Absolution and Fragility

X

I do not know what this darkness inside of me is. No one taught me how to deal with it. 

Lexi did not show up to the early workout. Instead, she packed in the massive boxes and dark green luggage as she had been instructed to the night before. She would be moved to the final location to finish out the remainder of her captivity.

Lexi did not know where she was or where she would be going. Also, she didn't understand why there were so many boxes when all she had were the clothes she was given and the few supplies in the bathroom. There was nothing here that was truly hers. That was an acceptance more than a wish.

Each time she passed a mirror either in the closet or in the bathroom, she wondered if they could see the parts of her leaving. As she packed things that weren't truly hers, another part of her broke off. Surely the people around could see that. The fight in her was slowly dying every day to become a different fight. This fight was territorial. This fight was monstrous. This fight was rotten.

Theo could see it. Approval would shine brighter each time he looked at her. He no longer hid it from her. Maybe that's why her hanger hid just below the surface and raced through her bloodstream.

"Lexi?" Careful. Quiet. Guilty.

Lexi pulled herself not only from her thoughts but from her knees when she saw the redhead at the door. Jocelyn was neither in nor out of the room but existing where the carpet met the wood with a look of utter remorse drawing her eyebrows together. Neither of them said a thing as they regarded each other with their own silent thoughts.

"Henry isn't supposed to be fighting. He's a weapons specialist."

For a second, Lexi didn't understand until it clicked. Henry happened to be man she had hurt yesterday.

"I didn't know that."

"I shouldn't have expected you to. That's my fault. I didn't—" Jocelyn cut herself off. A confusion surfaced. "I read the file Theo and Jasper had made on you. You aren't supposed to be—"

Lexi could see she didn't know what to say. After witnessing something like that, who in their right mind would?

"Jocelyn, what do you think makes someone a monster?" Lexi dropped a skirt in the green suitcase that was becoming full.

The redhead stood. Her eyes stared unblinking as if recalling a memory. The browns glossed over as if soaking up something as horrible as toxic rain. Her fists began to tremble before she turned her gaze away. The memory had become far too much to bare.

"Imagine a god but make him cruel. That is a monster. Someone with the power to change the world, to help the world, but that same person denies it and hurts it instead." Jocelyn shook her head. "That's silly. Why ask me that?"

Lexi just found herself shrugging before going back for the last of the items to fold them and toss them in the suitcase. The only sound she heard was her moving about and folding and dropping the clothing in the luggage. This passed several minutes of routine before she thought to look up again and see the woman still standing in the doorway.

"Can I ask you about yourself?" Jocelyn inquired.

The muscles in Lexi's back tensed as numerous amounts of lies filled her brain and wracked around in the inside of her skull. She knew she shouldn't tell the woman who existed in between places anything true, but she so badly wanted to. No one had asked her who she was since her grandmother's passing years ago. Even her mother forgot to ask.

"If you shut the door and swear to me no one knows, I will talk," she mumbled against her better judgment.

Jocelyn stepped inside and pushed the door shut until it clicked. Cautiously, she stepped through the boxes to the bare spot on the floor in front of the luggage. Her brown eyes stared up at her expectantly as if waiting for Lexi to start.