"Her scent, laugh, smile, talk, thoughts, breath. . . peculiarity, it all just comes rushing back in an effortless and useless way, so quickly that I forget to catch my breath, everything about her is so exhilarating, she's a drug and I am an addict...
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ab·er·ra·tion ˌabəˈrāSH(ə)n/ noun a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically one that is unwelcome.
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"Just leave me alone Enoch. . . please." Victor isn't dead, I can still feel him and it's torturous.
He was trapped, screaming within while I stood by watching him suffer when I could do something.
"You can't do this. He's not ever coming back." Enoch's words ring in my head long enough to make me crumple down to floor and I stop running from him. I can hear my own heartbeat thrumming in my ears, it's impossibly loud and obnoxious.
"I need to." I say only my voice doesn't sound like my own. It's distant and torn, much like the slumbering Bruntley boy.
I can't believe my own eyes and I swear their betraying me. Victors so grey and pale, his skin is ice cold to the touch, and his body is so still.
"Katerina please-"
"If you love me — you'll let me do this, I need to do this Enoch, it's all my fault. . . I need to do this for him." Enoch's hands are in fists and I try not to shy away when he comes closer to Victor and I.
"I won't hurt you." He assures softly, but it's as if the reflex is etched into my brain. His rough hands graze my cheek and I flinch despite knowing him, loving him.
It was a mistake to stay as long as I did.
"Here." Mr. O'Connor's hands are shaking and his firm hold does nothing to hide it. It takes me a moment and I'm sure I've lost my mind. "Take it." He says coldly, it nearly hurts me to take his hands in mine.
I smile slightly with hope that he'll snake his hands away from me and run far far away.
"Please, just take it." The tone of Enoch's voice was one I never heard before and I knew we'd never be the same again.
I'm choosing my best friend over my partner, the love of my life?
I know it hurts him just as much as me, but instead of showing it he lets his rough thumb go over my dried knuckles as he clamped his whiskey flooded eyes shut.
"Are you ready?" I asked in hopes he would take back everything he ever said to me. No, Enoch takes a deep breath, freeing his essence from his holds like he could fight me.
I kiss him, softly, it's bittersweet, more bitter than sweet. I ask myself why this feels like a goodbye over and over again yet I keep going.
Moments pass, like hours turned into days, he leans down to me and whispers something I could never forget.
It's tingling my entire body, itching in my fingertips and scratching at my spine. So I let it go.
My eyes fall shut, the lashes hitting my cheek as a glow peeks under my eyelids. Our hands are still holding tightly onto each other only Enoch's grip grows weaker and mine stronger.
I could run for miles and miles on this energy. I can feel my eyes roll into the back of my head farther and my lips part as my head falls back. I haven't felt this in so long. Pure power in the most brutal form turning me into the monster I know I can easily become.
Enoch's whimper pushes itself into my euphoria filled mind and I'm killing him, slowly.
He cries my name and his body is leaning on my own for support. His hands are trying to escape my trap, but it's useless.
The boy's body falls, planting to the floor, forcing him away from me, and pulling me back like I was attached to a thick red string all along.
"E-noch?" My voice cracks as I stare stiffly at the body laying before me. It's pale, limp, still, and lifeless. "Please. . .?" Before I can recognize, tears are pooling, then falling down my cheeks, dropping off my chin, and splashing on the floor next to him.
Slowly I kneel beside him, the same blank look plastered on my face and I remember the others would be back from their village game soon.
The skin of my palm caresses his cheek and forehead and I feel his light breath on my wrist. I realize I'm holding my own breath and I let it go heavily.
"Enoch." I say again and this time I see the twitch in the corner of his lip, he's okay, barely.
Despite Enoch's best interest, I leave his side and continued my mission.
Victor looks more empty than ever and lost in darkness without his eyes.
"It's okay Victor." There's a stray tear beneath his eye and I can't help but wipe it away. "We will be together again — I promise." In the corner of my eye I count each second Enoch doesn't breathe, each becoming longer and more useless. His lips are tinting blue already.
My eyes flutter shut again, my heart pulses and tightens, hands resting on his, and I feel a hole being sculpted in me. I force it all, somehow, into the vessel that was once Victor Bruntley and his body seems to fill with life again.
I smile greedily before I accept Enoch could die. It's sick, but I can't let this guilt go.
I led Victor to his own murder.
"Katerina!" Miss Peregrine shouts and I hear the calls of Millard along with her's. The ymbryne's hands burn against my flesh while I stay steady and keep going.
Then it stops and there's no more.
Our headmistress shakes me awake and Victor's body shoots up for a moment and the room seems to grow colder. We see his heart pulse out of his chest, a crack of a rib echoing throughout the room and his back arching off the bed.
Victor falls back down and he doesn't wake up.
My brows furrow and tears aimlessly fall out of my eyes, before I let the raging unconsciousness finally take over for me.
"Take... Katerina...Tree...Place her hand... Life... Alive... I'll... Enoch...Dead."
Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Enoch's dead and I feel my whole existence crumble beneath the weight of my body. I've lost the only two parts of me that mattered.
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The invisible boy woke me, my friend choking back his own sobs. I reveal the blue of my eyes, frowning at the sight.
The century old tree. I understand what I must do to survive. My fingernails fill with dirt as I dig my hand beneath it's thick roots and begin my ritual of taking.
Millard had stopped crying, instead watching for me in case I were willing to give up life in general.
I wish for death, but I deserve to feel the torture of this guilt again.
