Cece could understand the need to fidget. In fact, her entire body felt foreign when she was forced to stand still, like she was now. If they were to have a show down, Cece would sooner make her cheeks bleed from biting them for restraint than crack and play with the frays of her sweater. She had years of practice, the days of any person caught fidgeting being told they have ‘Cecelia syndrome’ have not been forgotten.
She stared, unblinking, until finally raising one eyebrow and giving a deliberate look of disbelief. What a pretentious twit. It’s cerise? “Yes, and my hair is flaxen, not blonde,” she shot back, utter disdain dripping from her tone. Maybe she had been right all along to be defensive when she first appeared. “And just, what, exactly is up with that scarf, anyway? Shorts, sleeveless, and a scarf. Are you deliberately trying for the shock factor?” She practically tsked. Celia may not be dressed appropriately for the season, but at least it all matched. “At least make an effort to be more subtle about it. Pink hair, mismatched clothes, fuck-all attitude. Jesus. You’re like a walking, talking cliche,”
She was insulted–even if she wasn’t actually painting an image–but truly she couldn’t deny how perfect that split second was. Cece did paint, had been since way back when all she had were her fingers as brushes, but it was more of something to do on sleepless nights. Not an obsession, like the one she had with writing. Maybe a picture with an angry pink blur wouldn’t be so bad. But that was a different matter. She’d think about that later. She tried to pause before she replied. Tried to reason with herself that no, she wasn’t calling her stupid, she had no idea who she was and that she was merely trying to rile her up.
“I hardly believe there’s an issue with the vernacular I’m using. Are you as shallow as your attire suggests, and can’t wrap your dye-posioned brain that you and we might have two different definitions?” She put on the same lilt the girl had used, blinking her eyes and tilting her head to the side when she was done.
Feet positioning into a defensive stance. Eyes gleaming from a hazel hue to the sickly honey colour of the wolf’s as she glared back at the girl. In the back of her vision, she could see that night flashing back before her.
Damp, the smell wafting from the floorboards and lingering in her clothes for days after.
Blood, crimson and warm against her hands as she reached out to push herself up from the ground. Pain, her flesh feeling like it was melting away from her body when the plant met her skin, that sensation crawling all the way up the left side of her neck and eventually in her hands too when she had tried to push the vampire away.
Her skin twinged now as if the mere memory of being burnt could bring back the pain itself. Phantom pain full of screams in her ears that she couldn’t block out and suddenly she found herself on the concrete with her palms clamped over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut. Was that screaming? Was that her? Was she making that dreadful sound that seemed to ring out across the terrain, past the buildings and into the stretch of green that was shielded by the town and the mass of man-made buildings.
Echoing.
Hurting.
All the way through her arms, up her neck and right down through the rest of her body. Everywhere ached a pain that she was now far too familiar with. It ebbed through her veins, pulsating with her heart beat and into every finger and capillary. Like a virus, it just kept coming back and every time this had happened, she hadn’t been able to stop it. Behind closed eyelids, her irises slipped back to their normal colour. A sheen of sweat covered her skin, one hand reaching down towards the ground as if to check if this world was still real. Her heart felt heavy in her chest, her breathing just as so– Were her cheeks wet?
Eyes of wonderful, pure, sweet blue gazed down at her, screaming of a loyalty and a protection that she knew she couldn’t have. With hands that fit hers so completely and a smile that made her melt in every way possible, she lost herself to his embrace. Stay with me, Zoey thought as she ran her fingers along his cheekbones, over the tips of his ears and into his hair. Their foreheads touched, him having to bend down in order to reach her, and her standing on the very tips of her toes even though she was in heels and he was doing his best not to make it too much of an effort for her. As she tilted her head up to press a soft kiss to his lips, his features changed.
