Page 43 of A Taste Of Truth

Flashes.

Lightening.

My lightening.

I’m left alone after that. It’s quiet. Just me and my thoughts. They start colliding after a while, confusing me. I shift from my position and look into the space around me, searching for answers to the questions on repeat. Who am I? Where am I? Where’s he?

Where are they?

“They’re here again,” stutters out of me, as I eventually try getting to my feet. “Bad.”

Colours start fusing together, making a blur of swirls and shapes. No white. All rainbows and colours. Objects move on their own, some tumbling in slow motion, others seeming to fly – fly.

Must fly.

Run.

My head whips sideways at a noise, sharp eyes trying to focus in on the threat. I need to kill them, or run. Can’t run with my arms tied up, though. Why are they tied up? I struggle and try to rub my wrists on the corner of a door frame, try sawing the tie on my wrists behind my back. Doesn’t work. I end up rolling to stand, unable to make it happen any other way, and then I’m up and shielding myself behind anything that offers cover. House, no hallways.

Don’t recognise them.

A loud clatter comes from behind me somewhere and I spin on it, shrinking down behind the chairs in this room. My eyes catch something above me, blood red stains on cloths. Lots of cloths and towels. I check my body over instantly, looking for wounds or injuries – nothing. Whose blood is the blood then? Don’t know. Don't care either.

Must run.

Sneaking out from behind the chair, I make a sprint for the door, the hall, the endless corridors that seem to blend into one until I get to a door. Heavy door. Big door. Out!

I turn around to try and open it. It’s ratchets in my hold, and the eventual click makes me turn sharply and run like the wind. Hard ground beneath my feet turns to cold, soft ground, and then it’s a foot deep with snow and I’m blindly running through the undergrowth. So cold. I can feel my skin tightening, telling me to go back, to head back to warmth and heat. Can’t though. It’s not safe there. Out here is. I can get home, outrun them and make my way to safety.

“Where are you going, little Allice?” Who was that? I duck behind a tree and shiver, eyes like a hawk to find the voice. There’s nothing. Just wind and cold and snow.

“Who are you?” A chuckle comes long and low. Malevolent sound. Chilling. It makes me turn and start running again, wild feet desperately trying to find a path, or a road, or anything to get me to safety. So cold, though, and before long my bodies too exhausted and my thoughts are nothing but a haunting melody of memories I can’t remember.

Warm heat suddenly wraps around me, hands removing the thing at my wrists, lips on mine. I fight, move, try to battle my way through the feeling until the memories turn into something too strong to ignore. Flickers of white light, of power and vigour start pulsing all around me. They’re not mine – don’t belong to me. But, this does. This sensation of heat and care and strength is mine.

Or ours.

Who’s ours? I’m not part of something. I’m singular – alone.

Just me and the lie I live.

My eyes flutter open at the thought, lips still being caressed and tugged. A man. Large man. I gasp into the mouth on mine, an avalanche of new senses and vibrations washing over me heavily – Malachi. I try pulling away, but he’s too strong, and I’m too needy, as I whimper and moan under him. Fingers move up my thighs, pressing me back to roughness on my skin. I can smell musk in the air, see the vivid lines of him as he moves closer and runs painful bites along my neck.

It’s all so slow, and yet fast, sweet and yet angry. I’m desperate, deprived, like a wanton whore begging for someone to take me and use me. And he is doing. He’s using me, abusing me maybe. I don’t know, but I can feel his heat moving me further up, making me grab him and hold on until something forces deep inside me and stills the erratic air.

I freeze, moan, quiver under some sense of union, as something else is pushed into my mouth. It’s cold. Metal. My teeth bite down on it, hold it tight. It’s my knife. My choice. My power over him.

“Did you use this to kill her, Alice?” Kill? No.

Yes.

Bad people.

“Hold it to me, Alice. Take what’s yours. Remember for me.”

Fingers dragging from his shoulder, I pull the knife to his neck, keep it balanced there as he starts moving again. I can feel the density of his thrusts inwards, the pain he’s hoping to cause. It doesn’t hurt. It feels overwhelming, consuming. For seconds it’s nothing but that. Powerful forges inwards and my hand holding his life in the balance.

So close – too close. My mind’s spinning, both rapture and fear leaving me unnerved. I’m lost. Lost and just breathing raggedly as I’m shunted up and down. Oh god, it’s so good. Too good. And now he’s biting me, one of his hands holding my neck severely, the other keeping me grating along this hard surface behind me.