Page 10 of What’s Left of You (What Left #2)

I didn’t worry too much about my mental wellbeing initially. Isolation isn’t anything new, and I’ve gone days without speaking to a soul. It’s different though when you know someone's there, versus never being sure.

“If you die down here, you might inconvenience me by being heavy,” Fake Porscha tells me, and I’m still not certain when the last of my sanity snapped. Fake Porscha used to just mock me. Now I’ve started talking back.

“You’ll just cut me up to make it easier,” I grumble.

Fake Porscha scoffs, pacing around the cot. Her hair is still shimmery and healthy in the illusion, almost glowing in the dim space. It’s strange, because I can’t equate any version of Porscha to the shimmery or bright. Maybe Hellfire. “Disembodiment isn’t my thing.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t. You’re more of a slice and drop type of woman.”

She shrugs, continuing to pace. Unfortunately the Porscha in my head doesn’t have any knowledge to share with me. If only the real Porscha was more forthcoming. When she was last down here she tried to get me to call her Char, and that just isn’t going to happen.

Flexing my hands, I realize whatever she keeps drugging me with is wearing off. For weeks she’s kept a steady pattern, and now she’s starting to divert. It’s all because of the new victim. She couldn’t swallow her bloodlust, so she went for a kill.

“The drugs aren’t as important if you’re weak,” she goes on, and I glare at the apparition again.

Talking to myself is probably another sign of insanity.

“Six weeks? I’ve done enough to make you dependent on me.

Leave, you can’t have the drugs. Running won’t work if your muscles have weakened.

I’ve got every part of you hooked up and plugged in. You can’t escape me.”

Keeping track of time is kind of hard when I’m in and out of reality half the time, and I still hear random noises and see colors floating in the air when Porscha fucks up and gives me too heavy of a dose.

I think she started gloating about the body three days ago, and when she left last she kept muttering about some guy named Whitmore.

Even my mind doesn’t want to be on my side. Staying focused is fucking hard. “We’re in the marshes somewhere. Crocs could be out there. I need a plan to escape.”

Fake Porscha stares back at me, no response on her lips. I shouldn’t expect much since I’m talking to myself, and peer around the room instead. At least the fake version of my captor doesn’t need help following whatever nonsense I say.

This place reminds me of where Porscha took the bodies when she caught someone. She finessed her craft the longer the murders went on, although the very first victim was trial and error.

“Do you need some help?”

The woman spins around on me, lifting an arm to shield her eyes despite the sunglasses as her shoulders tense. She’s wearing overalls covered in paint, but what drew my attention is the red splash on her forearm. It looks more like blood than paint.

She flashes me a smile as I approach, leaning against the back of her SUV. The wind sends her hair flying out behind her, the braid mostly falling out as she grins. “Nah kid, I’m good.”

I pause and stare at her. I’ve only been in Citrus Grove for a week, relocating from Tallahassee thanks to the CBC.

Community Based Care promised they found a home that might be able to handle my particular…

challenges, and I had avoided speaking to most of the residents in this puny little town until the Franks sent me to the high school.

“It looks like you got cut,” I reply, adjusting the strap of my bag.

I should be home by now, which would help me avoid having to talk to someone altogether, but she looked like she was struggling so I decided to do something out of character and actually check on her.

My foster brother offered me a lift home earlier, but I don’t know how I feel about Emeric.

I would’ve avoided a run-in like this but then I would have to talk to my foster brother and so far we haven’t really gotten along since I arrived in Citrus Grove.

I should’ve stayed quiet. A cut on her arm isn’t deadly, but she looks totally out of place amid the rundown houses and dreary landscape. Citrus Grove isn’t the place of dreams, but there are nicer parts than this area. I learned that much walking around the last few days.

She presses a hand over her forearm, shooting me a grin.

There’s a small gap between her two front teeth, and at first with the smile lines I thought she was older but now I’m not so sure.

“Oh, silly me. Sometimes I come out here for a little maintenance work and the properties aren’t always maintained.

Scratched myself on the gate back there.

Good thing I'm up to date on my tetanus shot, huh?”

My eyes glance over her again. I’m not that interested in why she’s here, but I’d love for her to get lost so I can roll a joint.

That’s the whole reason I took the long way and suddenly today there’s someone lurking around in my way.

I glance around towards the dead grass of the lawn and the closest house.

There is a dark spot a few steps from the cracked sidewalk on the edge of the driveway.

Definitely blood. She’s a klutz for a maintenance worker. “You should be more careful.”

There’s a pause, and then that grin turns to a full smile. “Worried about me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I snap, stepping past her. I’ll have to circle around and wait for her to be gone before I can smoke. She says something under her breath, and a moment later I hear the car door open and close.

Good. Whoever Blondie is, I don’t want her in my business.

Her SUV tears off down the road a moment later, and I grunt and glance back towards the damn house again. So much for my spot to relax.

I pause, staring at something in the street. I jog back, and find a very small pool of something dark against the pavement.

Sticking out my tongue, I lick the corner of my lips in consideration.

Getting tangled with shit like this is what got me booted out of my last foster home in Tallahassee, and I’ve barely been here a week.

Instead of doing the smart thing and turning away, I sit down on the curb beside the little puddle.

It’s blood. Too much to be from a cut I couldn’t see on her arm.

