Chapter Four

This got deleted somehow... I have no idea for how long it was gone but... here ya go

-Rema-

I paced in front of my door, peeking out the hole every few seconds.

“I know you’re in there! Open your f*****g door!” The voice on the other side boomed.

One of his old friends… Had to be.

I knew he wouldn’t leave… He’d been banging at my door for five minutes now, and he’d bust it down if he wanted to.

“I swear to god, b***h! Open the f*****g door, or I’mma wait here until your little druggie roommate comes home and seriously f**k her up.” Threats… Those familiar threats that always turned me into a helpless child.

I opened the door.

I remembered him now… Jack. A drinking buddy of my ex… He was always very tall and large, but grew quite the beer gut over the last two years… His face was red with anger, and his breath smelled like vodka.

“Where is he? Huh? ‘cause I know he didn’t just up and leave like everyone seems to think!? What? You poison him? Slit his throat in his sleep? Get that n****r to kill him for ya? What!?” He shouted in my face, backing me further and further into the living room, I almost fell over the sofa before I manage to move.

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit!” He screamed, “He always said you were a lying w***e! Good for nothing b***h who didn’t know her place! No wonder he smacked your stupid a*s around! Now, what’d you do to him?” He smacked me across the face and I fell into the kitchen counter, barely catching myself from smacking my head.

The anniversary of my husband’s “disappearance” was the other night, and I knew in the back of my mind something would happen. I just wanted to move on, but my husband popped up everywhere - even from beyond the grave, it seemed.

He grabbed my hair with his large hands, tangling the curls up in his fingers. “Don’t f****n’ lie!”

“I didn’t do anything!” I screamed, “Get off!”

The angry tone. Rough hands. The alcohol breath… the belittling insults… So familiar…

“God, woman, you just don’t learn!” He shoved me forward and my head smacked against the counter this time. Tears started gathering in a puddle under my face.

“No… Not again…” My eyes followed my hand as it grabbed the butcher knife. “Never again!” I saw my husband when I stabbed him in the neck. I saw his face fill with blood and fear. I heard his voice scream under the muffle of my hand. In this moment, I was reenacting my first murder.

I couldn’t stop. He was dead and had been dead for a while, but I kept cutting and stabbing. Splattering more blood all over the kitchen floor. The puddle was growing more and more and soaking my knees now as I kneeled in it.

“Never… Again… You’re… Dead… Never… Again…”

I’ll never be a victim. Never be helpless. Never be used… I became the monster, because I was the victim for so long.

Zekk came as soon as I called, and I could barely stop crying to explain to him what happened.

“You’re sure you aren’t hurt? You didn’t hit your head too hard?” He asked, looking me in my eyes as he checked my head.

I nodded. “I’m… F-fine.”

He shuffled his feet, “He knew the prick… Yeah?”

I nodded again.

“Then he f*****g deserved it just like that sick b*****d…” He sighed, running his hand through the short, thin dreads in his hair. “Kacia won’t be home ‘til mornin’ right? Just get some sleep then, I’ll clean this up…”

I thanked him and headed towards my bedroom before he stopped me.

“And Rema… Slow down… This is the third in the last two weeks. I don’t mind helping you when you need it, girl, but… The guys are gonna start asking questions.” He said carefully.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“I understand… Just… Be careful girl… Can’t lose ya…”

Hours later, he woke me to tell me he was done. I grabbed his wrist.

“Stay with me a little, please, Zekk.” My eyes brimmed with tears… I already had cried so much they burned.

He nodded, crawling into bed and holding me as I tried to fall back to sleep. Zekk was the only one who knew the real me. He was all I had, the closest thing to someone who understood… But he didn’t understand… He never had to kill someone he loved because they were hurting him… He never took an innocent life out of paranoia… He never saw the darkness I did… And I was both happy for him and jealous of him…

//

-Frey-

It had been been a week since the night I killed those thugs. I lost so much blood, I was surprised I didn’t die. I sewed up the wound in my leg with thread and a needle I bought at a discount store, and washed the blood off my split open head in the bathroom of a truck stop.

Around a couple days after, my leg began swelling and leaking foul odored fluid and pus. After a week, I could hardly walk and couldn’t eat without vomiting. I hadn’t felt this bad since the basement, and I wondered as I limped down the street if I was going to finally die.

