Collateral Damage

C H A P T E R 20

C H A P T E R 20

OWNERSHIP

Puppeteer

M y house has stayed intact for around a week now, no smashed up picture frames or holes in the wall which is a relief. We've practically lived in each other's pockets like cat and dog, squabbling over the most ridiculous shit and questioning why I even let her out sometimes. I've semi cleaned the place up a little now I have a ‘guest’ to cater for. She's been killing my time while I find another lead and work on my project outside, away from her to keep myself sane. She's like a new puppy under my feet. Worse than Shep. I get she's bored but there's not much I can do about that unless I walk around my garden with her on a leash.

She requested I take the wooden panels off the windows to let some light in and I hesitantly complied. I’m not happy about it but if it keeps her quiet then whatever, being bossed around by an eighteen-year-old girl isn't quite what I had in mind. For crying out loud. I kept them covered so she couldn’t see beyond her confinement but now that she roams my house it’s sort of become redundant. I’ve caught her intricate gaze a few times coming in and out of the garage and she knows it’s out of bounds but I know she is curious. I’m also glad she didn’t realise I must have left the door open that day either because I never lock the office door, only the basement door, for reasons I never want to expose her to. I don’t think it would break her, I think it would kill her . She would never look at me the same and we are finally starting to get somewhere. Ish . That part of my life does not need to be reminded of and she certainly doesn’t need to be exposed to that level of cruelty. Being cooped up like a bird is more than enough for her snappable little wings. I will clip them. Only I get to corrupt her pretty little head. She sees what I want her to see.

She has gotten a little more comfortable with the sleeping arrangements. We share my bed but she builds a pillow fort between us and it’s far too amusing. As if that is going to stop me from touching her delicate skin. I haven’t, b ut fuck it’s tempting. Instead, I imagine how it feels against my fingers as I paint it with my eyes.

I think we have both just accepted that this is how it has to be for now. I’ve yet to decide what to do with her when I eventually run, but now I’ve shared too much, I can’t exactly let her walk. Her company is tolerable but it’s also a major threat. She made it quite clear she would never forgive me, so what makes me think she will let me get away with this when the time finally comes to let her go. I know she’s playing along, but I wish she fucking wouldn’t. It would make this all much easier.

I enter the living room through the garage door smothered in oil and paint that immediately fills up the room. This motor is taking me for a ride I'll give it that. Trying to get the bastard roadworthy again is a mission in itself and my trailer project is almost finished. It’s just missing a few more coats of paint and some lacquer. She gawks at me, wanting to speak but holds her tongue. I’m in and out all day, I don't stick around long enough for her to talk because I know she wants to talk about her father. It’s not happening.

“What?” I ask dryly as my head rolls to make eye contact with her staring at my dirty attire feeling judgement from the both of them as they glare at me from the couch.

“Are you building your escape plan?” She's been studying me like a hawk and it’s unnerving, but if this keeps her out of the garage so be it.

“If you mean a broken pile of machinery. Yes.” I continue on my way towards the kitchen sink to clean myself up. I’ll have a shower later.

“Yours?” I stop in my tracks, pausing on a small memory sat just below the surface, a memory that keeps my sanity clutching at the strings. It was a birthday present from my mom two years before she died. Just a second-hand piece of junk she found down in the rural areas, they were throwing it and she jumped on it knowing how eager I was to get my own one day and I vowed I'd nurse it back to health. For a long time I let it rot away, refusing to touch it. I resented it in fact.

She got a beating that night.

“Who’s pile of junk is that in the front yard, Lillie.”

“It was being scrapped so I thought I’d bring it home. You know how much she’s wanted to ride, Rick.”

“ She doesn’t need a vehicle, she doesn’t even have a licence, what were you thinking, giving her that piece of shit? Get it off my fucking property before I blow it up. Ungrateful little bitch barely deserves a cake and you got her a bike?! I hope you didn’t pay for that. Tell me you didn’t put money towards that heap of metal Lillie.”

“Nah, it belongs to the president.” I joke it off, pushing it to the back of my head focusing solely on her sickly adorable frown.

“Ha.Ha.” There’s a smile in there somewhere and it makes me feel violently ill that I’m searching for it.

“It’s just a hobby.” My oily hands dip beneath the water, lathering them with soap trying to rub out the oily stains.

“It’s an awfully dedicated hobby.” She’s noticed my obsession and I find part of me longing to show her. Scrunching up my face at the thought, my loneliness is showing.

