Split

Guilty

Dennis returned a few hours later and sat on the bed next to me. He sighed as if he was about to say something that he didn't really want to say and looked at me.
"I can't stop thinking about what you said... what your uncle did to you... that's unacceptable. I wanted to ask where he lives. He needs to learn that it's not okay to do things like that to people."

I shook my head, "I don't want you to do that."

"But he needs to know that it's not acceptable."

"You keep taking our clothes from us when we don't want you to..." I said without thinking and his face dropped.

"They were dirty..." he didn't look convinced at his own excuse, "do you think I'm a bad person? For that, I mean... putting aside everything else..."

I shrugged, not sure how to act around the man who had abducted me, "you haven't done anything to us... but taking our clothes wasn't a exactly a good thing to do."

"I know," he sighed, "I can't help myself. I feel like I have no control over it. It's been like that for as long as I can remember... and I don't know why I'm telling you any of this. I guess I feel like you've shared something so I should too?"

I studied his serious expression-he seemed like he was waiting for my opinion so i nodded, "I know what it's like to have no control. I barely remember cutting myself... it just happened. I don't mean to hurt myself but sometimes I just can't help it."

He looked like he approved of my response and relaxed a little more than I'd seen before, his usually stiff posture loosening and his stern expression softening a fraction, "you're not just saying that?"

I shook my head, "you are what you are."

He almost let himself smile, something I'd never seen him do before, "you don't know how much better that makes me feel... I'm sorry about this confusion. You seem like a good person."

"All of us are good people, Clare and Marcia haven't done anything wrong."

"It's not ideal, I'll admit, but the beast has showed us that it is necessary."

"Why?"

"He wants to show the world his power, and to do that he needs to be sustained."

I put two and two together, "So he has to eat them?"

He nodded, his face expressionless, "this is the way it has to be."

"Is it? Can't this all be done without hurting innocent girls?"

"They're too innocent, they haven't lived-"

"But you're not even giving them a chance. How can they better themselves when you kill them before they get to live?"

"I'm not killing anyone," he said firmly, uncertainty clouding his features.

"But you're setting them up to die... like you were about to do with me. What if I hadn't told you about me? You would have let me die... you all share a body, doesn't it bother you that when the beast eats those girls and you come back, they will be inside you?"

He looked deeply disturbed by that, as if the thought had never crossed his mind, and swallowed hard, "I... I don't know..."

I knew I had him in a corner, "and don't you feel guilty about taking lives? People that haven't grown up? fallen in love? lived their dreams? Don't you feel bad for them? You said that you chose the girls because they had lived their lives being handed everything, but is that their fault? Do they deserve to die for that?"

He stood up quickly and made me jump, "stop it!" He snapped, "stop trying to manipulate me!"

"You know I'm right!"

He spun round and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
If I kept this up he might change his mind about killing me... maybe that wasn't a bad thing.