Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
CHAOS
Play “Wait”- NF
Iam still here. I am still watching her. Now that I have tasted her, I can’t leave until I have her. She enjoys every second of it, like she knows it is me.
Catherine’s voice drifts up from below as I slip into my room. I press my back to the door and lock it. My breath leaves me in a slow rush as I drag the balaclava down from my face and push the hood off my head.
Nothing has changed.
The bed is still unmade, the sheets creased where I left them, like I only slept here last night.
I cross the room and open the closet. My clothes hang where they always have, the same black shirts, the same smell still clung to them.
On the top shelf, my old Halloween mask is still inside its plastic. No one touched it.
I pull it out.
The LED Purge mask stares back at me, black plastic with white neon Xs stitched over the eyes and mouth. The plastic around it looks like skin sewn shut. I set it on the table and step away.
My phone is still on the table where I left it. I pick it up. It’s dead. I slide the drawer open, grab the charger, and plug it in. The screen stays dark as I move toward the balcony, keeping close to the wall so she can’t see me.
She is in the garden below, holding an open book. The sunlight catches in her hair. Every few seconds, she looks up, her gaze moving toward my window, like she can feel me standing here.
The phone comes alive.
Messages flood the screen, and it starts buzzing on the table.
Shit.
I rush back and grab it, smothering the sound with my sleeve.
After the buzzing fades. I unlock it.
It’s only her.
Message after message, stacked on the screen, a trail of thoughts she kept sending like I was still here.
I sit on the edge of the bed and start to read every word, every line she wrote, and send it to me.
I’m so mad at you. You fucked up. You got scared because we could go too far, and I get that.
But pushing me away, leaving me, just tells me that you never wanted me in the first place.
You just needed the feeling of comfort I gave you.
And I forgive you for that, but I can’t forget how you made me feel.
You had a choice, and that choice wasn’t me.
If you ran, you could have run with me. I would have followed you to the end of the world.
I try so hard to be there for you that I forget to be there for myself. And while my whole fucking world is falling apart, you are never there.
Do you do this to everyone, or was I just your special project? Because you broke my heart, Judas. It’s been a month, and I still miss you.
Maybe I was too much. I talk too much when I’m nervous. I care too hard when I shouldn’t. I know you didn’t die. I know you are somewhere out there.
I wish I knew how to be the kind of girl people don’t leave.
It’s 2 a.m., and I can’t sleep. You used to be my distraction. Now you’re the reason I’m awake. I can’t sleep because I see you drowning. I used to want to sleep because I dreamed about you.
I tell myself I won’t text you again. I’m bad at keeping promises to myself.
I hope you’re safe.
I miss our dumb messages. The ones that didn’t mean anything but somehow meant everything.
I don’t even know if you remember my favorite color.
I hate how weak I feel because of you.
I still defend you when people ask about you.
I don’t know why I protect someone who didn’t protect my heart.
I think I’m mourning a version of you that might not have even been real.
I don’t need you to come back. I just need to stop hoping you will.
I miss you.
I miss how you make me smile when everyone else makes me feel like I don’t belong.
You were my favorite person, Judas.
I don’t know if that makes me crazy or just lonely.
Tomorrow, Catherine will deactivate your number, so I can’t text you anymore. Maybe it’s for the better, because I can’t wait for messages that will never come. I can’t wait for you. I keep breaking over and over again, knowing that you will never come back.
Maybe we were never meant to be ride or die.
Goodbye, Judas.
I lock the screen and stare at it.
My heart slams so hard it rattles my ribs.
Something tightens in my chest until my breath turns sharp.
I want to shout. I want to hit something.
Because even when she is here, even when I can see her, it feels like I already lost the only person who ever understood me.
The only person who ever saw me behind the helmet.
To the world, I am just a mute monster with different-colored eyes. A story people invent for themselves. A version of me that never existed.
She sees past all of it. She sees me. She sees everything I am not, everything I pretend to be, and somehow she learned how to love every crack in me. Every weakness I try to hide.
She ruined me.