“I’m just trying to avoid you.” I'm not half wrong. I am avoiding her, but I feel it’s not because she wants an answer. It’s because I want answers. Answers to the feelings that seem to completely and utterly consume me whenever I'm within 5ft of her that are withering away at my hard shell.

“Can I ask you something?” I swear to God if she keeps asking me questions I am going to tape her gob shut.

“Depends how stupid it is.” I turn to face her, leaning against the sink, drying my hands as she’s sat cross legged facing me, not even facing the TV. It’s just become background noise.

“Why do you wear your pockets out?” She even noticed that? My mind chases the day she held mine and stops running when I realise, I bet she doesn’t even remember doing it.

“Just habit.”

“It looks so silly.” She's tilting her head at me like that is going to help her make more sense of it. She clearly didn’t watch enough crime documentaries.

“Silly didn’t really count for much behind bars.” She's become less and less spooked by the fact I served six years with convicted murderers, considering her father was trained to track people like me down to the ends of the earth. It seems I have taken his role after he dropped out like a pussy. I’d have been a great detective Mom.

“Is it an inmate thing?” She rocks back and forth, eager to hear my response and I have to fight back the dire need to smile, kissing my teeth to disguise the menace inside of me. Oh if only she knew.

“It’s a symbol of ownership.” This is far too cute for my liking. Why is she suddenly taking interest in things most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at?

“I’m not following.” Of course she’s not.

“If an inmate held my pocket, they became my bitch . An exchange of power to protect them from threats within those four walls.” Her puzzled look scans the room, trying to understand prison slang like it’s the DaVinci code.

“They submitted to you?” Oh, they submitted alright. In more ways than one, and I can't lie, her innocence is proving to make this far more entertaining for me. She really has no clue how many bitches I've had clutching them until they almost tore off.

“ Clever girl. ” I toy with her a little and watch her highly unnerving glare rapidly disappear as she tries to conceal her shame as blush peppers her cheeks. It’s delicious.

“And if they didn’t?” Why is she so curious?

“I’d become their worst nightmare Puppet .” This conversation is going to run my beers out.

“Because they didn’t submit to you, you’d hurt them?” I suddenly realise, she isn't trying to understand prison lingo. She's trying to understand me, and it's getting under my skin.

“Because they chose the wrong side. Prison is a playground for the punishable. A free for all. If you do not protect yourself, you can kiss your ass goodbye.” I learnt that the hard way. Being a dyke in a prison full of women who could snap you in two wasn't exactly fun, but it's nothing I'd not dealt with before. My father made sure of that.

“So who was protecting you?” She hits me with a question I wasn't prepared for. Downing my poison to calm the internal rage spreading through the cracks in my skin.

“The demons in my head Innocence .” No one was protecting me. I had to learn to turn it all off. If you can’t feel, nothing can hurt you. I turned it off long before I walked into that cage. It's why I got sent there in the first place. I'd lost my moral compass, or what society deems moral. What I did was more than necessary.

I finish up cleaning, my face lower than the Pacific Ocean trying to numb the memories with another bottle as the TV speaks gibberish in the background to muffle my voices.

“Was this you?” She asks, as I turn to face her, met with Mr Jones plastered all over the screen and I hold the devilish grin trying to crawl onto my face. She was going to see it at some point I guess. Just wrong timing.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” She's searching for answers that will expose the monster I am while she's living under my roof, what is her motive here?

“I just want to understand. Do you have a target?” That's the fucking problem. No one will ever understand me. I don't even fucking understand myself. Why is she trying to find reasoning for my chaos? It's just pissing me off.

“This is not an interrogation. Quit it .” I storm for the door, ready to slip away from this conversation but she's clearly not finished.

“How many… Have you -” I run my tongue against my teeth, letting out a forced sigh as my hands dig into the door frame.

“Fourteen. Happy now?” I was expecting more of a shocked expression on her face but she doesn't seem shocked at all.

“Have they not even been remotely close to catching you?” Since getting out, I've laid low and I've learnt how to control the world around me. I stay hidden and in plain sight.

“They get as close as I let them.” As I say those words her face appears on screen. People are finally onto her disappearance and it's only a matter of time, but for now she's hidden well. Unless CPD put the pieces together which I doubt very much. They are all dumb as fuck and I purposely lead them the wrong way.