“Give me your all, sweets,” spoke Liam as he pulled her tighter into his chest, taking away what was left of her breath and making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. He smelt putrid. Like someone had dug up a corpse and tried to spray perfume over it to mask the smell of rotting flesh. Flickering her gaze over his face, her eyes traveled down. There were bloody fingerprints on his cheeks, far too small and too feminine to be his. Down, down, down past his jaw and to a bloody mass that she perceived to be his neck. Flies buzzed around them, circling the man and the woman who were locked in their tight embrace. Dead. He was dead. He was a walking, talking corpse. A living being from the depths of Hell.
Zoey tried to pull away, staring at him in horror as she lifted her hands to shove him in the chest, only to find them covered in blood. Crimson. Slick. Warm. From a fresh body, and she couldn’t tell who it belonged to. There was no telling when everyone bled just the same. Him and her, they were one in the same. She would end up like the great Liam Pearson. A dead man in the hands of another.
“What’s wrong?” He inquired, tilting his head to the side innocently as the words slipped off his tongue and his hands trailed down to grab her wrists and lift her hands towards the gaping, oozing gash on his neck. “Don’t you want to touch your creation?” She shook her head in anguish, tugging herself out of his grip and stumbling back until her shoulder blades hit the wall and she couldn’t move any further. There was madness in his eyes as he spoke, and she had never liked the look that was on his face. An apocalypse was coming. The end of all worlds. What he said next sent chills down her spine and made the blood in her veins run cold.
“It’s so easy to make another.”
Another shake of the head, and then a terrified whimper. “No more.” Zoey begged, pressing her lips into a thin line. All the colour in her cheeks had drained the moment he had spoken. That loving, wonderful feeling that she had first felt with the man with blue eyes was gone, and in its place was a numbness that she couldn’t describe. Forever, he would haunt her, and she would let him because she was caught so tightly in his grip. She was suffering under the weight that was Liam Pearson. “Please. I don’t want to be here anymore. No more.”
Begging. He loved that. Liam made his way towards her, taking slow, purposeful steps that would leave her with time to think and send her heart into chaos. Inhales turned to hyperventilation and by the time he came nose to nose with her — him bending down patronisingly to meet her height — she couldn’t breathe. Zoey closed her eyes, her nails digging into her palms as her hands turned into fists at her sides.
There was a sharp intake of breath.
Then an exhale.
The knife, that was now in his hand, glinted under the spotlight. His eyes reveled in browns and flickered gold and yellow as a psychopathic grin took over what remained of his lips, and he lifted the weapon towards her cheek. Along her cheekbones, over her ears and into his hair, he traced, all the while the tip of the blade pressed against her skin, hard enough that it hurt, but gentle enough to not leave a mark. Her body screamed danger; his trembled with glee.
“You’re all mine, sweetness.” He whispered into her ears, running his other hand up her sides. “I’m never letting you go.”
“Go.” Zoey awoke with a start. Wrapped in layers of blankets and silken sheets, she was sweating, her body covered in a sheen as she pushed away from the warmth and out of the bed. Sitting on the edge with her feet atop the frame and an expression of shock on her delicate features, Zoey scrubbed her hands over her face. Liam. Mr ‘Everything Is Possible If I Have Something To Do With It’ Pearson. There in her dreams over and over again. Shaking her up until she fizzed over and turning her into a crazy woman in the arms of another. My hands are crimson now, she thought as she slowly made to stand and walked out of the room. I’ve hurt, and cut, and tossed without a sound. My hands are crimson.
Nobody can save me now.
“Gen?” She called out, knocking against the girl’s door gently. An incoherent grunt came in response, and slowly, Zoey twisted the doorknob in her hands and pushed into the darkened room. Her cheeks felt wet, and up until now, she hadn’t shed a tear. Not when she’d been burned. Not when she had been rescued by the school and placed into the ambulance by the paramedics. Not even when she had gone to see Daisy in the hospital. She had lost so much of herself recently, and through the darkness, she could see Genevieve turning over to squint at her. A spark of light at the end of the tunnel.
