Page 10

My entire body is vibrating, I’m on a fucking knife edge, despair saturating through my veins. One wrong step and I’ll fall and shatter to smithereens. What a fucking blessing that would be. I slink through the dark shadowed undergrowth as I make my way round the side of the house without being seen. I’ve been here long enough to know the blind spots in the security cameras coupled with the dense undergrowth I am practically invisible.

Residents are meant to stay to the back of the main house in the manicured gardens and surrounding woodland. Not around the front of the property. Amy—the receptionist and Jenna’s right hand—said it was the way the facility has been designed. Whilst that might be true, it’s not the whole truth. As with many places, there’s always more behind the obvious reasons people give. One is purely superficial, it looks bad to visitors to have the convalescing inmates running wild and two, probably the more serious reason, is for our safety.

Michelle said a couple of years ago one of the residents of the main house got attacked on the grounds by one of the patients from the other buildings. It should have been big news, a young socialite being attacked at knifepoint by a sectioned junkie in rehab, but miraculously the media never got wind of it. No one was charged, even though the resident was admitted to hospital with multiple non life threatening stab wounds.

As much as Jenna wants me to trust her, instances like this prove she’s just like everyone else with wealth and power. If a problem arises, throw enough money at it until the problem disappears.

Michelle said they paid off the family to the tune of a couple of million and I can well believe it. She’s tried to convince me it was done so this facility could remain operational, so it could continue to help people. But at the end of the day this isn’t a non for profit charity, it wasn’t done out of the goodness of Jenna’s heart. Was it?!

But what if she did it so her sister still had a safe place to live away from her neglectful parents?

“Thank fuck for Kait’s brothers,” I mutter as I reach my tree. I quickly glance around making sure no one’s watching and grab the metal tin hidden in a hollow in the bough it clinks against the bottles they’ve stashed there for Kait. I flick it open checking that they refilled it and sigh when I see a new packet of fags, a lighter and a small pocket knife.

I rip open the packaging, shoving the rubbish in my pocket and flick the base of the packet until one of the filtered tips rises above the rest. Grabbing the fag I pop it between my lips and flick the flint of the zippo until the flame flickers and sparks up. The cherry glows a deep red in the dappled light cast by the canopy above as I inhale that first drag. The thick toxic smoke coats the inside of my mouth and filters into my lungs as I swallow it down. I hold it there until my lungs scream, until my body fights against my mind for control as I revel in the pain. In the release it offers, the escape I constantly chase.

Exhaling slowly as the pressure inside me makes me feel like I’m about to implode, the nicotine filters through my lungs into my body making my cells hum. My head feels light and floaty as it tips back and rests against the rough bark. “Fuck, yeah!” I groan taking another deep drag, the ash drops and rolls down my top making me huff a laugh before I flick it off.

The rumbling of an engine startles me and I drop the tin on my foot, “Shit!” I snatch it up off the ground and shove it in the front pocket of my hoodie as the vehicle draws nearer. “For fucks sake.” My eyes roll in annoyance. “Can’t catch a fucking break today.” Finding a foothold in the trunk I haul myself up the tree slowly, ignoring the deep burning ache in my arm from my still healing bones and settle on one of the thicker branches halfway up. Obscured by the leaves rustling in the gentle breeze I stretch my legs out in front of me and set the tin on my thighs. My eyes trained on the front of the house waiting to see who arrives as I bring the tip to my lips and take another drag.

The itch clawing under my skin drives me further into the grips of insanity, the lines between reality and delusion blur. The edges of my vision stain with red as a haze descends and the monsters in my head howl for release, baying for blood and a chance to feed. My fingers absentmindedly move in a repetitive motion and it takes my brain a few seconds to realise I’m rolling the pocket knife over them as if it were a penny. With every breath I take I feel dead, my thoughts, my mind is destroying me but silence only kills me faster.

