On The Verge Of Insanity.

Chapter 11: Bad Dreams and Betrayal

**Ivy**

I flaunted down the corridor, swaying my hips with each step. I caught the eyes of a young and, if I do say so myself, quite decent looking young man and winked at him, making him forget the girl hanging on his arm.

I smiled flirtatiously and giggled as he crept over to me. With a beckoning finger, I backed back out of the room. When we were both successfully away from the din of the party, I pressed him up against the wall, letting my vines slither around his neck with a slight pressure.

"Where did you put them?" I purred, tightening the vines when he shook his head. "I'll ask you one more time," I allowed. "Where did you put them?" He shook his head yet again and I lost my temper, my vines throwing him across the corridor where he landed with a terrifyingly loud crack against the brick wall.

I slinked toward him, looking at the odd way his neck was bent. I sighed, rolling my eyes. He was dead and probably not the man I was looking for in the first place.

Just then, an incessant ringing sound filled the air. I sniffed, reaching into my corset to grab my phone. I looked at the caller ID. "Lina!! What's goin' on! I haven't heard from you since-"

"She's back," she cut me off. I froze. Out of anger, shock or hurt, I couldn't determine, but it was enough to make me forget about what I was doing at the party. I shook my head, hanging up on her mid-sentence and stuffing the phone back where it was before.

I sighed, looking around me. I walked away, leaving the man's body in the hall and the building without a second glance. Wandering the streets in a daze, I dragged my feet back home, letting my vines pull off the outfit. I wiggled into a sweatshirt, sitting down in my tree with a gallon of chocolate ice cream.

Without knowing, I had eaten the entire container by the time the sun had come up. I stared at the sunrise, more than a little empty. How dare she show her face around here after what she's done to me?! I thought, almost throwing my spoon with the force of the anger that consumes me.

I whimpered instead, letting my vines take the container as well as the spoon away. I let the warm tears slide down my cheeks, curling up into the fetal position before letting myself go; letting the sobs reduce me to a shuddering mess of tears and sorrow.

* * *

I peeled my eyes open, wiping my hands over my face gently. I felt my swollen eyes and smudged makeup, looking in the mirror, I saw that my eyes were bloodshot and near lifeless.

I sighed, shaking my head. I wasn't going out today, I had given up my plan and I sure as hell wasn't going back to Lina and her little traitor back in the clocktower. I sighed again, hopping down from the tree, walking a couple feet to the crystal clear pond a couple feet away.

I threw my sweatshirt back up into the tree before sliding into the lukewarm water, feeling it heat up slowly. I dunked my head under and washed the makeup off my face. I could feel the tears well up again, but I refused to cry.

Instead, I did the next best thing: I got drunk. I downed the bottle of Jack Daniel faster than you could say "betrayed". Then came all the other bottles I had in storage - which was quite a lot if I do say so myself. They were all downed without incident by the time the sun was at its peak.

When the sun was high in the sky, and I was tired of the wetness of the pond, I crawled out and lay on my back, facing the sun. I closed my eyes, swatting my vines away when they tried to cover me. I let the head of the sun dry me as I lay there, perfectly comfortable and perfectly wasted. Slowly, I could feel myself doze off.

* * *

I looked around, slightly confused. "Harls? Where are you?" I called, my voice echoing in the large, empty, dark space. "Lina?" I called, more desperate since the walls seemed to be closing in on me, my vines getting pushed closer to me. "LINA!!" I screamed when I felt the walls touch me on either side.

Suddenly, I heard laughter. Not the dainty kind, not the drunk kind, not the obnoxious kind, but the evil kind. The deranged kind. But that wasn't what made me shiver and made me cold, no. It was the voices that were laughing.

"Harley?! Lina?!" I called yet again, scared out of my wits. My vines couldn't hold the walls back anymore and I could feel the walls press up against me, crushing me. Without knowing what to do, I screamed. Not a shriek, but a full, blood curdling scream.

The laughter stopped as suddenly as it had began and the walls stopped crushing me, though it was still hard to breath fully. I was glad it didn't, because my legs had given out sometime during the laughter. I collapsed into heaving sobs, not knowing what else to do.

All of a sudden, one of the walls disappeared and, with a cry, I fell in that direction. I heard the clicking of two pairs of heels on the concrete floor and scooted back into the farthest corned from them. I wiped my tear-stained face with the back of my hand and gathered my knees to my chest, slightly rocking back and forth.

Hearing the heels stop was the most frightening thing in this entire experience. I couldn't see them and I couldn't hear them. That meant I would most likely die. "What did I ever do to you? Harley? Selina?" I asked hopelessly into the darkness in front of me.

The laughter started and I amended my earlier thought: The laughter was the scariest part. And then it stopped yet again and I heard a seemingly deafening click from right in front of me. Feeling the small circle of cold metal on my forehead, my breath caught in my chest before I heard the deafening boom of them gun going off.

* * *

I woke up screaming as usual. Thrashing on the ground like a dying fish. As delusional as a senile old bat of a woman. Lina and Harley. I shook my head, wincing as it triggered a bolt of pain to shoot through the already throbbing extremity.

I sighed, not moving while my vined brought me Advil and a whole lot of water. I downed the Advil and kept on drinking water until the hangover was slightly better.

I frowned and laid back again, looking up at the sunset. It was weird that I'd only been sleeping a little while when it felt like an eternity. I let myself dose off after taking a couple of cold pills so I wouldn't dream again, thinking over my last dream and what it could have meant.