Split- The Company She Keeps

Chapter 14- The Broken

Casey had shut off her mind. Disconnected it from her body. She had done it before, when she didn't want to feel, she would almost escape into her head where she could stay in the safe dark space where nothing could hurt her. She distantly felt her body being moved but had accepted that it was no longer hers as was to be destroyed by this beast anyway. This creature would feast on her. She was sacred food. But in her mind Casey was with her father. He was by her side, kneeling with her. He looked sad. Almost guilty. Casey wanted to hug him, to hold him and tell him how much she had missed him but she couldn't move. Her body was not under her control anymore.

She imagined herself being dragged along the floor as she bled out, she could picture that beast ripping her apart. She had lost those identities who she had grown to care for. Tiny Hedwig screaming in agony, the voice of Jade as she chatted to herself from outside the door about doing her next insulin jab. Dennis. Dennis who was showing his passion, who was taking control like she had told him to and then she slapped him for it. Berated him after she let him do what they both wanted just because she got scared. And then she lost him. Lost him and now herself. 

She could feel the ground beneath her. The cold floor on her back. She was laying flat. But she could feel nothing else. No pain. Her dad sat next to her in the dark space of her mind, not speaking. Just keeping her company. He would have found her by now if he were still alive. Casey wondered if anyone was still looking. It felt like she had been in her cell forever. Being stuck in her little room didn't seem so bad when she knew she was alive. But the thought of her dying down in that cramped space with no windows was something she could not accept. She sighed and looked away from her father, turning her head to the side staring into the dark nothing. A touch Casey wasn't sure was even there traced along one of the scars on her stomach that had become bare after Hedwig had torn that part of her top away. Casey didn't move, believing it to be the touch of her father's shadow, seeing what had been done since he had gone.

But then the teenager felt warm strong arms. One went under her knees and the other under her shoulders. They weren't boiling hot like Hedwig's hand had been, Casey had been sure she would get blisters from his touch. These were glowing, like her fathers. Perhaps it was done. Perhaps it was over and he was there, lifting her up. But when she turned her head back there was nothing in her darkness. He was gone. But those arms remained.

Lifted from the ground as if weightless Casey forced her eyes to open ever so slightly so she could just see a blur of what was happening. The arm that held her shoulders and head had two long thin cuts that looked almost a day old. She knew who was carrying her. But he did not take her far. He simply lifted the young woman to the bed, laying her down gently before straightening up. Casey decided it would be best if she kept her eyes closed. She didn't know what the beast was doing. It could be the quiet before the storm.

Over a minute went without any sound of movement, just breathing. Perfectly rhythmic, slow, deep breaths. And then a hand on her waist again. Tracing again. Touching. She could feel his fingers explore her scars one by one, following each mark she knew so well. His fingers touching over the deeper ones on her hips had Casey's body instinctively flinch which in turn made the hand pull away and the teen could feel goosebumps rise where his touch had been. But a few seconds later and the fingers were back, tracing up her side to just under where her top had ripped, searching for more. She had never felt so exposed in her life.

"Broken..." The voice that left the man above her was not what she was expecting. It was low and it was careful and it was unsure. Broken. He called her broken. Casey was broken. And all that she had been hiding from Dennis was shown to him as she lay with her eyes closed, though tears trickled down her cheeks at his choice of word. He summed up how she felt about herself for almost all her life in one word. Casey felt his hand leave again and heard the floor creak under his movements.

And then his hand was there on her face, thumb wiping the tears that wouldn't stop falling from her blank face. It was Dennis. It wasn't the beast. Dennis was there. Casey told herself over and over that it wasn't the monster but it still took about thirty seconds for her to open her eyes. She was met with the view of her captor. He had blood down his chin and his nose and his eyes had almost no white left. But as Dennis blinked rapidly past his bad vision, Casey watched his brows fall into their usual concerned frown at he stared down at her. And then his other hand came to cup her face and he leaned down to her, just centimeters away. "The broken... Are the more evolved." She stared at him in their shared silence. He couldn't have just accepted what she was. Broken. No. That didn't happen. Ever. Casey was used to being told that she was fine and that there was nothing wrong with her. She was just a teenager. But Dennis. This man who had taken her from the world had just told her that it was okay to not be okay. It was better. She was better. 

Dennis then rose from his stance and for what must have been the first time, looked at himself, making noises of disgust at the mess he had made. He looked down at the unmoving Casey and gave her a nod which he understood meant "stay", and went into her bathroom, shutting the door. Casey looked at that door with an understanding of the man she did not have before. He was broken too, just like her.

//Two in one day again! Haven't done that for a long while. I thought I would make the most of my good day and do the best I could with another slice for you guys (Plus I don't like stopping on chapter 13- bad luck.) So please read on, I will be updating asap, possibly tomorrow if I'm still feeling this good! We will wait and see! Let me know what you think of this as again it went in a way I didn't think it would :p See you guys in the next one or in the comments. Thanks for reading! :)//