The deep rumble of an engine pulls me back from the edge of oblivion’s gaping maw, its shadowy tendrils lingering in my head refusing to let go. Through squinted eyes a gunmetal grey Z4 crawls along the gravel driveway, stones pinging off the wheel arches before rolling to a stop around the fountain opposite the grand front doors. Amy materialises at the bottom of the steps as the driver’s side door flies open and a young guy steps out, whips over the bonnet and pulls the passenger door open.

I scrub my eyes with the heel of my hands clearing the haze so I can take a closer look because something about him sends a shock of recognition through me, stealing my breath. I flick open the pocket knife and run my thumb across the blade slowly slicing through one layer after another of my skin.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Time seems suspended, one eternal second stretching, stretching as the world around me falls silent, even the monsters in my head are quiet as the dead. My body rocks with each erratic thud of my heart and a sick sense of foreboding crawls across my skin as I watch the passenger exit the car. I’m free falling out of the sky, hurtling towards the earth without a parachute. I’m at the top of a cliff looking down into the raging seas that crash against the rocks. I’m the epicentre of an earthquake, the eye of the storm, the wrath of god.

I turn to stone and the world stops turning as the passenger steps out, midnight eyes—eyes I’d know the colour of in the dark—search the world around him looking for me. His mind might not know why, but instinctively I know his body felt me, like every molecule is attuned to me. A strained smile curls the corners of his mouth as I crash into the hard unforgiving ground. “This can’t be happening,” the words on my lips quieter than air.

There is my fucking north star. He shone the brightest in the darkest time of my life, guiding me home—to him—caring for me. Saving my life even though he didn’t know it. He said he loved me. Looked at me like I was his world, and I’d hung the moon especially for him. I cried in his arms because I was nothing more than a nightmare, full of dead stars and the debris of humanity. Poisoned. Broken beyond repair but he still told me I was beautiful, even disfigured as I am. That I was worthy of his love.

“Fuck! Little devil is that you? Have you come for me?” I whisper with only the wind to hear my black soul disintegrate into dust as he falls into the arms of another man returning his embrace like lost lovers reunited. I can’t hear anything over the roar of my shattering heart in my ears. Blood drips down my arm from the blade stuck in it but I don’t feel the pain from it. I stare at my outstretched hand reaching fingers straining from him and I grasp nothing but air.

A vicious snarl tears it way up my throat, “Over my dead body will you let another man touch you, Rhys,” I hiss. “You belong to me and only me.”

Jealousy and something like wrath spreads through my veins like an insidious poison. Pummelling against the restraints of my skin like tsunami waves crashing into tungsten. It’s consuming me one atom at a time, ripping away any piece of humanity that still exists in me until I’m feral, rabid with the need to mark my ownership on him and destroy anything and anyone who thinks they can take what’s mine away from me.

Mine! Rhys, is fucking mine.

The monsters in my head snap their jaws and snarl with rage against the metal chains that hold them prisoner. My mind shredding, obliterating to pieces as I mentally snap.

I suck in a rasping breath as my body vibrates, arms shaking violently as I rip the blade from my forearm where it’s lodged.

“You’ll never touch him again,” I seethe, spittle spraying from my lips. I lick my blood off the blade and rub it into my teeth with my tongue, the heavy copper tang making my nerves sing as I watch the group slip into the main building.

Dropping to the branch below I lever my body weight and flip down to the ground like a fucking ninja, my feet landing with a jolting thud that rocks through my body. Placing the empty tin back into the hollow of the tree I skirt around the edge of the undergrowth using the shade from rhododendrons and smaller trees for cover. In the blink of an eye I’m at the front of the house, in another, I’m standing beside the gunmetal grey Z4.

I crouch down by the driver’s side door and pull the pocket knife from my hoodie and trace the still bleeding wound with my tongue and smear it across the knife. A snarl curves my lips as I sink the blade into the metal of the door and start to carve into it with my blood—a mark of my ownership.

