"And I could feel my mind slipping away from you and needing, craving to kill because that was all I had left. Your memories and the bracelet wasn't enough. Nothing was enough...So I threw myself into the ocean in hopes to get to the bottom. At tha...
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"In this world
love has no color-
yet how deeply my body
is stained by yours." - Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu.
Trigger Warning (TW): Explicit content on murder, violence, blood, and obsession.
They both hear it: the snap of wood towards Veronica's far left. Jacob can't get to her fast enough as they drag her into the void of the trees off the pathway. He starts to panic and could feel the adrenaline rushing through his body. He pulls out his gun trailing them as if he were a ghost.
This familiarity of the situation scares him. The past haunts him and springs up old guilt at failing to protect her as a child. It makes him paranoid. In the distance, he can hear her screams and how faint they are. Hearing the tear of fabric pushes him from panic to a lethal calm.
He watched them pull her into a dark corner then tore at her hair and her clothes, hurting her delicate skin in various ways, then threw her around like a rag doll.
Jacob pulls out his phone.
"Yeah-"
"Get me a ride. I'm dropping my location now."
"Whoa, what? What's go-"
Jacob urgently hangs up the phone and moves through the woods cautious and smooth as the mist of rain touches his face. As he walks further, the rich smell of oak and pine becomes stronger. The moon pokes holes into the forest and the world becomes made of light blues, greens, and blacks.
"Pleas-"
His eyes sharpen and he points the silencer at the figure that seems to be searching through a bag. He slowly walks behind them, aiming the gun at their head until he's close enough to get a good shot. When he's ready, he uses one hand to pull the trigger where the bullet shoots out from the attacker's head. Jacob glances back at the other one making sure he wasn't heard. He moves quickly to pull out his leather belt and walks up to the second attacker with the same wary movements.
"Shut up."
He inwardly smiles, proud swelling inside him from watching Veronica bite down on the man's hand and hearing the bones break. Yet, when the man punches the side of Veronica's face, knocking her out as a result, his anger scorches his eyes and pure red embraces his impulse. As Jacob hears Veronica's clothes tearing again, he wraps his belt around the mugger's neck while pushing down on his back with his foot. The man tries to get up, but Jacob puts all his strength into the leg that was keeping him down, forcing him further into the belt. He wraps the ends of the belt around his fist tighter and a chuckle escapes his mouth uncontrollably. A side of his face twitches as his giddiness increases knowing the man is close to death.
He continues to watch him squirm and wrestle to get the belt off, clawing at it with hands that go from red to chalk. Jacob presses his foot down harder and within 45 seconds, he lays limp with his head hanging against the belt. Jacob swings the man away from Veronica then quickly kneels to her side. He turns his cell light on and carefully lifts her neck, his eyes focus and scanning over the bruises and scratches on her arms and face. The side of her cheek was already growing swollen and the skin turning a shade darker.
