His Collection

THRITY-FOUR

Not one word went between us as we walked back to his house. My eyes didn't leave the snow covered path, and the injury on my shoulder had stopped bleeding, but as he pressed on it, without knowing, he had pierced through the small healing layer causing it to open. I didn't care. The wetness ran down my arm, dripping a trail on the snow only I could notice.

I don't want to die here. I want to go home. I want my parents. I want my friend. I want my only friend.

Breathing into my coat, I wished nothing more than to sob aloud just how betrayed I felt. It was for such a silly reason that I almost wanted to fall on my face. Truth was somewhere in me had desired all that was good in Lance, but there wasn't much of it. Then there was my gloomy thoughts about Kyle. He had to be long gone by now to Oregon. How long had I been captive? Can't recall exactly, but it sure as hell was before the cold had set in. But, though I also felt as if he had left me behind, I did feel good knowing he must be far away from this place as possible. He must be happy to be away.

Lance sat me in the kitchen, but I refused to be cleaned up.

"I just...sleep. I want to sleep, please," I spoke but he ignored me, and touched my face. I shuttered back, then tried to regain parts of the me he had grown to love. Relaxing into his fingers, I said his name which he so much loved me to say. "Lance, please."

My hands gripped tightly over the coat that I didn't want to lose, and I watched him stay as firm as ever while I rounded my eyes, begging him to just let me rest.

"Blanca, did you kill her?" His skin shifted, and I stared seeing a human Rorschach test; only butterflies came to mind.

You want answers, fine.

"Yes."

"Why," he commanded. Though he was using a soft note, I could feel the alpha in him order me to give him an honest answer.

"She was going to kill me. She wanted me dead," I look away, but he uses his hand to keep me glaring straight at him. "I am not a killer."

That can be debatable, really.

Once I said it, his eyes softened. He knew I had been honest, even he had probably known of Alice's intentions; she had wanted me dead for so long.

Not sure if what I was about to say would work out in my favor, I used a quiet, shy tone to capture his attention. My cheeks were still the warmest thing in my body, and I knew my frozen heart was numb enough to take more surprises.

"Lance...what have you done to me?"

His jaw flinched, but still he kept his eyes as warm as every day I had spent laughing with him. I could see my mind split as one purred into his arms, and the other ran away from him. Again my head was being shared by two different people, and unlike the usual clashes, this one remained silent, yet deadly enough to travel through my veins like a lethal dose of barbiturate. His response only added to my detached state.

"I won't lie to you."

Anymore, I wished to add. But instead I shut my indifferent eyes to hide my true feelings. "Please don't."

"I met you a few months ago, Blanca. You ran to my rescue, though I, one way or another, would have fought them off on my own." He continued, "And when I saw you. Your face as it smiled, and you greeted me as if I was just another friend, my skin had turned into a flushed rose, floral pattern. You didn't notice. I kept my face in the shadows; something I had learned to do since I was a kid."

"I remember."

"You also remember the crash, then."

I nod, and he goes on in detail to describe that he had followed us, and stayed far away with his lights off to not be noticed. "Then I saw your truck speed off road. I sped up to see another truck leave. The men from earlier had shot your friend."

N-no, don't cry. Don't cry.

"So it wasn't you who shot," I stated.

"I wouldn't go that far, Blanca," Lance replied, almost hurt that I would have thought of him to directly kill another. Scoffing at that, I tell myself he would. Yes, he would kill to get what he wanted.

"You took me next."

"Yes."

"Then?"

His hand played with my hair. "Then I found myself unable to let you go."

My lips quivered, and I couldn't ask how he had kept me so stupid, and delusional, but quickly he had answered it for me.

"To restrain your mind, I had fed you..." he didn't want to say it, and I almost didn't want to hear it. "A dose of lead paint chips during your first meals. I crushed them, and you gave into the sweet flavor they added."

You...I hate you. I bite down on my tongue to keep myself from shouting, but my focused stayed on my eyes. I did not want to cry, becasue if I did, he would embrace me.

"Afterwards, I gave you pills from the pharmacy to try and counter the effects, but you became dizzy, and fainted constantly that then I decided to just keep you off it...your mind had already lost the old memories. All you knew was me."

"Just you," I softly repeated while I stood up. Surprisingly enough he knelt down, and stared up at my closed eyes, a few moments later he bowed, then rested it on my belly.

"And when I raped you..." his lips pressed against the coat. I pleaded inside to freely cry for the love I knew could not be accepted during this lifetime. God, did I love him in the sickest, most stomach-aching way, but I wasn't going to let it happen. It needed to stay behind, here, and my life was not going to stay in this house with him.

I love you.

Those were the words I wanted him to hear. So he could know there was a time I had, be it when I was nothing but a faded version of myself or not, yes, there was a moment my heart had vibrated to the sound of his name.

But I am not going to.

I thanked the gods and goddess for him now being unable to see just how dead my eyes were as they stared at the walls.

"I've been a bad boy, Blanca. There's no good in me, I don't know why you said you had seen it...it's not there."

"We all have good in us, and we all have bad," my voice cracked. As still as marble my eyes didn't move, but a tear slipped out my eye, then down to my chin as I lifted my hand and placed it on his head. With the other I slowly reached for the key to our freedom.