𝐫𝐮𝐛𝐲 & 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 ✩ 𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐝𝗼𝐧

🅵🅸🅵🆃🅴🅴🅽

𝐬𝗼𝐧𝐠: 𝐡𝗼𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝗼𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐮𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐢𝗺𝐚𝐥𝐬

✩✩✩

Everyone looked at her like they had seen a ghost.

No one said a single word to her, and nobody dared to come anywhere close to her if they didn't have to.

It was as if losing family was a disease she had caught- and everyone else was scared of catching it.

The teachers were weird around her too; giving her awkward glances and acting as if she was a bomb waiting to be detonated.

And then there was the Harmons.

They had moved in next to Tate and had a daughter- Violet. She hadn't started at the school yet, but seemed interesting.

Ruby hadn't been able to speak to her though, as her father, the psychiatrist, was very overprotective.

Ruby sat cross legged in Ben Harmon's office as he adjusted his notes.

"Can you read or are you just pretending 'cause you don't know what to say?" Ruby broke the silence.

He looked at her with a frown. "You're aware of why your here, Ruby?"

Ruby slouched into the seat, sighing. "Yup, I'm like a psycho or something,"

"No. There have been multiple reports of you hallucinating, and reports of dangerous behaviour," he corrected. "Can you tell me about that?"

"I, uh, uh... the hallucinations are bullshit- for a start," Ruby said. "I guess I can be... reckless, though. I do things and I don't know why,"

"What sort of things do you do?"

"Sometimes I say stuff. Other times... I steal stuff, or like, break rules... I don't know what it has to do with if I'm batshit." Ruby muttered. "Sounds like normal teenage behaviour to me."

Ben Harmon scribbled down notes and looked back up at her. "What do you think makes you do these things? Do your friends pressure you to or...?"

"No. I do it because... because... shit. I just do. I don't know why." Ruby shrugged. It felt weird to say these things out loud.

She refused to admit the drastic change in emotion she had been experiencing as of her father's passing.

The world had dug a deep enough hole for Ruby, she didn't need it getting any deeper.

✩✩✩

The conversation continued on in a blur.

Ruby became more and more uneasy, beginning to feel as if she really was crazy and just hadn't realised beforehand.

Ruby walked back to the social housing slowly, staring up at the starlit sky.

"Think we could pass as twenty-one?"

Ruby spun around, her dorms key wedged in her fist as a defence.

"Tate! What the hell?" She exclaimed, laughing and relaxing instantly.

"Well? I think we could," he ignored what she had said, taking her hand as they walked along the sidewalk together.

"Why?"

"I'm angry at the world- aren't you? I thought we could go to a bar, start a fight. Wouldn't you like to release that energy?" Tate said.

Ruby paused for a moment, allowing her mind to catch up. She needed this. "I would,"

✩✩✩

After a few drinks, Ruby looked at Tate. "So how we gonna start something?" She slurred.

Tate grinned. "Easy. Pick one." He gestured toward the crowd of drunken people.

"The guy with the hat," Ruby said.

Tate snuck up behind the man, and yanked off his cowboy hat- tossing it into the crowd.

He grunted and began to tussle with Tate.

Ruby came from behind the man and put him in a headlock, shoving him into somebody else as he let go of Tate.

Soon, the bar was wrought with fights, fists being blown left, right and centre.

Ruby grabbed a bar stool and charged into the mosh pit, knocking over someone.

She dropped it on him as a large tattooed man swung a punch at her.

Ruby staggered away, blood running from her nose.

"Asshole!" Ruby kicked him repeatedly, before smashing a glass off the side of his face.

She could barely keep track of where Tate was, but it didn't matter.

Ruby just kept fighting, and fighting, realising all the built up rage and sadness and releasing it on the unwilling victims at the bar.

Tate did the same.

Then came the sirens.

Ruby was half way through driving a shard of glass into some guys stomach as he tried to strangle her when Tate yanked her by the arm.

"It's the cops!" He said urgently.

Ruby fought off the man and followed him out.

They collapsed into a doorway a few streets from the bar, huddling close together.

Blood dripped from their noses and cuts and bruises decorated their arms and faces.

Ruby hugged Tate tightly, struggling to feel anything but a strange delirium.

"I didn't know I needed that," she said, pulling away from him and taking his blood covered hands in hers.

"That was insane..." Tate laughed, pulling her into a kiss.

Ruby accepted it, her shoulders relaxing as her lips met his. Sparks flew through her body as it deepened and she leaned into him.

Tate ran his hand along her thigh and up her torso, before culling her face with it and pulling her closer.

Tate hoped that they would stay like that. Together. Blissful. Loving.

✩✩✩

Ruby felt refreshed.

She collapsed onto her bed, letting out a long, happy sigh.

She'd cleaned her face of all the blood and patched up her arms.

As she lay in bed, she gazed at the note.

YOUR TURN.

It had to have been Kaleb and the others...

Ruby wanted to make them pay.

She wanted to kill them.

She needed to kill them.

✩✩✩