“Do you think she’ll be okay,” I say softly, reaching my hand toward the boy, almost able to grab him, but not quite.
“Of course,” he says, trying to disregard the person standing next to him, patting his head as if he were a pet. “She’s stronger than that—you know that.”
It makes me smile because he’s probably right—she is stronger and deals with it better. I’m sure she’s alright—she has to be. That’s why she’s here, isn’t it? To protect me from the bad. To allow me to stay good, unlike the person in the corner who seems pleased by all this.
“Don’t listen to him,” they whisper, strolling around the boy. “You’re not stronger. Not yet.”
“But I am.” I sit up, ignoring the person and the screams as I reach for my box of buttons, trying not to think about what they really represent, where they came from, who they belong to. The figure in the corner laughs at me, but I block the laughing out as I count them all one by one, over and over again until the screaming stops.
I jerk out of the nightmare, gasping for air. My head is pulsating. The taste of stale tequila, blood, and something sour burns inside my throat. My muscles ache. I feel cold but at the same time I’m sweating... it almost reminds me of when I was laying in the street, after the car hit me, only I know who I am this time. Maddie. And full Maddie too, at the moment, since Lily is being strangely quiet, as if she’s in some sort of deep slumber.
My cheek is pressed against something icy cold, my hair matted to my forehead, and my hands feel crusty and dry. For a moment I feel like I’m back in my nightmare. A prisoner again.
It’s quiet and I feel so silent inside, so still, so lost, which doesn’t make sense. I should be embracing the silence, but I can’t. If I couldn’t feel my lungs and heart beating erratically inside my chest, I’d think I was dead and in my grave, buried underneath the ground. Where the hell am I? I can hear the soft hum of something mechanical and I try to open my eyes, but it feels like they’ve been sewn shut. They won’t lift and my throat is as dry as sand. I need water. Need to wake up. Need to move. But my limbs are rubbery. Useless. I feel dead and for a moment I contemplate welcoming it.
“Lily, open your eyes and get up. Now.”
The voice triggers a spark of recollection and my eyes shoot open, jerking me out of my daze. I immediately scan the darkness for the person the voice belongs to, but it’s so dark I can’t even make out the outlines of anything. I push up from the ground, blink my eyes several times, hoping my vision will adjust, but it doesn’t. I worry I’ve gone blind or something, my eyeballs on fire.
“Hello!” I call out and my voice echoes back to me. There’s a bang from somewhere but no one responds. I try again. “Who’s in here?” Again, recollection sparks in my brain. Déjà vu. But it’s like there’s a wall, blocking me from connecting all the dots. “Lily, are you doing this?” I whisper under my breath.
The only response I get is maddening silence. And the humming. I know I heard a voice. Someone has to be watching me in the darkness. But who? And where am I? I can barely remember a single thing about last night. The ceiling lights of the bar flashing… they hurt my eyes... watching people dance... I drank way too much, which is probably why my throat’s still dry and my head feels like it’s in a fishbowl. I also wasn’t alone. I saw Bella I think… yeah, I can picture her laughing, her drunken laugh too. There was also someone else… a guy. River? I can’t quite see his face in my memories. A shadow. Like everything else.
Feeling my way across the floor, I scoot forward on my ass, my limbs and muscles aching in protest. The floor feels like chilled metal and stings at my palms so badly my skin feels like it’s tearing open. I keep going until the tips of my fingers brush against the edge of a frosted surface. I pause, listening for the person whose voice woke me up, but all I can hear is humming. But the feeling is there inside me, the haunting sensation that I’m being watched. Like when I’m in my room and the photos of my past feel like they’re watching my every move.
“I know you’re in here, so you might as well say something you fucking weirdo,” I call out. Again, no one replies.
What I need to do is get to my feet. Tucking my legs under me, I slide my fingers up the surface, slivers of frost falling off. I manage to stand up, my knees weak beneath my weight, unsteady, just like the rest of my body and my mind. Thoughts of where I could be race through my mind. Claustrophobia sets in. I’ve never experienced it in the last six years, but the thickness of the darkness suddenly feels like it’s smothering me… I’ve felt this way before… a long time ago… I can almost feel…
Let me out! Let me out! God, please let me out! I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.
Only if you do what I say.
A door slams shut in my head, locking out the memory and causing me to jerk back. I need to get out of here. Now. There’s got to be a way out of here and a light switch somewhere. Trying to stay calm, I feel my way across the wall, gradually inching sideways. It’s strange how hyperaware I am of everything, how it feels like I know exactly what to do to find my way out of the darkness and this frosted, cold as ice, room. My instincts take over and with calculated steps, I move my way around the dark carefully. Whenever my foot or hand brushes against something, I instantly stop and slowly maneuver around it without getting hurt. My eyes stop hurting. I feel more comfortable with each step.
