone hurt you."

I held for a beat longer before sliding back a bit, and he held out a handful of pills to me - five different tablets, each a unique shape, size and color.

"Take these," he said.

"What are they?"

"Anti-virals, Plan B..."

"Xanax?" I smirked, my eyes on the white bar.

"Figured you could use a good rest," he shrugged.

I broke it in half, gave him one and took all the other pills.

"You probably won't feel good tomorrow," he warned.

I laughed once humorlessly. "I think it's going to far surpass just tomorrow."