Collateral Damage

C H A P T E R 12

C H A P T E R 12

A brOKEN BAND-AID

Puppet

S he’s resisting me. In a weird, fucked up way. Twice now she has saved my life and twice now I am left confused. I attacked her in search of some sort of closure and answers and I am left even more frustrated than I was before. She could have killed me but she didn’t. She could have left me to die last week but she didn’t. I wanted her to hurt me. I wanted her to fight back but instead she resisted my harm and took it. I don’t understand and I want to rip my hair out. Is she resisting because she cares or is she resisting because she is lonely? I promised her violence and I don't intend on breaking that, but how far can I push before she snaps? Is she sparing me out of pity? If so I don’t want her fucking pity. I want the pain to be gone and now I've added to it. She wants me to fight but I am so tired. What exactly am I fighting for? I have nothing left besides the babysitter I have now acquired and the nightmares that have now begun to plague my mind. That night haunts me like a broken tape. Every time I look at her, all I see is death . She makes me want to die and she expects me to fight? How am I meant to move on from this?

She’s tied me to the metal work of her bed frame as she tends to my wound and there is a knot in my stomach due to how gently she is being with my skin. Skin I tore. She is the definition of a mind fuck and I’m finding her kindness nauseating.

“Have you ever hurt yourself before?” Her question catches me off guard, interrupting the way I'm catching myself looking at her hands against my skin. I’ve thought about it, but I never had the balls. I'd never understood it until now, the pain I inflicted, just for a moment made me forget about everything. It shut off my mind.

“No…” There is a bowl of hot soapy water on the bed side table she's using to clean my wound along with a flannel that she’s being so gentle with it’s infuriating. Why is she being so empathetic?

“Is my company really that unbearable?” I scowl my face at her obscured question. In what world would she ever think her company would ever be bearable?

“You are a permanent reminder of everything I've lost. How could I even find comfort in your solitude.” The mask she wears makes it even harder to even remotely enjoy looking at her. It’s hideous and full of horror I can never erase.

“I don’t expect you to.” Her manipulation tactics are smooth. I'll give her that. But I have no interest in grovelling at her sorry excuse for a half-arsed apology. She has yet to even apologise to me, not that it would change anything.

“Then why do you care? I certainly don’t.” I roll my eyes into the back of my head in protest. Refusing to look at her.

“Because what you did was brave, but stupid. And I do not do well with stupidity. Not when I know you’re stronger than that.” I hiss as she digs the flannel a little deeper into the cut and I don't know if that was for my newfound attitude or because she was digging to clean the wound but it seemed personal. She acts like she's known me my entire life when she's known me for five seconds.

“I will never forgive you so just stop trying so damn hard.” I say, glaring at the ceiling pulling focus on the patch work excuse for a paint job and the layers that are peeling off. The house just screams murder house if ever I saw one. It gives me the creeps.

“I don’t want you to.” My eyes shift to hers and my brows narrow. Why is she not fighting her corner, why is she not fighting back!

“Then what do you want from me!” I thrash around, causing her to grip my arm so tightly it could snap as both our heated glares rest on one another.

“I want you to know the truth. And then I will let you decide whether you want to hand me in or not.” If she thinks for one second her little sob story is going to magically change my mind she is highly mistaken…that part of me is long gone. That part of me got hurt. I refuse to be hurt anymore.

“I don’t want to be a part of your sick revenge fantasy. The damage is done.” I scoff with a sour face. I catch her peering at me through her hideous makeup and she looks me up and down with some sort of approval. I don’t know what she is looking at but it makes me shudder.

“Has anyone ever told you how tough you really are?” I gulp on her words, losing sight of my anger as a wave of heat rushes through my system. If only she really knew how much of a baby I really was.

“I’m not…” I cut eye contact, flushed and ashamed that I'm not as brave as I should be. Beneath it all I'm losing it. I’m finding a part of me I didn't even know existed, a part of me I wish I never met. A part of me I'm frightened of because I can't control it. I fear it will eat me from the inside out. I have always been in control. What do you do when you lose grip of it?

