fallin' out of love (stemxstud)

2

Anaela

"Ms. Boss. Where do you want me to leave them?"

It was still uncanny, being freshly 18 in my mind, and having people give me the reverence of someone beholding wisdom...and power.

Three cowering people with thick, black bags over their heads laid in a tangle of bone and skin; tight chains on their bodies as my most trusted henchman stood menacingly over them. He was more on the leaner side with strong, brown muscles and a twisting scar above his small lips that almost mimicked a thin mustache. It was produced from someone throwing a cleaver at him when he was nine. His favorite story to tell. He had fuzzy braids that reached his shoulders and a happy demeanor most often.

Not many people expected his name to be Brett.

"In an alley near the medical district," I told him boredly.

"You want them to be found? They might talk," he rose an eyebrow.

"The dead can't speak, can they, Brett?" I smiled softly.

He grinned back. "Thank you for the gift."

"I didn't have a chance to give you anything last year."

Brett left my office, and i played with the a wooden pencil that laid freshly sharpened on my desk.

I don't have a choice but to be this.

This is who I am now.

Away from Teece...away from Tino...away from everything that I thought I knew.

My office phone rung, the noise reverberating across the well furnished office probably the size of a decent walk-in closest. The walls seemed to press in on me often more than not. The room smelled too much like my mother. It smelled too much like a person that didn't truly love me.

After visiting Tino in that hospital that day, seeing her for the very last time. I felt like I shed some of my prior naiveness to the world. Like a butterfly emerged with a broken wing.

I grabbed the pencil and slammed it into the desk, watching it splinter off into a dozen little yellow fragments on the cool surface. "Fuck!"

"Ms. Boss?" Brett ran in, half of his arm drenched in fresh blood, his right eye twitching a little.

"I'm fine, Brett," I held my head in my hands, trying to control their trembling. "I'm fine." My elbows rested in the mess that the destroyed pencil had created.

I heard him clear his throat, then softly shut the door.

"I'm fine," I huffed, moving down some spit to wet my throat and dusting my elbows off, "I'm fine."

Unspecified POV

"And you'll pay for everything that you've done, little Dominique," they whispered into the trembling child's ear.

Dominique laid in a cellar, sitting in her own old piss with only a blanket to cover her from the chill of the room. It was hospital-cold inside and the masked figure held an old knife in their hand, walking past the cage that contained the girl. Dominique was gagged with something rough and black, her eyes watering as a singular chain wrapped from her bruised thigh to her ankle. She'd have to cut her whole leg off to escape, and her captor knew it.

But who was her captor?

Why did they want Dominique to suffer so badly?

"Everything will come full circle, if you ask me," the dark figure with a knife stated. "It's only a matter of time before they'll all see. I've been watching all of you very carefully."

Dominique screamed, her cries muffled by the fabric.

"But you won't be around to witness that, will you?"

The figure crouched before the girl, panting in excitement. "No one will notice that you're gone. No one will know the person you truly were. Only the lies and the betrayal you have left behind yourself. And yet...I give you this simple mercy, old friend," the masked figure whispered, hidden eyes probably studying the girl's terrified face. "Any final words, Dom?" they asked tauntingly.

The fabric was pulled from the girl's mouth so that she could speak. I'm sure the putrid smells of the room hit her tongue, as her nose had grown numb to it. Old blood, old piss, old air...her old life.

"Who are you?" Dominique whispered.

"I'd say your worst nightmare, but that'd be corny as heck," the figure chuckled. Dominique still couldn't place the voice, even after all the time she had spent here in this room- however long. "You seriously don't remember me?" the figure sighed.

"No," Dominique whispered.

The dark figure brought up the knife in their hand, striking it into Dominique's heart as the girl let out a loud scream, blood pouring from the wound between her exposed breasts. She clutched the blanket that had poorly attempted to shield her from the bitterness of the room so long, her last companion before death overtook her.

"I'm sorry you didn't remember me. It's Pouty."

(Anaela)