Not for the worse. She ruined the version of me that was already broken. She stitched something back together, piece by piece, and I still left.
She is my favorite person, and I made the wrong choice. That makes me human. It also makes me hate myself, because I can feel it happening. I am losing the only person who accepts me, while everyone else tries to turn me into something else.
I hear her shout something at Catherine. I see Catherine step out of the house and walk to her car in the driveway. Soon after the engine starts, the car pulls away.
When she is gone, I move onto the balcony and cross over to her bedroom.
I slip into the bathroom and press myself against the door.
Fuck.
My balaclava is still in the room.
It’s too late to grab it.
Carmen steps inside and shrugs out of her sweater, letting it fall to the floor. She moves through the room, naked. She unties her hair, and it spills down her shoulders, sliding over her back until it brushes the curve of her hips.
She walks toward the bathroom.
Her footsteps draw closer.
I lean into the wall and reach behind me, my fingers finding the bandana in the back pocket of my jeans. I pull it free and bunch it in my fist.
Her back faces me as she turns on the shower. Warm water makes the steam crawl up the mirror, blurring her reflection.
This is the moment I am supposed to leave.
Instead, I watch the muscles in her back shift as she lifts her hair, gathers it, then lets it fall again. The water traces slow lines down her skin. My throat tightens. I swallow and step closer.
She gasps and starts to turn.
“Fuck,” she shouts, closing the water off. “What do you want?”
“Y-you,” I whisper against her neck as I pull the black bandana over her eyes and tie it behind her head.
“Who are you? Why do you even want me?” she babbles. “There are millions of other women out there with bigger boobs and finer asses than mine.”
I spank her ass to stop her. She gasps.
“No,” I say. “You,” I say it more clearly.
“Fuck,” she whimpers, trying to bring her hands to her face, but I stop her. “I don’t want you.”
But you do, little sister. I saw how desperate you were.
I guide her out of the bathroom and toward the bed across the room. When her knees hit the edge, I bend her over.
“You can’t do this,” she says quietly.
I draw the knife and gently press it against her cheek as I lean over her.
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
I straighten, lifting her left leg onto the bed with my knee while her other leg rests against the frame. I spank her again, forcing her upper body down. Her hands fall into the sheets, gripping them tight.
“Show me your face,” she shouts. “Show me who you are.”
“No,” I say, spanking her once more.
“I swear I will chop your dick off,” she squirms as my hand slides down to her wet pussy.
She’s already soaked. It just makes me angrier because she doesn’t know it’s me, and she still wants it.
Her body is begging.
I lift her ass slightly. With my other hand, I thrust my fingers inside her, shoving them deep, coating them before I pull out and rub her clit until she moans.
“Fuck you,” she gasps.
I lift her again. My cock is hard now, stretching my jeans. I unbutton them and drag them down, stepping closer, teasing her with just the tip.
This is where I should stop. This is where she should say no.
She doesn’t.
She moves her ass, grinding back against me.
I take my hard cock in my hand and trace her with the tip, sliding from her clit down her inner flesh. I push into her slowly, then drive all the way in until she gasps around me.
Her hands grip the sheets, her face buried in them as she moans.
I grab her ass and thrust deeper, her cheeks moving with every drive of my hips.
I slam into her harder. The sound of her skin against mine echoes in my ears.
My hands slide to her narrow waist, holding her in place as I move faster, her inner walls stretching around every push I make.
“Oh, God,” she whimpers, biting into her knuckles.
I lean over her, my hand gliding to her throat, holding her still, stealing her breath. My other hand slides to the back of her head, tangling in her hair, tilting her face up. The bandana covers her eyes. She can’t see, but I make her feel it’s me behind every single thrust.
I shove two fingers into her mouth. She bites down, and I thrust harder, pulling her hair back toward me. Her broken moans fill the room.
I watch her unravel beneath me, begging for every drive of my body.
I pull my fingers from her mouth and tighten my hand around her throat instead. She claws at my wrist, gasping, her other hand braced against the bed, fingers twisted in the sheets.
