Chapter 20
Quill
Eighteen years old
“Yo. Quill. Wake the fuck up, man.”
I blink my eyes and look around. Liam’s reaching his hand out to me, a bong between his fingers. There’s the heavy, sickeningly sweet stench of weed hanging over us, and Dane is half-passed out, his eyes creased.
I’m sick of weed. I need something stronger. Far stronger.
“Like coke?” asks Liam.
I blink again, realizing I’ve spoken my thoughts out loud. No, not like coke. Coke doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I need.
Two nights ago, I kissed the girl I’ve wanted to kill since elementary school, and it felt fucking amazing. And now, all I can think of is her.
That part’s not unusual. Since the moment I first laid eyes on her, all I’ve ever thought of was her.
But it used to be because I was so consumed with hatred that my every thought felt like an oppressive nightmare, revolving around her thick, horn-rimmed round glasses, her curly red hair that assaulted my eyes, the cheerful smile I wanted to bash in.
And now, the urge is gone.
No, not gone. Never gone.
Just… different.
I want to strangle her, but not in order to end her life.
Now, it’s to feel my control over her. I want to own that smile that’s grown angry, not with my fist but with my lips.
I want to own her whole body. Her brain.
Her heart. Her lungs. Her liver. Every single fucking organ inside her that makes her who she is. Piper Day, the insect. My insect.
The weed is giving me a headache. I need oxygen. I fucking need oxygen.
This new version of the urge is more violent than ever, because every second I’m not seeing her, it feels like I’m dying.
Clearly, my thoughts are intense enough to be reflected in my expression, because Liam takes back the bong and drags his eyes away, looking nervous like the pathetic coward he is.
Dane’s a bit smarter, a bit braver, too, so he just eyes me like he’s studying me.
Wondering whether I’m going to whip out my pocket knife and stab them both.
I wouldn’t. They’re my friends. People don’t stab their friends, do they?
Who knows. I certainly don’t. I’ve lost all the information about how to appear normal I’ve carefully been gathering since I was little.
Don’t talk too long about organs. It unsettles people.
Don’t mention your curiosity about what burning flesh smells like.
They’ll think you’re weird. Don’t wonder out loud how many tons of dynamite it would take to blow up the school.
You might make your classmates a little nervous.
Right now, I have no clue what’s normal anymore. My mind is spiraling, my head aches, I feel dizzy. Like I’m drowning.
I stand up abruptly, so abruptly Liam, the fucking coward, jumps back, startled. Then I cross his garage, slam the door shut behind me, and go to my motorcycle.
Neither of them asks where I’m going. They just seemed relieved.
I guess that even with all my attempts at being normal, I can’t fully hide from those closest to me. They know something’s off with me.
Maybe that’s why Dad’s stopped beating the shit out of me. He’s always known I was a weirdo, but now, I’ve grown taller than him, stronger too. He doesn’t want to risk it.
I sit on my bike, rev up the engine, and soon I’m driving down the road, full speed, around the outer limits of Astley, where the metallic buildings have given way to big houses on sprawling lawns.
I live a few streets over from Liam, but I don’t stop there.
Nothing about my house has ever felt like home, and I avoid it except to catch a few hours of sleep or get a change of clothes.
I continue on aimlessly, probably waking everyone up with my loud engine, but they know better than to complain. Everyone knows who I am, around here. They leave me alone.
I don’t know where I’m going, I just want to drive and feel the wind whip against my face, through my hair, soothing the headache and entering my lungs.
But I’m not half-surprised when I end up by her house, a small cottage standing across the lawn from Mrs. Kent’s mansion.
I park my bike and edge closer to the Guest House, through the shrubbery that borders it.
I pause just a few feet away from her window.
It’s plunged in darkness, and I know she’s asleep.
The little path that leads to the house is covered in gravel, and I think for a moment of grabbing a handful and waking her that way. But I’m not sure I want to wake her. I don’t know if I can face her awake.
I just want to see her. That’s all.
There’s a tree nearby that branches its leaves out toward her, and I wonder if I can climb up and get to her window that way. It’s on the second floor. Not that high. It should be manageable.
