𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐘 . | 𝑅. 𝐺𝑅𝐼𝑀𝐸𝑆

▪︎SHE▪︎

02

-Two weeks prior-

"HOW DID YOU KNOW I was a cop?" Shane's voice sounds the same as it does with everyone else's besides Carl and Lori.
Strong, skeptical, and powerful.

I look into the fire, watching the flames crash and mix together. Red, blue, orange, and the strangest white flame that's so bright it makes my eyes hurt.
The white flames are my favorite.

Carl is laying his head in my lap, and I'm playing with his hair as it's soft, brown, short, and he's breathing evenly and playing with my tethered, shredded shoelaces. He's here with me, and I'm here with him, and we're around the rest of our group, but it doesn't feel like it. The sky is black, the ground is hard, and the flames are warm, and I wonder if Carl knows I still want to die sometimes.

We've been at this camp on the quarry for a week now, and I still think about jumping right off the edge of the rocks.

Will I sink or float?

I shake the thought away even though I can't shake away the pain clawing at my skin.

That pain that just won't go away.
Sure, it's less than. It's more as if it's a person attached to my hip. A extension of myself, the dark parts of me that are nothing but a dark mass of pain and sin and a numb so deep it's all consuming.

Sometimes she whispers in my ear as she just did.
Tells me to 'jump'.
Sometimes she pokes holes in my eyes until all I can do is let them leak and flow until I can't do anything but stare and my scars and wonder if I should poke those to, watch them leak, flow. Red, red, red.

Red flames.

I tell her to sssh for now. She can bother me in my dreams later.

"I knew you were a cop because you helped me, saved my life, but you didn't trust me all the same." I answered, my voice was mine, not hers. She's watching the flames and making notes on how to make them burn me from the inside.

'Later'. She says. 'Later, we will burn'.

Shane watches my fingers in Carl's hair, Carl notices Shane looking and turns, burying his face in my stomach.

I don't tell him it hurts.

I tell him to sleep tight instead.

Shane looks ashamed. He should be, me and her think simultaneously.

She thinks 'he will hurt us, it's only a matter of time'. I shiver and think 'I want to trust him, but his hands are calloused, and his arms and legs are bigger and stronger. I want to feel safe in his protection, but he is shaped the same as my abuser. I can't erase the thought he IS the same'.

She thinks I should run, run off a cliff. Anywhere away from him.

I think I should probably stop listening to her.

Shane sighs, and I can see him look at his hand through the flames.
"It wasn't personal, Mary-Anne." I shiver, she's screaming for me to get away from him and his warm words.

"Here comes this girl looking something out of a horror movie and can barely look me in the eye." He concluded, letting out a deep, heavy breath. "I had to look out for Lori and Carl. I had to learn to earn your trust, okay Darling?" My eyes squeeze shut, and I force my head to nod up and down, each small movement taking a immense amount of effort.

She's pulling on my legs, trying to get me away.
I'm telling her, begging her to stop. I, too, feel the fear clutching my spine when he speaks to me so kindly. The fear that his words are fakes and he has nothing but violence in mind.

I hate that I can't make myself feel for someone who I know cares for me.

Just because he is a man.

'He's not just a man. He's a monster, Mary'.

I hate being afraid.

I hate being in pain.

I hate being small.

I hate being sad.

'I hate myself'.

I take my hands away from Carl's hair, taking his small hand and holding it to my lips, my eyes still clamped shut. Clamped so tight I could feel the muscle begin to throb as it became to tight.

"Ready for bed?" I relax, opening my eyes that are a little blurry from squinting so hard.
But even then, I can see her pretty face smiling down at me.

She will protect me. I am safe.

I nod and help Carl stand in his sleepy state. If I was healthy, I would have just carried him. But recently, it's difficult for me to lift a spoon to my mouth without difficulty.

Lori leads us to the tent the three of us share, her hand resting on my back, wrapping me in her feminine security.

"Night yall, sleep tight." Shane says to us, and I smile while she hides in my shadow.

We reached the tent, and we both tucked Carl in, kissing his head, smiling as his sleepy eyes drop until they don't open back up, and he suddenly regressed 5 years.
When he is asleep, he looks smaller, softer, gentler. Delicate and fragile and all the things I still have the strength to endure these days.

I go to the farthest corner of the tent, a good distance away from Carl and Lori so I can't hurt them when my nightmares cause me to thrash around. I can only hurt myself.

Lori tells me goodnight, and I do the same, sinking into the sleep bag, letting it wrap me up in security.

I'm staring at my bruised wrist, waiting for her to crucify me and beat me to a pulp when Lori's voice flows in the air, soft and sweet.

"How are you doing?"

I think. I'm searching. I can't find the answer. I'm begging. I'm sad. Im so tired. I ask her...

" 'I'm okay'."