Mine (Jenlisa)

twenty six.

Jennie's POV~

When she took the knife out of the drawer, I froze. Would she give me what I had asked for? I had told her to kill me, but as I spoke, watching her, more alive than I had felt since I was young. And I wanted to live.

I almost smiled, weird as it was. Only after being threatened with murder, only after everything she had done to me... Only now did I want to live.

But she didn't kill me. She didn't threaten me with the knife. Instead, she tucked it into her belt, and left. I scrambled for the door as soon as I realized what she was doing.

"No! Lisa!"

She was going to kill someone, I was sure of it. I pounded in the door frame, screaming at the top of my lungs.

"NO! Don't do it!"

She heard, I know she did. Her footsteps walked away from the door, down the hallway. I pressed my ear to the door and heard her start to go down the stairs.

"LISA!"

If she killed someone because of me...

"No," I whispered. It was stupid of me to taunt her. Stupid of me to tempt her to kill. And if she wouldn't kill me, she would kill someone.

"Lisa-"

Her name caught in my throat.

She was my entire world right now. And I was just a toy for her to play with. She never loved me. I didn't even know if she was capable of love. But that emotion inside of me swelled and swelled, and I couldn't get rid of it.

How could I love someone like that? What kind of horrible person would I have to be, to love a serial killer?

She was the angel of death, but she had brought me life again. She had shone a light onto the things that mattered. It was only after losing everything that I realized what was really important in life. And what was important to me?

Her, a small voice whispered. Only her.

She had played the game well. Trade by trade, I had given her the shattered pieces of me. And she had taken those pieces, put them back together. She had shown me a side of life that I had never seen.

Was it a game? I didn't know. I didn't care. Forget everything the rest of the world cared about. I didn't need to be beautiful or wear pretty clothes. I didn't need to lose weight or go to parties. I didn't need to tally up friends one by one until I was popular. Here I am, naked, and alone. And my mind was clearer that it had ever been before.

All I needed was myself.

"Good,"I mumbled, "Because all you have right now is yourself, you idiot."

I left the door and curled up in the bed, hugging my knees to my chest. I couldn't think about it. Wouldn't think about it. Wouldn't think about her, how she might be out there right now, bringing someone back to carve them up...

No. Stop.

I lay there for hours, willing myself to shut off that part of my brain. I didn't have a panic attack though. Whenever my anxiety threatened to bubble up, I tamped it back down, thinking about the way the tree branches had waved above our heads. Thinking about the newts I had seen, trying so desperately to get away.

My thoughts drifted back to her, over, and over again. To the bruises I had seen in the photographs. To the way she looked when she plunged inside of me, and then afterward. Her eyes had sparked bright and I thought that I might have saved her from that awful blankness that she called the shadow.