Hidden Fangs

Chapter 3 - The Nightmare

He's yelling at you again, your father. You've had enough of this shit. You walk away from him, but before you can do anything he slaps you across the face and sends you sprawling on the floor. "Murderer! Dumb bitch, if you get me caught then I'll kill you myself. I told you not to kill anyone! I don't want the guards getting suspicious!" He kicks you in the stomach sending you flying into one of the dining room chairs. You cough and sputter as he says, "What's the use of having some bitch like you around if you can't even rob a fucking noble without drawing attention to yourself!" He grabs one of the kitchen knives.

You wake up with a gasp and run your hand over the scars on your back  from where he pinned you down and cut you up.

So much for sleep.

You get up and quietly find a rock by the water to sit on. You hate thinking about anything that happened in your past, but somehow those thoughts always seem to find you. You look up at the stars and the moon, listening to the wolves howl in the distance. You try to keep out the distant flashes of memories by looking at the stars but it doesn't work very well. All you can think about is the amount of scars you hide from what he did. All the times you stayed overnight in the library hiding from him. The amount of places he forced you to break into and rob to pay off his gambling debts. None of that cuts as deep as what you were told when your mother died.

You realize there are tears slowly running down your face and you wipe your eyes. You have to be strong, showing weakness will only get you killed. You are so distracted that you don't even hear Sebastian walking up behind you until he sits down next to you on the rock. You jump when he sits down and he looks over at you concerned. "Are you okay?" he asks you tentatively.  You nod, not trusting your voice, and all he says is, "You're shaking. How bad were the nightmares this time?"

"Bad," is all you can force yourself to say. He wraps his arm around your shoulder knowing that you hate talking about your past.

You lean your head onto his shoulder and start silently crying again. He sits there with you while you look at the stars and try to forget everything. You're glad you can have someone like Sebastian who doesn't try to make you talk about anything. He's always there for you even if he doesn't know what's wrong and he doesn't try to make you tell him anything.

Eventually,  you start to pull yourself together, and just in time, as Jake walks over and asks you what's wrong. "I'm fine Jake, just watching the stars," you lie smoothly in a voice that sounds normal somehow.

Guess all that lying pays off.

Jake says, "Alright, I wanna ask you something."

"Go for it," you say as nonchalantly as you can, though you can guess what it's about.

"Where were you earlier? Why did you run off? And how did you run off without me noticing?"

You sigh and decide to partially tell the truth, "I went ahead to take care of some bandits, and I snuck away without you noticing because I'm a good criminal. I'd have been caught and hanged if I didn't know how to disappear into thin air." You hope he stops asking questions after this.

"Where are the bandits now, then?" Jake asks hesitantly and you know he doesn't want the real answer, but it might make him realise that being friends with you is a bad idea.

"I killed them. Their bodies are now rotting and probably being eaten by some animal," you say, more ruthless than you meant. Sebastian looks over at you trying not to laugh at your weird sense of humour.

Of course, the only thing that ate them was me.

Jake's face pales a little and all he says is, "I see," before he walks off and you chuckle a bit at his reaction knowing it's far from the worst thing you've done.