“Please,” she taps my hand. “Harder.”
I lift my brow and pull her head back, forcing her spine to arch. Her body opens for me, and I keep my pace relentless, as if I were punishing her with every deep thrust.
I move my mouth from her throat, down her back, to her hips, then her thighs. I push her leg further onto the bed until she almost collapses, then drag her back up.
I feel her tighten around me. I shove her onto the mattress, leaning over her as I spin her to face me. I adjust the bandana, grab her chin, and crush my mouth to hers, my knee forcing her legs apart.
“Tell me who you are,” she whispers, like she already knows.
I don’t answer. I drive my tongue into her mouth at the same time I shove myself back inside her, leaning over her, thrusting deep as my tongue moves against hers.
Her hands press to my chest. I grab them and pin them above her head. I bite her lower lip, pull it between my teeth, and suck it before letting go. I trail kisses to her chin, her throat, and down to her bare breast.
I hold her hands pinned with one of mine while the other grabs her full breast, squeezing until her nipple hardens. I circle it with my tongue, teasing it even more, then pull it between my teeth before I suck it in.
Her legs lock around my hips as I move faster inside her, driving deep into her body.
“Fuck,” she moans, arching her back, chasing every movement I make. “Don’t stop,” she gasps. “Just don’t stop.”
I move harder, filling her with every thrust until every inch of me is buried inside her, until she can’t take any more.
I feel her tighten around me, my skin slamming against her clit faster now as she breaks into a string of breathless moans.
I feel my cock throb inside her, every vein dragging along her inner walls. I feel it, and she feels it too because she won’t let me pull away.
Before I can think better of it, I drag myself out, my pulse hitting her stomach, leaving trails of my cum across her skin.
I straighten, then slide my hand down between her legs. I push two fingers inside her, lean back over her, and hook her closer. My fingers move in and out, my palm grinding against her clit, making her part her lips and cry out.
“Fuck, fuck,” she curses under her breath. “Fuck.”
Her thighs start to shake. Every move I make makes her legs twitch. I won’t stop. I take my time with it, watching her as she comes apart beneath me.
When you have nothing left to lose, you keep going with no regrets. And I would never regret her.
Her breathing breaks into sharp little gasps as I drive my fingers faster. When she tries to close her legs, lifting away because her body can’t take the aftershocks, I pull my hand back and slap her clit once, then again, then once more, leaving her even more sensitive as she moves away from me.
“Fuck,” she moans, pressing her hand down.
I step back and straighten, standing at the edge of the bed. I crouch down and pull my jeans up. I turn away.
She pulls the bandana off. I drag my hood up, lifting my shirt to my nose so she can’t see me.
“Stay,” she whispers, reaching for a few tissues from the nightstand to clean herself.
Something stops me.
I can’t stay.
Her messages loop through my head, one after another. I can’t do this to her again.
“T-t-turn around,” I manage. Every word drags out of my throat. I still feel the phantom pressure of that collar at my neck, like The Silencer still has it locked around.
She turns, pulling a blanket around herself. I move to the bed and lie down, wrapping my arms around her. She fits against me like she always has, curled into my side.
Her fingers slide over mine. She traces the Roman numerals tattooed into my skin. I am hoping she won’t see that those numbers are her birthday date.
XXIX · X · MM. (October 29th, 2000.)
“Why me?” she whispers. “Why did you choose me?”
I lift one shoulder in a small shrug.
“I know,” she murmurs, pressing her face into my arm. I pull her closer as she curls tighter against me. “You are probably as broken as I am.”
I nod.
“Us broken people always find each other,” she whispers, her eyes drifting shut.
She doesn’t pull away. She leans in instead.
“Let’s pretend I am not me and you are not you,” she says softly. “You can be Chaos. I can be Ruin.”
A quiet breath of laughter leaves me.
Chaos.
“L-l-little,” I murmur, “R-r-ruin,” my words brushing against her hair.
She nods. Her breathing slows as she closes her eyes.
That is who we always were, little sister. You are just starting to see it now.