clutter | rogers

THIRTEEN

The block was as silent as the ride.

They hit the highway and headed north a few miles. He pulled onto a side road cut out from the woods. They hit a gravel driveway.

The yellow lights lit up the front of a house. Behind the house was some body of water. Vee couldn't tell if it was a lake or the ocean. But it wasn't that important.

They couldn't have been more than an hour from the City.

Aris got out of the car. Vee and Loki followed him inside.

Loki's brows were drawn close together in anxiety and dread. Vee, however, seemed utterly relaxed. It put Loki further on edge.

They stepped onto the porch.

Loki felt very dissociated from everything. He recalled how he said he missed Aris's grip. That was the farthest feeling from the feeling he felt now.

Aris unlocked the door and the three stepped inside. He guided them down the stairs, and into the basement.

He sat Loki in a chair and restrained him. He placed a muzzle around his mouth. Loki fell into an unbearably vulnerable state. He loathed it.

Vee was strapped into a chair across from Loki. She glared at Aris. He left out the muzzle for her.

Aris climbed the stairs and stepped out of the basement. Three locks sounded.

Vee watched Loki, as he watched her.

He closed his eyes and the muzzle unhinged itself and fell off his face, now laying around his neck and collarbone. The chains around his wrists and ankles fell.

Loki stood.

"We're doing rather well, time-wise," he stated and began to undo her restraints.

He knelt on the floor to remove her ankle restraints. She rubbed her sore wrists silently. He finished and looked up at her.

She watched him deep in his eyes.

He felt hollow. It felt like she saw through him. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him, violently, to the floor. She climbed onto his ribcage and hit him repeatedly.

Tears leaked from her eyes and she screamed at him.

After a few punches, Loki climbed out from the body she was on and stood above her. She was suddenly kneeling on the floor, instead of straddling his torso.

She looked up at him, crying messily and angrily.

The left side of his face was already darkening from the beating, but he seemed unbothered. She stood and charged toward him.

She passed through an image of him and he appeared, in full, behind her. She turned to him. It happened again and again until she was dizzy from sobbing and running.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeves. Her chest heaved up and down uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry, Loki. Please forgive me. He's making me do this..."