the killing of a sacred deer - carl grimes

XIII

-

xiii.

come clean
"oh, what a mess we've made."

-

The music stays off.

I curl up in the corner and my exhausted body finally finds rest.

I dream that she returns and sits beside me. She brushes soft fingers across my face, lips, eyelid, eye socket. She's warm and gentle and I want to just melt into her.

"Hi, Baby." She whispers to me, her voice soothing and muffled.

"I'm sorry." I say through the heavy fog.

"Don't be."

I want to reach out a touch her but my limbs refuse to move, too tired, too sluggish. Even in my dreams, she's out of reach.

She whispers that she has a secret, and I whisper back to her that I have one, too. Our hushed voices, the words lined up in sentences, drift in the dark, damp air, meeting each other like lovers and becoming entangled within themselves that I can't remember who said what, or really if either of us spoke at all. Entwined forever in the fuzzy violet hued world of my unconscious.

I think about the night we spent together in the truck. I wonder if she thinks about it, too. I suddenly miss her in a way that hurts. I wish there is something I could do to make her stay.

I should have kissed you.

I don't know if I say this to her or if it's just in my head. But she responded all the same.

Maybe in another life, I'd let you.

I wake up alone, but with my hair pushed back from my face and realize she had come back after all.

-

Two of her men arrive shortly after the sun has risen.

I'm blindfolded, tied-up, and shoved into the backseat of a vehicle.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask.

"Back to the shit-hole you came from." One of them says. Then the blindfold is pointless, because obviously I have managed to get to their compound on my own on two occasions known to them and am already quite aware of the way from here to there.

"Boss's orders." The other informs.

"If it were up to us, we would have left you in there to rot." Well, at least he's honest. "A lot of things would be different if it were up to us.

"Keith. Shut it."

I hear him turn in his seat, the leather squeaking under him. "No, no. The little asshole should know." He prods my knee with that I'm guessing is the muzzle of his gun. "We would burn and bomb your whole life into nothing if we could. You and your whole parade of mutts. Every last one of you."

"Leave the kid alone."

"This is the second time we're having to drag his ass home."

"He's just got a boner for Boss, but he's probably so mentally disturbed he can't tell the difference between wanting to kill someone and wanting to fuck someone. Maybe he's got brain damage, I mean, a whole chunk of his head is missing, look at him." He says this as if I'm not literally three feet away. I try not to take it personally. "Nothing you say is going to get through his thick skull. Just leave him be."

"Listen here, you little perv." This is directed at me now, as if he's trying to prove to the other guy that he can get through my apparent brain damage and thick skull. "The only reason you're alive is because Boss said so. Even if all you idiots do is cause nothing but trouble, Boss says don't touch 'em. I'll tell you what: You're all more trouble than your worth." The guy scoffs. "You all want her dead, but the second that happens... I swear to you... We will come and rain hell on all you sorry-ass-pathetic-waste-of-spaces. You'll all regret being born. The only thing between us and you is her."