Don’t touch what isn’t yours. GALE!!

A preternatural need to mark my territory has me trying the handle, jubilation shuttles through me as the door pops open silently. A manic grin splits across my face as I pull my throbbing length from my jeans giving it a slow, tight tug.

“Ahhh, fuck yeah,” I groan as I release a steady stream of piss over the front seats and the dash. Staining the oxblood leather with my scent before I shake off the last couple of drops.

My pulse pounds in my ears erratic and wild. Rolling my bottom lip between my teeth to stifle the moan in the back of my throat, my aching length thickens in my hand pulsing in time to the thundering echo in my head.

Flexing my fingers I adjust my grip and start to work my hand up and down my shaft collecting a bead of precum as it leaks from my slit with my thumb using it to lubricate the sensitive skin. A rumbling groan builds in my chest, this is the first time I’ve touched myself since I woke up in that hospital bed. It’s like a part of me I thought I’d lost has risen from the ashes of who I was before. It’s darker, more primal in its toxic obsession, voracious in its need to own what has slipped away and claim him I will.

Blood from the agitated wound in my arm drips down my hand and around my fingers, slickening my grip. I work myself over in a tight vice-like grip the only sounds I can hear above the thundering of my heart and my heaving breaths is the steady thwick, thwick, thwick of blood slicked skin. I bit down on my lip hard enough to break the skin as I imagine his taste coating my tongue as I tease the wound with the tip of my tongue and swallow it down. Him down and let loose the groan that’s been hammering against my ribs.

Electricity dances under my skin thrumming with need as sensation builds at the base of my spine and blood surges to my dick, thickening my shaft to the point it feels like my skin can stretch no further. Precum pools from my slit dribbling over my fingers, melding with the blood coating my length, drenching me. Fuck, yes. Every slide resonates through me making my balls draw up tight to the base of my shaft as my orgasm draws closer like a dangerous riptide.

I don’t want it to end yet. I want to be suspended in this state of near ecstasy forever but every nerve ending in my body is a light, burning brightly, an intensity too much to hold on to. My head falls back on my shoulders and my eyes shutter closed as I detonate. White hot waves of pleasure incinerate my insides radiating through my cells and fireworks burst behind my eyes as thick ropes of cum shoot from my pulsing cock.

My hips thrust forwards as if I could impale him and fill him with my seed—fuck I need that. So I could live inside of him never to be removed. My eyes fly open as another thick rope flies from my tip and I shuffle my feet aiming it over the steering wheel watching with satisfaction as my cum drips down over the leather. Perspiration beads in my hairline and trickle down my temples as I’m rocked by aftershocks of one of the most intense orgasms I’ve ever had and I know it’s because of him.

He will soon be mine, again. There isn’t a day that has gone past where I haven’t felt his absence acutely, like an intrinsic part of me was missing—gone but not forgotten. Rhys is as deeply ingrained in me as the marrow in my bones, the synapses in my brain. He’s the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins and without him, I’m not alive and it’s the worst kind of torture I’ve ever endured.

I catch the last lingering drop of my cum with my bloodied hand and tuck myself away with the other. Panting stuttering breaths I lean into the car and work my cum around the edges of the steering wheel. A sick sense of satisfaction flows through me at the thought of Gale’s hands being coated in my release.

A malicious chuckle slips past my lips as I gently close the door. It’s like the bubble I’ve been in pops and the world comes crashing back in around me in full technicolour. The chattering birds, the rustling leaves in the trees and the sound of voices coming from the front of the house drawing closer with each passing second.

