Stolen By Him | ✓

day twenty two

||DAY 22

Lana gasped into consciousness after colliding with the earth's molten core once again. She was able to push herself upwards upon the shock, strong enough to do that much these days.

Her heart pulsated and sweat dripped off of each crevice of her face- her lips, her nose, her chin.

"Another nightmare?"

She jerked once more.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Another nightmare.

The only way he could've known it was another nightmare was if he'd seen her wake up other times from the same devastating dream. She didn't like how exposed the thought of it made her feel- almost as if a layer of her skin had been peeled back, letting Matthew privy to all her insides.

She saw his dark figure opposite her from where he lay on his mattress on the floor.

"I get them too sometimes. I mean, nightmares."

Lana didn't know why, but she found herself replying to him. She blamed it on the vulnerability seeping through her veins. "Really?"

"Yeah. I do. Just military stuff really. I've seen some pretty fucked up stuff." The way he said his words, slow and hesitant, gave her the impression that he hadn't spoken about this before. As if he was testing out the waters to see how the foreign words fit in his mouth.

It was as though she was the first to hear them.

No, she thought with sudden vehement.

She didn't want this- to have some kind of deep conversation about dreams which would only ultimately wind them closer together.

She didn't want that.

Lana didn't want to know about the horrors that plagued him in the midst of night, only to remind her that he was flesh and bones too. Because he couldn't be. He was supposed to be a monster. What he was doing wasn't humane.

It was messed up.

But damn herself for being curious. She used to be so curious about the things he did.

Still was.

"Why... did you join the army?" She asked tentatively. She had always wondered that. "When you knew what you might see."

There was a slight pause and the air was heavy with evaporated sweat.

"I just had to get away."

"Away from what?"

He expelled a breath, like he was preparing himself. "From you, Lana. You and Adam."

The blood fell from her face, and a sudden wash of coldness overcame her. "What did I do?"

"Everything. But it just wasn't with me. It was with him."

It took her a moment to realise who him was, and another to understand what he was implying. She couldn't do anything but whisper her next words as a tightness threatened to seize hold over her throat. "For how long?"

"Since forever."

Her blood began to flow in reverse, rushing upwards to her neck. Anger started to seep into the marrow of her bones. "Then why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I want to be with you. You mean so much to me."

"Bullshit! You don't care about me." The words were all coming out now and there was no stopping them. They spewed out like vomit- an endless pile of churned up syllables. "If you did, you'd let me go. I'll never be with you! I've never wanted you, it's always been Adam and it always will be. I-"

"But Lana, he's dead now. Don't tell me you're going to stay alone for the rest of your life now because you don't deserve that." His voice was like the sharp edge of a razor, and she doubled back at the harshness of it.

How could he speak about his brother like that- how could he speak to her like that? He, least of all, knew what she deserved. He lost the right to tell her what was best for her when he decided to do this to her.

"Fuck you" was all she said before slumping back down into the bed, wishing that the force would knock her into an oblivious unconsciousness.

It didn't though. She was still aware of each breath she took- as ragged as they were. And she was still aware of each breath he took- calm and steady, never faltering.

It wasn't fair that he got the easy part in all of this. All he had to do was kidnap the girl, find a vacant, hidden house and voila, welcome to this new wonderful life. It wasn't fair that she had to be stuck here, suffering each day as it came with this half-human, half-monster, half-foreign, half-familiar man who had too many mismatched halves to make one true whole.

He wasn't right, he was messed up.

Most people were broken in some form or another- Lana didn't blame him for that. But in his case, he'd just seemed to crack in the wrong way completely.

He was imperfectly ruined.