A few steps more and my fingers graze against a metal handle. “Yes,” I whisper as I pull the handle down and shove the door open. Breathing in the light and warm air, I stumble out and spin around to see where I was. Shelves with frozen food fill the small area and a light mist from the cold swirls around in the light. A freezer. I was in the freezer at the bar, but that’s not the most startling thing about the situation. There’s no one else in there. It doesn’t make sense. I heard a voice. It’s what woke me up.
Are you sure it wasn’t just another voice inside your head? Lily’s voice is so clear, so loud and unannounced that I jolt back in surprise and bump my elbow into the wall.
I shut my eyes and try to force my mind to remember what happened. The sequence of events that led me to this moment. But the harder I try, the more distorted everything becomes. Lights... Blinding lights… music… drinks… blood on my hands…suddenly the doors in my mind are slamming shut with so much force I fall down on the floor. Pain soars through my body and my eyes shoot open as I sit up. That’s when I notice the blood. Dried on my skin, it covers the back of my arms, cracked and peeling, like grimy sand.
“Oh my God… what did you do?” My stomach burns, fire, melting me from the inside and works its way up my throat. I jump to my feet, bolt out of the back area and run down the hallway to the private restroom. Then I collapse to my knees onto the hard tile floor, my head tipping forward as vomit purges from my mouth. My stomach empties out the tequila and whatever else I had last night. Exhausted, I flush the toilet, quickly stand up and start scrubbing the blood off my arms in the sink, in a panic, tears stinging at my eyes.
Keep it together. Don’t lose it.
There are no visible cuts anywhere, so I don’t think it’s my blood. It’s so caked on that I have to scratch at my skin to get it off and by the time I’m done, I am bleeding in certain spots on my arm. I feel like shit, my stomach churning again, worse than when getting drunk. My legs give out on me and I sink onto the floor, letting my head fall back against the wall as tears stream out of my eyes. I’ve been drunk before, had killer hangovers, but this feels different. I feel overwhelmingly sick. Time lost. My mind spinning. And the worst part is, I have no idea what I did for almost the entire night. But the ideas are there. All those times, pondering people’s murders. What if I… we…
“God, Lily, why?” I whisper in horror. Whatever happened, had to be her. It just had to be. And now I’m the one that’s going to have to pay for it.
“Maddie.”
For a second, I think I’m losing it, hearing yet another voice. But feeling the presence of anothe
r in the doorway, I collect myself and turn my head to the side and find River. He’s still wearing the same clothes from the last time I saw him, only wrinkled and his dark hair is disheveled. He’s also giving me a horrified look, his gazed fastened on my arms.
“Jesus.” He rushes into the bathroom, his eyes widening even more as he sees the bloody paper towels all over the floor. “What the hell happened to you?”
“You tell me,” I say in a hoarse voice, staring down at my arms. “Because I have no idea what went on pretty much after I left your office.” As soon as I say it aloud, a voice inside my head screams at me to keep my mouth shut. I want to shout back at the voice and tell it to fuck off, but the burning sensations on my arm from where I scrubbed the blood off makes me keep my lips sealed.
He glances around at the bathroom, which reeks of vomit, then grabs a few paper towels from the dispenser near the sink. Crouching down beside me, he hands me the towels and I dab my mouth off with them while he takes hold of my arm and examines it.
“Where did this come from?” he asks, delicately rubbing his thumb across a bloody spot on my wrist.
“I had stuff on my arm and I scrubbed a little too hard cleaning it off.” I slip my arm from his hand and put it to my side, his touch making me feel distant and cold. “God, I feel like shit and the really shitty part is I can’t even remember what I did to feel this way.”
He watches me intently as if he’s seeking a sign that I’m lying to him while I clean my face off with the paper towel. “You really don’t remember last night at all?” he questions with skepticism.
I shake my head, balling the paper towel up in my hand. “I really don’t, so it would be great if you would enlighten me as to what the hell happened.” I’m aiming for the fake light tone, but fail miserably.
He takes the paper towel from me and chucks it into the trashcan. “I’m not really sure where the blood came from… All I can remember is you and Bella talked. Drank. Did all that lovely stuff you do, although I think you got a lot more intoxicated than you normally do.” He scratches his head. “After about your eighth shot, I sort of lost track of you in the crowd.”
“So you have no idea what I did last night either?” My head slumps against the wall again because it’s too heavy to hold up. What did I do from the hours of midnight to seven?
I wouldn’t trust him if I where you, Lily whispers.
“I know you kept saying that the only way you’d let me observe you was for me to be drunk and it made it really, really hard to decline.” He contemplates something. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to get me drunk on purpose, just so I couldn’t observe you with a clear head.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“Well, I’d say I have no idea,” he replies, staring at the floor with wariness before sitting down on the stained tile, his hands balanced at his sides so he doesn’t touch anything. “But from the little that I saw last night, you have a way with getting people to do what you want.” He glances up at me, his expression unreadable. “You know, you’re kind of a manipulative person.”