“Fuck.” I grunt, casting my eyes in the direction of the open front door shaded by the pillars. I breathe a sigh of relief when I can’t see anyone but I know I need to get out of here and fucking quickly.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

I race across the gravel, my shoulders hunching closer to my ears with each crunching step and dive into the welcoming embrace of the shadowed overgrowth just in time to see Gale and Amy walk down the steps. I wipe my hand off on the damp grass as I crouch down and watch them, mainly him, because, well, reasons. I pull a fag out of the packet that’s lying on the floor by my feet and spark up the zippo. Inhaling the toxic smoke deeply, that niggling, incessant buzz in my head quietens momentarily. The corner of my lips kick up as Amy waves goodbye and Gale heads to the car.

Anticipation skitters across my skin and my heart stutters. His feet crunching on the gravel counting down the seconds until he sees my little message makes something bloom in my chest making it feel tight and I relax into that feeling as I bring my fag to my lips and take a drag.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Gale’s head whips from side to side, his blown hazel eyes darting all around him as he tries to find the culprit. As if he can feel me watching him. Hands fisting his hair he drops to his knees and I snicker at the look of absolute despair that engulfs his face.

“Fucking, checkmate,” I sneer, smoke curling around my face in a teasing caress.

“Shit. fucking, shit.” His voice wavers, laced with some emotion I can’t quite place. Scrubbing his hand over his face, his shoulders lift and drop as he takes a deep breath before lifting a shaking hand to the car door, tracing the scribed letters with a trembling finger. “Who in the fuck…” his voice trails off as broken sobs carry on the cold breeze.

Pulling his hand back he rubs his thumb in circular motions of his first two fingers before inspecting them closely. “What the—” he lifts them to his nose and inhales. A cackling laugh bubbles out of me as his eyes go wide. “—fucking blood.” Colour drains from his face as his brain processes everything.

“That’s just the beginning you little shit,” I grind out between my clenched teeth.

Gale wipes his hand off on his jeans and rises to his feet pulling the keys from his back pocket. The lights on the car flash but confusion clouds his face as he realises the door wasn’t shut properly. Looking more like Casper the ghost he tentatively opens the door, his body canting forwards, one foot lifting off the ground as if he’s going to get in the car. A hacking cough splits through the air as an arm comes up to cover his face. “Holy, fucking shit. That.. that stinks.” Tears prick his eyes and fall down his cheeks glinting like diamonds in the sun.

He pulls off his jumper and covers his face, my heart rate increases as I wait for him to find his next surprise as he quickly steps round the car, pops the boot open and yanks a coat out of it. He leans in running his hand over the seat, a visible shudder rolls through him making me snort.

“Shouldn’t touch what isn’t yours then, should you.” I flick the ash off the end of my fag and watch as it catches in the breeze rolling across the grass into a cluster of leaves.

By the time I remember what I should be doing Gale has his coat on the front seat and all the windows open as he slides into the car. The door clicks shut just as a loud, “Mother fucker,” rings out and his hand comes flying out the window shaking violently as if that will remove my cum from his skin.

“Checkmate, fucker.” I push up, dropping the fag butt on the floor scuffing it out with my boot. “Have a great day, Gale,” I cackle as I turn my back and fade into the darkness of the shadows of the undergrowth and head back to the side door of the house I slipped out of earlier. I need to get my fags and knife stashed before one of the staff finds them on me.

Gale’s anger is palpable as the engine of the Z4 revs and gravel is churned up and spat out by spinning tyres as he zooms down the driveway. I couldn’t have imagined today going like this in my wildest dreams, possibly, maybe that’s not true. The stuff that runs through my mind is a scattered myriad of nightmares, pain and toxic obsession. Nothing within the realms of what’s considered normal or neurotypical but for once my twisted brand of darkness has brought me a fleeting glimmer of light like the sun’s rays breaking through the storm clouds.

Everything I’ve learnt about the light within me has come at the expense of the darkness I’ve endured. I’m not sure I have the capacity to give Rhys what he deserves, but I won’t give him up. I physically can’t because he’s the most addictive drug in existence, I knew one hit would never be enough to quench this thirst, this desire that courses through my veins. My fucking north star in the desolate universe.

I’m coming for you, little devil.