✘ skeleton sailor | h.styles -discontinued-

[iix]

A young boy standing on the front porch of a house with blood on the collar of his shirt. Eyes dead and fingers scratching at his face.

The same boy, at most a year younger, with his hair just a little longer. This time he's hiding behind a sea of tress in front of what looks like an abulance.

Valarie feels her skin burning but she's too tranfixed by the many pictures that are now scattered on the floor. Harry's on the carpet in her hallway and Caspian's foot keeps kicking him in the gut. Her mouth is swimming in blood but so is Harry's and she knows he's in pain. She knows this, of course she does, but she can't move. Can't seem to rip her attention away from the ugly pictures.

A boy, this time much taller, with his hands holding the neck of a little girl who's lying on the ground with her eyes completely closed.

She almost gags when she realizes what's happening. When she realizes that he's killing her, fingers feeling for the nonexistent pulse at her neck. Valarie bends down to reach for yet another picture of what she could have prevented. This one is all red with blood. Blood and the same boy, same eyes with the same dead look in them, and the pain in her chest is slowly turning to resentment. She doesn't know if she hates Harry more than she hates herself for not being there to stop him. Why is there so much blood? Why the blood?

Harry is groaning at her feet now, fingers tightly wound to the bottom corner of the closet he was dragged out of. His eyes look up at her like he's so confused, like he's been betrayed. "A fucking ambush," she hears him mumble under his breath before another kick is delivered to his torso. Val swallows the blood. Opens her mouth to wipe the red off of her teeth with the sleeve of her sweater.

There are more pictures that make her stomach twist. One with Harry leaving a bar, blood on his neck. One with him in a hospital sitting in the hallway on the floor with his head in his hands. She thinks for a moment this could be where he found his heart, where he found compassion. Except she can see the slightest hint of a smile on his lips. Fingertips stained with a dry copper color. She sucks in another breath.

"You fucking monster," Caspian spits. His tone is bitter and hard and disgusted. She thinks if she could find any words, if she could remember that she has a mouth to speak at all, she would sound the same way. But there are no words that she can think of, no words to communicate the feeling in her body. The feeling of being an accomplice.

Caspian is screaming now and Valarie is bending down to pick up the laminated pictures of the boy with death at his hands. Pictures taken by a stranger who could have stopped him but didn't. Her hands are trembling as they struggle to gather each and every one, tears obscurring her vision. She's thankful she can barely see the pictures now, thankful she can barely see Harry's eyes as they look up at her.

He's in pain and she knows she can stop it but that would mean she's on his side. Instead, she chooses to walk down the opposite side of the hallway and leave the apartment. Walk out the door and take the exit staircase out of the building. The air is biting at her hot skin but it's refreshing when she finally steps out. She wants to let the pictures go but can't bring herself to unclench her fists. The tight feeling in her body is still festering in her chest and she can't find an explanation for it since Harry is in the building and she's standing outside. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's rage and disgust and pain. Maybe that's what he's always brought her; why he can be the only one to make her feel like that.

She walks further away from the building and toward the other side of the street where there's a small space with no light. No street lamps, just the comforting sound of the few cars that pass by. It's a little space between two other buildings; a space where people toss their garbage.