Could be from something else, or someone else, but I wasn’t intending on poking into anyone else's life.

I pull out my little notebook and a pencil from the breast pocket of my shirt and with the little pool of blood as inspiration, I begin to sketch the nightmares that live in my head.

Anytime the darkness creeps in, I have to let it out and give in to the nightmarish inspiration.

This is one of many problems the therapists keep talking about.

“You tell a pretty tale.”

I jerk, unable to do much more than lift my head in this bed. The restraints dig into my skin, and maybe maybe I’m just being unusually hopeful, but it feels like I can wiggle a little more. “Porscha.”

“Did you know you talk to yourself?” she asks, shooting me a grin. “Who were you chatting with down here, Alastair? Me, your demons, maybe the ghosts in your head that pretend to love you?”

Sighing, I drop down flat against the bed again. Porscha would walk in and catch me talking to myself. I don’t offer her a response, focusing on glaring at the ceiling instead.

“Don’t be like that,” Porscha continues. “We’ve had a busy day! I think your lovers are getting distracted.”

Oh good, more things that don’t make sense. I lick my lips and stay quiet. If I can talk to myself, so can she.

She won’t be so easily ignored however, leaning over into my space. She’s wearing something similar to her old clothes, a worn t-shirt and denim overalls partially visible as she stares down at me. “I think they’ve added someone new to their group of two.”

I keep my expression blank, but now her taunting has my attention. I don’t turn my head, keeping my eyes focused upwards, and flex my hands.

This is the most I’ve been able to move these past weeks.

She’s either not being as thorough with drugging me over the last few days, or I’m building a tolerance and she hasn’t figured out to up her dosage yet to keep me weak.

She slipped in the end when she tried to take out Jo, and she’s slipping again. I just need to wait.

I did solitary in Illinois on a twenty-three to one schedule, sitting in my prison box for most of the day, every day. There was no true interaction between inmates, and the guards were far more fearsome than the likes of someone like Wallsburg. I can wait out Porscha and her bad attitude.

A screen appears above my face, and my brows draw together. It’s someone watching them again, and I can’t figure out who it could be. I want to know who’s on Porscha’s side and why.

I’ve learned the hard way Porscha’s side is always the wrong side.

The image above me has no sound, and it takes a moment to realize I’m staring at Sterling’s back. Porscha’s shown me a couple videos now, enough so that I recognize the house they’re staying in.

The door opens, but no one is there. Sterling steps in, pausing to stare at something I can’t see. Finally, the door closes, and that should be it.

Instead, the cameraman moves closer to the house.

That sparks my interest, because I remember Sterling complaining about Jo and Vinny’s security cameras not getting a good image of the killer - Porscha.

Whoever is walking that close to the house must be on camera, and I’d guess they wouldn’t risk it if their presence so close to the dwelling can’t be easily explained.

So who? A guard, an officer, another agent?

The curtains are pushed to the side just enough to see in. The angle is shoddy, and I’m guessing whoever this is doesn’t want to be caught spying. Then I spot Jo and Vinny, her body pressed against the wall as Vinny fucks her.

And Sterling, practically falling over himself to sit on the couch.

She cuts it off then, but it doesn’t stop the strange mix of jealousy and lust that rolls through me. I want to be the third, not Sterling of all people. I surprise myself by not being as mad as I feel I should be.

Is it because it’s Sterling? Or because it’s Sterling?

It's not surprising to see he’s infatuated with Jo like everyone else already is.

Even when he tried to appear disinterested I could tell he found her attractive, even when we were younger.

He just wasn’t dumb enough to go after a high school girl while in college, and then all of us split apart after my arrest.

“Do you always watch videos of her?” I ask, turning the tables on Porscha.

She growls. “That’s not the point. You see them, loving her? Using her? It’s a reality that will never include you.”

Way to rub it in.

“What do you think will happen if you get out of here?” she continues with a laugh. “Will you go on the run? Or will you tell the world that I’m not dead? Do you really think they would believe you?” She scoffs.

“Even if I told the story the way it actually happened, I’m not blameless. There’s no reason to dig into it again.”

She sighs. “So noble. I think that’s what I liked the most about corrupting you.”

Her fingers skim the side of my arm, and I flinch. I’m never going to welcome her into my space. Her voice is like a knife stabbing into my brain when she speaks again. “But it hurts, doesn’t it? Seeing yourself replaced?”

“You knew it would happen eventually,” Fake Porscha chimes in, and I really hate that my mind is bringing her back now.

The flesh and blood Porscha appears above me, and this time she’s shaking a little syringe. “Don’t worry, some Vitamin K will take care of all of that. No worries, boy. Now I need you to stay quiet for a while. We have company.”

I jerk away when she pulls at my IV, and the damn straps don’t budge when I try and pull back from her. If I could just do something…

That calm, floating feeling settles over me again. Like it has every single day that I can recall since arriving here, the worries are just drifting away.

There’s Fake Porscha, standing at the end of the bed now. She’s wearing a top with a rock band on it, it looks familiar.

Ah. I think Jo used to have that t-shirt.

“Sweet dreams,” Porscha says before pressing her lips to my temple. It makes me want to crawl away. “Make sure you rest up. I’ll take care of our work until you’re ready again.”