The Monsters Inside (Formerly Extract)

Caregiver

I awoke to a throbbing sensation in the back of my head. My fingers traveled across the locks of hair covering what seemed to be a large bump. I groaned, the day’s previous events slowly coming to life in my mind: the abduction, the fight, the girl. The girl. My head shot around as I searched frantically for her. Sopping from the corner caught my attention. There she was; Violet. Her knees blocked her face, and her knuckles had gone white from the force of their grip on her arms. Images popped into my head, and eventually her knees came down and she looked at me. Could it be that she was emitting these images into my brain? Two mean held her down. Another more powerful man was crouched between her thighs, a sadistic grin tugging at his lips. They had raped her again. Right in front of me.

Anger rolled off me in great waves, and I tried my best to breathe through them. The last thing Violet needed was another pissed off male on her hands. Her eyes –those hauntingly big brown eyes- peeled away my outer self, leaving only my thoughts and feelings behind. She stripped me of all sense, freeing my emotions, letting them roam wild. I opened my throat and let out a scream loud enough to rival that of a lion.

The floor shook as the boy screamed. What was his name again? John... John McCraven. My mind, filled with horrible scenes, struggled to remember even that simple fact. “Stop...” The whisper dripped from my mouth, sounding without a conscience command to do so. He heard. Jaw snapped shut; he looked at me as if I weren’t real. But I was real, wasn’t I? Or had I faded away, as I had sensed myself doing so many times before?

Warmth. John’s warmth emanated from him as he sat next to me, nursing my wounds. He’d mopped up the blood with his jacket, which was now lying discarded by the door. His nimble fingers made fast work of my scratches, and he had them bandaged without my mind fully registering what had happened. “Sleep,” John’s voice was rough with withheld emotions. “I will watch over you. Sleep.” And because he told me to, I could.

                                                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time had passed since that awful encounter with the captors. I had lost a lot of blood; so much that my already white skin was becoming a deathly gray. John’s eyes had looked haunted since the first night I had started coughing; red stains forming on the hand that covered my mouth. My bones ached and even slight movements caused bolts of pain to erupt in my body. Shuffling sounds caught my attention and I dragged my heavy eyelids open. John had shifted his body towards the racks of blood. His hand lifted, grabbing a packet. My eyes widened.

John wouldn’t look at me as he tore open the bag. “Drink,” He ordered. Confusion was clear on my face and I tilted so I could read his expression. Guarded and closed, he shoved the packet in my hand. “You lost too much blood. I don’t know any other way to get it in you.” The desperation in his voice said it all; he was worried I would die on him. I lifted the blood and slowly parted my lips. A cold, metallic taste spilled across my tongue.

I couldn’t look at the girl as I handed her the packet of blood. Her skin had changed from a snow white to a deathly gray. She rarely ever spoke, and her eyes only opened for a few moments before she would sway back into unconsciousness. The once bright eyes had dulled to a charred brown, like that of cinder wood, thrown in a fire for too long. Pink lips had faded to a soft blue, cooling without the rush of blood to warm them up. Jagged fingernails matched the set of lips in color, and added to the worry lines growing on my forehead. What should I do? What could I do?

I watched as she took the first sip, the blood slowly transferring from the bland plastic bag to her too-dry lips. One drink was all it took. One first, hesitant drink, before she was greedily pulling away at the red liquid. Trying to draw it faster into her mouth, the young girl couldn’t get enough of the red life she held in her small, pale hands.

She looked up at me, piercing me yet again with strange brown eyes. The kind that force you to know you are being watched. The kind that wouldn’t let you walk away. And I would never walk away. Not until I knew she was forever safe.