Devoid [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-four

Chapter twenty-four

“I believe I should start by saying that Joseph is alive.”

Every muscle in him stilled, even his eyes, locked on mine. I swallowed hard, inching rearward to rest against the stainless steel refrigerator. Fatigue crept behind my legs, demanding my body to collapse. My will rebelled, and so I remained standing, letting the fridge hold all my weight. “He came to me on the night of the club, in the bathroom. He forced me to stay in the stall with him and to not scream or else he'd hurt you.” I didn't leave you. I would never leave you, unless you want me to.

“He's. . . alive?” His lips barely moved to form the words, rendering his voice quiet. A state of disbelief had drawn over him, as it had once did me. I couldn't believe Joseph's heart was still beating even when he was directly in front of me, breathing life.

I nodded silently.

Bruno was in front of me in a blink of an eye. He cupped my face with his hands so quickly I hadn't had time to react, to tense or wince. It was warming that this was his first instinct, and not to question how Joseph's survival was possible. “What did he do to you?” His other hand guided tangles of wet, dirty hair from my face, his gold ring cold across the skin it traveled, as his eyes searched mine. “What did he do?”

“We had left out the back of the club and entered an alley. I tried escaping, managed to crack my head against the wall,”—my hand felt along the bandage on my forehead and his gaze followed the movement with flittering eyelashes—“and I guess that made me a little disoriented, but not enough to make me comatose. He drugged me. I was in and out of unconsciousness for four days, four hours from here.”

I could see his emotions change and morph together: concern, anger, disbelief.

I recounted every event of what happened to me while being with Joseph with as much detail I could recall, told him about pissing myself and hallucinating him and my mother in the woods brazenly. My words were rivering out of me, a steady, relentless stream. I wanted to tell him more, not about Joseph, but about me, not just the walls but the corners of my being, the corners I had not even come across, that I could not fathom; to bleed in front of him, to have my soul rest on my lips and allow him to softly kiss me, and, linger. 

But he needed time to take the news in so I refrained from wandering on to the subject of myself. It was easy, anyway, since my voice had gone completely dry and raspy. Bruno fixed me a cold glass of water. I drank it all at once, in long, slow swallows.  

I set the cup down.

Bruno was silent, tense. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyebrows were lowered. He stared, hard, at a random spot on the kitchen wall.

Seconds of silence turned into minutes, until he said something, finally.

“Rev's really alive?” He turned his gaze to me for confirmation. When I nodded he said, in a quick whisper, “Josephine?”

I paused, before shaking my head.

He turned away from me. I could see him cover his face with his hand. “Shit,” he muttered. His fingers curled around the roots of his hair. “Shit.”

I never knew about Bruno's and Josephine's relationship. I think I remember Bruno once telling me that he cared for her. He must have seen something in her that only she showed to him, as she only showed a nasty attitude to me. Meaning, whatever they had must of been special. An image of her big, blue eyes flickered behind my eyelids. They weren't angry but sad, full of tears and despair. Maybe that was the real her. Damaged. Like the rest of Grim's victims.