Page 4 of Borrowed

M y thighs were sticky.

I noticed that first.

The hum of the light was next.

The sheet clung between my legs, damp with something I didn’t remember spilling. My nightgown was on the floor. My panties sat on top of it like a fish head on a plate. The chunky pillow under my head was…different. Thinner. It sounded like crunching paper, and I didn’t like it.

My fingers twitched as I sat up slowly, my hand sore in ways I didn’t remember.

The room was too quiet.

Mila’s bed didn’t creak. She had rolled around in her sleep when I came in here and muttered about things crawling on the ceiling. But now, her bed was still. Sheets tangled around her legs like seaweed pulling her under. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes stared at the buzzing light above our heads.

I blinked.

My breath made a small fog in the air. It was always too cold in here.

“Mila?” I said, my voice filled with sleep.

She didn’t answer.

Something inside me buzzed, soft and confused—a tickle behind my eyes. I slipped from the bed, feet touching the cold floor. I stepped slowly. My legs shook, and it felt like I’d run a race in my sleep, like I’d done something but couldn’t remember what.

Mila’s shirt was wrinkled, twisted halfway up her ribs.

Her chest didn’t move. Her pretty blonde hair splayed on her breasts.

She looked pretty, like a still-princess.

I didn’t look like that. My hair was the color of oil.

And I had Mother’s eyes that looked like glass.

Toby’s eyes were prettier. But now, all I could see was bandages.

There was a pillow beside Mila. Cast away from her head. A faint red smudge kissed one corner.

I crouched beside her bed. Her skin looked strange.

Pale, blotchy.

Her lips were too blue, not like a pretty princess.

I reached out and brushed her cheek with my fingers.

Cold.

She wasn’t warm anymore.

A princess was warm.

“She was snoring,” I said aloud, frowning. “Last night. She was so loud…it hurt my ears.”

I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t. I just wanted her to feel good. She had come all over my fingers and tasted like honey. Toby said that was how love worked.

You give something sweet before you take it away.

I remembered her voice breaking, her fingers clawing at my wrist, her thighs trembling. She came hard like girls in the movies do. I remembered the taste of sweat and salt, the sound of breath choking off into silence.

But it hadn’t felt wrong.

Not then.

I was just trying to hold her still. Make her quiet down before the nurses ended playtime. I did it for her. So she could come.

“I think I did it wrong,” I whispered to myself.

The butterfly fluttered by the ceiling light—black wings like ashes in the air.

“You gave her peace, Zusje. You were merciful. Pleasure and no sense of pain.”

Toby’s voice wrapped around me like a blanket I didn’t deserve.

I curled beside Mila’s bed, arms around my knees.

“Then why do I feel like crying?”

“Because Mila didn’t say thank you.”

I stayed curled on the floor beside her, knees to chest, rocking just a little.

The hum of the light above buzzed louder now, like it knew a secret I didn’t. My breath sounded too sharp in the silence. Too loud, now that Mila’s was gone.

I traced a pattern on the floor.

Circles.

Little ones, over and over again.

My fingers were trembling, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t scared.

Just…empty.

“She’s not breathing,” I whispered to no one. “She’s not loud anymore.”

My body still ached. Between my legs, tight and tender, like something had bloomed there and wilted all in the same night. I remembered the way her hips bucked against my fingers, the way she cried out when I pushed harder, the way her hands gripped my wrists?—

And then nothing.

Just stillness.

“She said something,” I murmured. “She was crying, and she said my name, and I thought it meant something.”

“It did.”

The voice wrapped around me like smoke.

Warm, thick, unholy.

“It means she gave herself to you, Zusje. And you took her. You made her yours.”

Toby.

I didn’t see him.

Not yet.

Just his presence.

Just the scent of him in the air—earthy, like ashes, like rain before a storm.

The butterfly fluttered down from the light, wings slow and lazy, and landed on my bare knee.

Then he was beside me.

Not appearing.

Toby didn’t need theatrics. He simply was. His body slipped into the air like a secret sliding under my skin. He crouched beside me, one knee bent, fingers trailing along my shoulder. I didn’t jump. I never did. His touch felt like butterfly wings.

I leaned into him. He felt like cold breath and heat all at once. His hand brushed my thigh, and my pulse kicked.

“She’s broken,” I whispered.

“You broke her beautifully,” he said, voice low, thick with reverence, like glass beneath silk. “She died with your name on her lips, and her come leaking down your fingertips. Now she belongs to you, Tabby. Forever.”

I choked on a sound that wanted to be a sob. But it didn’t come out.

Toby moved behind me, a shadow curling like a lover. His hands were just pressure, cold and heavy. He stopped when he felt the wetness, slow and reverent. His fingers grazed the mess between my thighs, teasing the slit of my skin.

I whimpered.

“She didn’t mean to die,” I said, even as I arched into him. “I just…I didn’t want her to scream anymore.”

“And she won’t,” he murmured into my neck. “You gave her the only kind of peace she could understand. You freed her. You were good, Sister. Dead people can’t feel pain. Only love.”

His fingers, cold and slick, pressed into my core. My hips twitched. My breath hitched.

I was crying and gasping all at once.

“She liked cats,” I breathed.

“You don’t like cats, Tabby. But still. You loved her the only way you knew how. With your hands. With your mouth. With your mercy.”

My head lolled back against his chest. He touched me like I belonged to him. Like I was made for him.

“You’re proud of me,” I whimpered.

He kissed the shell of my ear.

“Always.” He moaned, pressing me into the bed with Mila’s cold body. “Let me show you how much.”

I whimpered, letting Toby press me closer to Mila. His rough hands flipped me on my hands and knees. I could see Mila’s eyes. I could taste her memories.

“ Show her you remember,” Toby said, his body, a concrete wall behind me, urging me closer to Mila, knocking my body onto hers.

“I do,” I whispered. “I do remember…”

And I did.

Her gasps.

Her whines.

Her thighs twitched on my arm.

Her breath was hot and fast and scared as she said my name, but her body wanted it. Her body came for me. For Toby.

At least, that was what Toby said.

I leaned down, pressing my mouth to her neck, breathing her in. She smelled like antiseptic and salt and silence.

My hips rocked backward into Toby’s touch. His two fingers inside me pushed deeper, slick and precise, curling just so. My mouth opened with a strangled moan, shaped like an ‘O,’ open and ready.

“Fuck,” I whimpered, grinding down harder on Mila’s cold chest. “I made her feel like this…”

“Now she makes you feel good,” Toby growled.

He slid his other hand up my spine, wrapping around my throat as I rode the space between death and memory. His chest pressed to my back, lips dragging across my ear.

“Look at what you did,” he hissed. “Look at her face while you come. Watch her eyes thank you from hell.”

I did.

And I broke.

Toby moved faster, his body grinding against mine, forcing me down until I was half-lying on Mila’s chest and hips. My stomach was jerking, my voice stuttering into sobs and wet cries.

Her cold skin against my thighs, Toby’s heat behind me, and heaven and hell clashing in my veins.

I came with a scream into her neck, biting down just to stay grounded.

And Toby…

He laughed.

Low.

Dark.

Proud.

“And there it is, my beautiful sister. Now she has said ‘thank you.’”