It was getting colder and colder, a large snow storm hit a hours before and I was shaking from the nausea and chill. I noticed the looks people gave me, like I was a zombie or a drunk… People avoided me completely.

I collapsed by the side of a bar the monster lead me to. I heaved into the snow, but all that came up was blood and bile. My ribs were broken too, I was sure of it. I wondered how much longer I’d last like this, and started wishing for death to just take me and be done with it. I lived a miserable life, and I would die a miserable death… It suited.

The cold cut down into my skin, to my bones, and I no longer had the energy to keep my eyes open. I could feel my body shaking, and I felt like I was floating. I knew, I just knew, I’d be dead by morning at this rate… and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

I wanted to die… Always did. But what kept me alive was survival instinct, the need to hunt, and draw blood, and cause pain. I felt like I was made to suffer and cause suffering. I was darkness. Death. Emptiness. Nothing… Completely and utterly nothing… Just a nameless, faceless corpse no one would even notice… I could die and I think I’d be okay with it at that point… I could feel death gripping me, tighter and tighter and…

“Frey?” A voice… Sounded familiar… How’d they know my name?

“Frey? Oh my god, what the hell happened to you?” It was a female, shrill and worried. I felt someone shake me. “You’re bleeding. You look like s**t. Who… Who did this to you?” Her voice became soft, and I recognized it. It reminded me of ginger, booze, and coffee…

“Hey, Hey, look at me. Focus.” I opened my eyes, and saw the redhead from weeks ago. I had forgotten all about her, until it clicked that she worked at that bar… The monster lead me to her…

“Hey, Hey, come back.” Warm hands grabbed my face, “Who did this? You need a doctor… S**t, you’re freezing cold!”

I forced myself to shake the darkness, shake the grip of death. “You… I remember you…”

“Yeah, you’re the dumbass that wanted to jump off the bridge. What the hell happened to you?”

“Help me… No doctor… No hospital… Please, just… I’m gonna f****n’ die.”

Her eyes widened, “You need a hospital; you’re pale as a ghost and your head is bleeding.”

“No… Just… Help me… Just you.” I told her, my eyes kept slipping shut.

I didn’t know why I even went there, much less why I was asking some random woman for help. I’ve never asked anyone for anything before. I was used to being alone. Looking back, I’m honestly surprised I didn’t just lie in an alley somewhere and wait to die instead of show up there.

“Hey, hey, stay awake…” She was patting my face and shaking me, trying to get me to open my eyes.

“I’ve been awake for days… I’m tired…”

“Yeah, but you’re really fucked up right now…” Her voice faded off, then she cussed, “Okay… I’ll take you to my place… But if you die at my house, I’m going to be really pissed, ‘kay? Can you walk? It’s just a few blocks.”

I nodded and forced myself to my feet, just to nearly fall over again. I felt her grab me to stop me, and I shoved her away and leaned on the wall, beginning to slowly limp out of the alley beside the bar.

She tried to help me walk, but I brushed her arm off my shoulders. “Hey, you said you wanted help… You obviously can’t walk.”

“I can…” I muttered, my words were slurred now.

“Stubborn, much?” She said under her breath.

It was only about two blocks, but it felt like a damn mile. I nearly fell twice, and I did fall the third time. Then, while trying to get up the apartment stairs, I almost fell down them before I grabbed the railing and smacked my face on it so hard I almost knocked myself out.

“Frey, you cannot walk up these stairs by yourself. You’re gonna make yourself worse, Now quit being all stubborn and lemme help.” She looked disapproving, like someone’s Mom.

I waved my hand at her, “Nah, ‘m fine.”

“Sure… You just damn near fell down the stairs and smacked your face on the railing… You seem perfectly fine.” She groaned, rubbing her eyes as I sat on the stairs. “Frey, you need an actual doctor… You are seriously hurt right now…”

“Just help me… Just you.”

She sighed, and lead me up the stairs and into a small, two bedroom apartment. She told me to sit down and quickly dug through drawers in her kitchen in a panic while she muttered curses to herself.

Author's Note

I don't know how chapters 3, 4, and 6 were deleted... but here ya go, I reposted them