nightrunners

v.

Cassiopeia managed to settle down in a number of minutes although it felt like hours. She sat there curled up on the floor while Rafe walked around her room slowly.

"Are you looking for something?" She grumbled as she wiped away some dried-up tears.

He ignored her question and instead picked up a book she had previously thrown.

"You spend your summers reading, yeah?"

"Not normally."

He held the book by its spine and she winced slightly. "So, you like psychopaths?" He breathed out, examining the cover of the book.

"Why would you say that?"

"The book is literally called 'American Psycho.'"

"You've read it?"

He snorted, "You think I read?"

She shrugged, "Just because it's in the title doesn't mean you know everything about it."

"I've seen the movie Cass."

"Don't call me that," She looked up at him, "we are nowhere near that level."

He set the book down on her dresser and walked over to calmly to where she was sitting.

Rafe's eyes bore down in her feeble brown ones and he knelt down so that they were nearly face to face, "Maybank wasn't here for your breakdown, just remember that."

His cold breath hit her face and she inhaled deeply, no trace of cigarettes but there was overwhelming amount of mint that made her nose crinkle.

"I never asked for you to be here." She protested, keeping her gaze locked on his.

His tongue pressed into the inside of his cheek and he nodded slowly, a sarcastic smirk appearing on his face. She felt her breath hitch inside her throat as he moved closer, the smell of his aftershave becoming overpowering. He dragged the hand with his blood-stained gold ring across her knee. He let his hand rest there for a minute, the touch was strangely comforting and she felt her whole-body heat to the touch. The two strands of hair fell back into his face but his eyes remained locked on hers. She wasn't sure in this moment what was the best course of action to take. She swallowed slowly and tried to move her legs when suddenly the hand that was resting on her knee gripped tighter than before. His face remained stoic and his demeanor darkened around them. She breathed heavily and bit down on her bottom lip in pain, knowing definitely he would leave a bruise.

"You are a waste of my time," He growled before yanking his hand away. She watched as he stood up and headed out her door. She sat there, her body against the wall and her breath uneven.

"What the actual fuck," She breathed out before standing up shakily and running towards the window. She watched him head down her driveway, his fingers running through his disheveled hair while mumbling something inaudible to himself.

--

Not much later she heard something hit her window. She had spent the past hour getting ready and couldn't shake what had happened earlier. She grew angry the more she thought about it, the control he had over her or any situation for that matter was terrifying. His moods were another thing, he had this built up rage which a part of her resonated with to an extent. Cassiopeia had looked at the world with different eyes ever since she lost her brother. She was angry at the world that something so young and innocent could be swallowed whole. But something about Rafe was off, he was dark and closed minded, and she hated that he could bother her anytime he pleased. This was a game to him, she was just a pawn in his fucked-up world.

She rushed to her window and opened it up, smiling down to see JJ grinning back up at her.

"I'm coming," She called down to him and he gave her a thumbs up. She grabbed her bag and took one last look at her room. She spotted 'American Psycho' standing up in the corner where Rafe left it. She hurried over and was about to close the book when she lifted it up to see the page that it was on. Besides the pages being almost untouched, there was one particular sentence underlined. She held the book closer to her face and skimmed over the words, "Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?"

--

She recited that sentence in her head the entire ride to JJ's boat. He'd ask her a question and she seemed dazed, either not responding or keeping her response short. When they rode up to his house, he hopped off the bike and she followed suit. Before she could take her helmet off he placed his hands on her shoulders, "Hey, you alright?"

"Tired," She breathed out but managed to half smile, "you look good."

He most definitely did, he had on a white tee with black skinny jeans and biker boots that made his lanky figure look smaller. In the side of his mouth was a chewed-on toothpick, and his chunky headphones rested around his neck. Bits of blonde hair peaked out from his backwards baseball cap and he had small stubble surrounding his mouth. Yeah, he looked really good.

He pulled his aviators down so they could rest on the bridge of his nose, "You sure?"

"Always."

He smiled, "And that is what I like to hear Cassiopeia, now c'mon, let's head out."

She followed his lead to the boat and walked past the abnormally quiet chicken coop. He rushed ahead of her and grabbed a bag of what presumably looked like dinner.

She smiled sheepishly as he ran up towards her, "Ready?"

She nodded, "But where are the others?"

He looked around confused, "Others? No, it's just you and me tonight."

"Ah," She said quietly, "alright."

"Is that okay?" He asked quickly, "Because if it's not that's fine, we can reschedule with them, no big deal."

"JJ," She laughed and cupped his cheeks in her hands, "it's all good."

"Alright, cool, you know I had to make sure," He played it off, adjusting his ball cap nervously, "anyways, let's roll."

Cassiopeia let her hands drop to her sides before taking JJ's forearm in her grasp, "Lead the way Captain."

She noticed that same goofy smile reappearing on his face as he led her aboard, "And that will always be Captain JJ to you."

She saluted him and fell back into one of the cushion seats. Sundown was falling upon them in the OBX and the sounds of crickets and cicadas grew more prominent as the summer sky turned dark. This was what she missed in the city, solitude. The feeling of being truly alone where humans hadn't already infected the area. The last place her brother was before he died, his last few minutes in paradise before being swallowed whole. She nervously drank from her water bottle as JJ started the motor. She closed her eyes, trying to picture something serene but all that infiltrated her brain was Rafe. He enclosed the lightness in her mind, his words sticking to every crevice of her brain.

JJ's words, "he's dangerous," echoed in the background and her mind gravitated towards those words once more, "is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?" She pictured JJ as this ray of light, always finding a way to push towards the good. She looked over at him and he looked up from his sandwich, smiling. She closed her eyes again, yet she pictured Rafe as this looming darkness, consumed by his thoughts and forever lost in the night. She wouldn't say evil, perhaps, misguided and confused. She just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off or something he wasn't alluding to. He had so much rage and built up anger, she knew the feeling, but she didn't know what he was capable of or that-.

"Cassiopeia."

She opened her eyes and looked over at JJ, he was steering the boat towards the swamps, a concerned look spread throughout his face.

"JJ," She sat up, "what's wrong?"

Her eyes flicked back and forth between his own as he took a heavy breath, "They found the chickens."