“It’s not every day I get chunks missing out of my arm by an eighteen-year-old girl.” As crazy as this sounds, that didn’t sound half bad coming out of her mouth. It’s also as crazy as the fact she even had to say that, and the way she knows my age. I took a chunk out of her arm just to stay alive. Who even am I?

“It’s not every day I have to fight for my life.” She’s slowly wrapping up my arms in a bandage that has probably been sitting in her bathroom for ten years. I’ll probably die of infection before I get out of here.

“Well get used to it, Puppet . Welcome to the real world. I am the type of sicko Daddy warned you about, but there are far greater threats than me out there. Trust me…” A look of disgust paints my face. She really thinks murdering my parents and holding me against my will isn’t bad? She really is delusional.

“And you would know, would you? Do you have a little serial killer fan club?” She's laughing. She's actually laughing at me right now. She actually thinks this is funny?

“You have quite the imagination.” I can't see it right now but I know she is grinning like the devil underneath her freakish persona and I want to stab knives in her eyes.

“Well, you clearly know a few.”

“When you’ve been to prison you realise just how sugar coated your perfect little lives really are.” My heart stops beating as I take in her confession.

She’s done time?

“You’ve been to prison?” My brows relax slightly as she finishes up patching my arm and holds my forearm in her lap, turning to face me like she's about to confess her life story and I'm suddenly nervous to hear it.

“Six years.” Six!! She did time for six years and she's out killing people again! Did that not teach her anything! She really is fucking crazy!

“Then why did you jeopardise your freedom?” I keep my composure from the outside trying to not burst into a fit of questions. Things I don't even think I want the answers to but find myself asking anyway.

“Revenge has a funny way of clouding your judgement. It’s why I refuse to let you make the same mistake I did.” The disbelief on my face right now. Did she just try to imply I have serial killer tendencies because I want to imagine stabbing her? Now that I say that, that's what a serial killer would think about… “You’re not a killer Puppet . You are just shallow.” Ouch . I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or feel offended.

“If you’re trying to build a bridge you keep breaking it.” I tug what little movement I can conjure with my restraint wrists to remove it from her lap trying to hold back my visible discomfort. That hurt .

“I thought you didn’t care.” An empty silence fills the room as she speaks dryly. Using my own words against me. And she's right. I don't care. Why did I even say that? “Don't feel offended. I'd rather I didn't receive any more holes in my hands, as badass as it might be. I have enough.” I glare down at her hand; she's not wrapped, only in ink that travels the length of her fingers. it's still seeping crimson but she doesn't seem at all phased. On closer inspection I notice indents in her hands, scars that look like tiny bullet holes.

“Are you not going to wrap that up?” it's making me a little dizzy looking at that hole in her hand knowing I caused that. To think I thought I was going to kill her. She’s also right again. I'm not a killer. I'm a pussy.

“I gave you the last one,” she says it so nonchalantly like I'm meant to say thank you or something? Why do I want to? She deserves to bleed. This good guy act isn’t going to get under my skin, but there's a small part of me that's smiling. Somewhere in my subconscious. I can feel it.

“What do you like to eat?” This time she's asking me what I want? Now I think about it. I've barely eaten all week which isn't doing any good for my blood sugar levels, not to mention the amount of energy I just exerted attempting to unalive a criminal.

“Nothing you cook if I can help it. You're probably feeding me body parts.” You can never be too careful. This nice act always has a motive, but by the expression in her eyes she did not appreciate that assumption.

“Body parts it is.” She pushes herself up off the bed, towering over me making me quiver. She's probably more terrifying than my nightmares as she peers at me through her mask like a weirdo. She is so tall not even my own demons could take that down and little me thought I stood a chance.

Revenge has a funny way of clouding your judgement .

“You're vile…” I have absolutely no appetite which is not helping how fatigued I feel right now. Thinking about food makes me want to puke and now I'm thinking about body parts. Yummy .

“You're eating.” She demands, sounding like my bloody parents. Nothing changes does it. Even dead I cannot get away from this insistent codling.