“I am not,” I lie, raising my head up and straining the best smile I can muster. “I’m a total angel. Ask anyone.” I’m trying to be sarcastic, but there’s a strain in my voice that matches the ache in my body. I’m not okay.
No you’re not. Especially near him.
River props his arm on his knee and itches at his tattooed arms so roughly he leaves streaks of red. “Maddie, I’ve known you for almost two months now and you’re not the angel part of this bar.”
He reaches for my hair and with hesitancy and tucks a strand behind my ear, a gesture very unlike him and one very unlike me to kindly receive. I lean back and he jerks away, almost as if I’m on fire. Silence encompasses us as I watch his nails tear apart his flesh with his fingernails and it makes me want to scratch the hell out of myself and see what’s hiding underneath the layer of flesh that covers my body. Finally, I slant forward and grab hold of his hand, trapping it in mine and forcing him to stop itching.
“Would you stop that?” With my free hand, I trace my fingertips down the red marks. “You’re scratching the hell out of yourself.”
His mouth curves downward, confusion written all over his face as he stares down at the scratches. “You seemed perfectly content last night about scratching me.”
I scratched him… what?
When I don’t say anything, staring at him unfathomably, he adds,” God, you really can’t remember anything at all, can you?”
“But apparently you can remember some stuff you’re not telling me,” I say, still grasping onto his arm to the point he should probably tell me to ease up, but he doesn’t, which makes me want to only grip tighter. Hurt him.
“This happened at the beginning of the night before I lost track of you.” He holds my gaze firmly. “After you left my office yesterday, you came back up a while later and well…” He shifts uneasily. “We fooled around quite a bit.”
“We did?” Why can’t I remember this?
Maybe you should ask him.
He nods. “How can you not remember… you weren’t that drunk when you came up. At least I don’t think you were.”
I rack my brain for any sort of spark of reminiscence, but all I can remember is making it to the bottom of the stairs right after I told him he could study me for the night, tripping over my own feet, then falling to the floor. Then nothing. “And things got kinky I’m guessing.” I think about how I bit his lip before I walked out of his office and how I liked it, inflicting pain on him.
“Not too bad, but…” He glances down at his arms and then at my fingertips digging into his skin. “You did get a little rough.” His voice cracks and I can tell he wants me to let his wrist go. It makes Lily not want to let it go. Hold onto it forever until he cries out my name.
Bits and pieces float back to me.
“God, you’re so fucking amazing,” River kisses me deeply as I straddle him in his office chair, gripping onto him, stab my nails into his flesh. Lines form on his skin. Dots of blood drip out… I love the sight of it. This is who I am. I’m sick. Twisted. Deranged. And I fucking love it, because if I don’t love it than I have to fear it. Accept or drown in self-hatred. I’ll never let fear own me—never let anyone control or hurt me. I want to hurt him. And I can, because I’m wild reckless Lily, who doesn’t give a shit. Strong. Even a little deranged, which was who I was supposed to be in the first place.
I rock my hips against River and he groans, his hand sliding down the front of my neck to my breast. I’ll admit it, despite my distrust for him, it still feels so good. Makes my body yearn for more. But right as he’s about to brush his fingers across my nipple, I snatch hold of his wrist and bite his bottom lip. This time he moans out in pain and I feel satisfied. In control. I almost own him. But not completely. I need to own him completely to feel in control again.
The memory starts to become hazy as I straighten up my posture. “Did you like it?” I ask River, my lips moving on their own accord, completely separated from my mind. I’m not Maddie at the moment. Not Lily either. But some weird in between person where both of us have control.
He seems apprehensive with my question, like he wants to pull his hand away, but doesn’t dare. “I don’t know, Maddie… It was different.”
My brow meticulously arches. “Different good or different bad? Tell me River, did you like it when I was rough?” My tone is demanding and I press my fingertips roughly into his wrist, until I can feel his pulse hammering, hammering, hammering. He’s afraid.
Good.
But I feel wrong for making him afraid. For hurting him.
That’s because you’re weak. You need to be stronger, like me.
Pitter-patter… pitter-patter… pitter-patter… I can feel the rain falling… hear the thunder… feel the fear… Feel it… it’s clutching onto me and I want nothing more than to not feel it.
Let me help
you, Lily coaxes. Let me show you how to be immune to the pain.
“Maddie, you’re hurting me.”
The sound of the pain in River’s voice snaps me back to reality and I jolt back, releasing my hold on him. “I’m sorry.” Get up and leave. No more questions. “I need to get home.” I practically jump to my feet as I summon up every ounce of energy I have to shove Lily away.
River stands up, too. “Do you need a ride?” He tucks a strand of my sweaty hair behind my ear again in an affectionate way that makes me want to drop to my knees again and vomit some more. Don’t touch me, I almost lose my voice again and growl at him, but I manage to regain control and snap my jaw shut.
“No thanks. My car’s outside,” I manage to say politely, straining to ignore vertigo when it slaps me in the face. I feel like I’m slowly leaving my body and someone else is taking over my legs.