Gulping down more nerves than I’ve ever experienced in my life, I swing up the tree and get to the highest branches, edging toward her window, when…
With a loud crack, I’m toppling down on the grass, the branch falling with me.
The fall doesn’t hurt, it just makes me feel dazed. I sit up, coming slowly to my senses, wondering whether I’ve just woken up the whole household.
No, just her. Great.
Somehow, that’s even worse than if I’d woken up her parents.
There’s the click of a light, then the window to her bedroom is opened and her sleepy head pops out.
She puts her glasses on, and they’re awry on her face, her hair completely crazy, like flames jutting out of her head.
The freckles on her cheeks and nose stand out starkly on what looks like the face of a ghost.
“Quill!” she breathes, and I wonder if I don’t want to strangle her to death after all.
Or maybe just tug that lock of hair that’s standing out straight from her head back down. No, I think I’ll leave it wild. It’s kind of cute.
Cute. That word again. Since when have I ever found anything cute?
“Come up,” she whispers, pointing to a trellis on the side of the house, which would have been a lot easier to clamber up than the tree.
I really hate her for being the one to take the lead. For seeing me like this. I’m the one who’s supposed to dominate her. Torment her. Own her.
Clenching my jaw, I do what she says, hating myself even more than I hate her.
But that’s all forgotten when I reach her window and she puts her small hands on my back, as if she could possibly be helping to pull me up. Ridiculous.
Still, those hands burn my skin, and the burn remains long after she’s removed them.
I stand in her bedroom, feeling like I’m taking up all the space.
It’s small, as small as her, and just as messy.
There are clothes on the ground, untidy piles of books stacked against the walls and covering her desk, a half-eaten bowl of cereal on the nightstand, and she’s actually been sleeping with three more books in her bed.
She sees my eyes taking in her messy bedroom, and blushes. “I… didn’t have time to clean.”
I snort. “You’ve never cleaned this place in your life, have you?”
She blushes again, her fingers fussing with the hem of the old, oversized shirt she’s using as her nightgown.
“Whose shirt is that?” I growl.
“My… my dad’s,” she stammers.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me for being jealous of her dad right now. But awkwardness soon takes the place of possessive anger.
Now that I’m here, I have no clue what to do.
And clearly, she doesn’t either, balancing from one foot to the other as she eyes me nervously, chewing on her lower lip.
I want to be the one chewing on that lower lip. But somehow, I can’t seem to break the barrier between us.
I wish she was asleep. It would be so much easier if she was asleep.
“What do you want?” she asks at last, in a little squeak of a voice.
“To punish you.”
The words are out before I’ve had time to think them, and she blushes a third time.
Her blushes aren’t like other girls’. They’re not cute blushes that are limited to her cheeks.
Instead, her white skin grows splotchy. Her nose turns bright red, and there are random spots all over her face, her ears, her neck.
It’s the same as when she was crying, the other day.
Everything about her is weird. I can’t understand why I’m so drawn to her. Not just drawn, obsessed.
Maybe the words I’d once imagined Mom saying are true. You only want to kill her because you have a crush on her.
Only I don’t have a crush. It’s far more intense than that.
I want to possess every single part of her, from the crazy hair, the round glasses, the splotchy nose and freckles, all the way down to the toes that are currently digging nervously into her carpet.
The blood coursing through her veins, the heart beating in her chest, the oxygen that fills her lungs.
She’s the first one to breach the space between us. She takes a step forward and touches my hand timidly, and I jerk it back like I’ve just gotten shocked.
The splotchy redness on her face seems to have grown permanent. But she doesn’t back away. “How are you going to punish me?” she whispers.
The light touch is enough to reignite everything that’s been oppressing me since we kissed on Friday.
Suddenly seizing her waist, I pull her to her bed, and push her, face down, onto her mattress.
She doesn’t even have time to say a word before I’ve ripped the ugly shirt off her, pulled down the ugly underwear that has no business covering any part of her weird, perfect skin.
Then I drink in the body I’ve only ever seen in my dreams.
Tiny breasts crushed against the mattress, a slim waist and flat stomach, an ass that has more fat to it than I’d have expected, but is still small and pert enough that in this position, her stomach flush against the mattress, I can see her pussy.
It’s wet.