…

Play – ‘16 candles – Isabel LaRosa’

“They will find me, you know.” I admire her optimism. But they will only find her if I leave tracks. Which I don’t.

“It’s sweet that you think so.” I approach her on the couch, slow and steady, stalking her like prey but she doesn't seem at all phased anymore, standing off with her eyes.

“You can’t keep me locked away forever Hays…” I don't do well with people underestimating me. She should know by now that's not a good idea.

“Was that a challenge Puppet ? Don’t tempt me. I will bury you 6ft under still breathing until you decay with the rest of them.” My face is so close to hers I could almost kiss her and part of me desperately wants to sink my teeth into her bottom lip until she's bleeding in my fucking mouth.

“I know there are no dead bodies in your back garden, Hays. You're sick but you're also not one to spoil what this place means to you. I don't know what you cling on to so dearly but you wouldn't risk bringing them here. That is why you haven't been caught. And that is why me being in your house has you on edge.” Smart girl … Does she want a medal? “I see you haven't lost all your intelligence.” She really isn't as dumb and as innocent as she looks.

“What is it about this place? Why are you still here doing the devil's dirty work? You got out, you were free !” That's laughable. Really. Is that what she thinks escaping prison is? Freedom? Being branded with convictions that stop you from living a normal life and exiled to live a lonely, miserable fucking existence?

“Free? There's no such thing as freedom , Puppet . Your life is a constant tie to shackles far greater than you or I. No one is ever free. We are all chained down to a society and a system that doesn't want us. What about that is freeing? Isn't that why you dream?” My fingers find the bottom of her scalp, not rough but enough to make her look at me and hear my words.

“You've moved from one prison cell to another?” I hate the way she speaks as if she knows me. She doesn’t know shit .

“I find comfort in my solitude.” Being alone is far easier than surrounding yourself with fake pricks who only want something from you.

“That isn't it. What is so special about this place? What are you not letting go of?” She needs to quit it before things get ugly. This house is my own prison as well as my sanctuary. This is where I'm closest to her and it will be that way until I've dropped enough bodies to move on. I endure the terror in these walls for her, because I deserve it. My guilt is embedded in the foundations and that's where it's staying.

“ Alora .” She likes to push my buttons. So I’ll push hers, but she doesn’t react at all to me saying her name.

“You've not even given freedom a chance?” She's right. I've not. Because I CAN'T.

“And what? You- you expect me to live a normal life? Find a wife, settle down, have kids? Get a job in a fucking office? I can't Alora . I'm a CRIMINAL.” I want to rip her hair out and share my grief through her voice as she fucking cries out.

“You could still have lived that life, there was still redemption for you!” Why is she trying to paint me as someone who deserves that!

“And what would you know about me!?...” I deserve this. This life of torment. This life of misery. I wouldn’t even know what a normal life looked like. It sickens me and it's an insult to my mother.

“I know nothing, Hays. Because you refuse to tell me what I'm sitting in the middle of. So don't act like you're trying to protect me. You're only making it worse!” Her fists find my chest, pushing me with little force.

“This world is ugly. I am ugly! But believe it or not, I am protecting you from answers you don't want to hear!” Does she not see I'm trying to protect her fucking feelings!?

“Why!? What am I missing!?” She barks.

I'm reaching the end of my tether, and her whining is starting to drive me to cut her oxygen.“Because it will kill you!” I shake the sofa with both arms either side of her head, rattling whatever brain cells she has left.

“I'm already dead! And I will only ever be dead whilst still being in your possession!” She definitely knows how to take the air from my lungs.

…

She wants answers? Fine . But I'm done going easy. I'm not spoon feeding her shit. I'll drop her in the deep end until she learns to swim without touching the bottom. She wants to understand me? She has to drown first.

Without uttering another word I find the garage door, barging through nearly breaking them off their hinges.

“Hey! Where the hell are you going!?” To clear my fucking head before I snap hers. The doors feel my fury as I slam them shut and lock the outside door. I was about to get in my car but I'm intoxicated and that's a risk. Not that it would make any difference to me, I'm still as sober as they come, but as she said. I will do nothing to risk this place being taken from beneath me again and the way she knows that frightens me. It's a threat. I've been to fucking kind . This is what I get for being KIND . Fuck!

I take off and I dunno where I'm walking but I don't plan on coming back until dark. Maybe I'll feed my anger into someone else's chest just to lessen my load.

She fucking infuriates me! How the hell did she pick me apart? I'm slipping and it's bad.

This is bad .