No One Cares || Danti ✔️

21.

After I drop Dark off at work, I drive the same way towards Quinton's home. Believe me, I'm fucking terrified.

I turn the music up louder, wanting to drown away my anxiety with Black Key's 'Gotta Get Away.' I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, my hands shaking a bit.

As I pull into the driveway, I start to feel sick. Like this isn't a good idea. Opening the door, my foot lands on the cement and the sickening grin of Die flashes through my brain. I push away the image and walk up towards the door, raising my hand to knock, but hesitating. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, my knuckles hit the door three times before falling to my side. My chilled finger drums against my thigh as I wait for someone to open the door.

I stand there for a good minute before shifting uncomfortably. Where is he?

As soon as I lift my foot to walk back to my car, I hear the door unlock and the door creak open.

Quinton enters my vision and he looks awful. His hair is dirty and untamed. The bags under his eyes are so visible, and it looks like he hasn't eaten well in awhile. He's slouched over to the point where you think it would hurt. He wears Die's old sweatshirt and joggers that are full of unnatural wrinkles.

"Come in," he mutters tiredly, walking away and leaving me to step forward and close the door behind me.

I sit in the opposite chair of him and slide my hands underneath my thighs.

"Do you want some coffee?" he questions, not having sat down yet.

"Sure... thank you," I say, feeling guilty for an unknown reason. I have nothing to be guilty about. But seeing him like this... it does something to me.

He comes back with the coffee, the smoke rising from the cup.

"Thank you," I say when he hands me the cup, the outside of it burning my palms, but I don't pay attention to that.

We sit there for a minute in silence before he speaks up with a shaky voice, "what happened? Why... Why did Dark kill him?"

A lump forms in my throat as I look up at him, tears in both of our eyes.

"He um... He had knocked me out while I was home alone. I had no idea where I was when I woke up. I was terrified. There was dried blood on the floor and another man hanging from the chains, just like me. Except... he was dead," I stopped a minute to settle my voice before continuing, "My arms, legs, waist, and throat were all chained to a cement wall. I could barely move. There were... tubes stuck inside of my arms by needles. Throughout the days, he would inject some sort of acid inside of my body. He would break my bones and heal them only to break them again. He'd cut me just for fun. Just to see my blood drip. A-and um..." a tear fell from my eye, but I was quick to wipe it away. "

"O-one day, a few days before Dark had found me, Die..." my body starts to shake with sobs as I thought back on the horrible memories. "H-he brought me to a room," I chok out, forcing out the words as fast as I could, "He kn-knew I was t-too weak to f-fight against h-him. He th-threw me on the b-bed-"

Sobs erupted from my throat, and I set my coffee cup on the table in front of me. I pinch my thigh with one hand and hide my face with the other. Quinton stands up, sitting next to me and gently touching my shoulder. He wraps his arms around me for comfort.

"I-I'm so s-sorry!" I yell out, it being muffled by his shoulder. "Dark didn't want to kill him. He didn't. He was so angry and upset. Die had done so much bad and then he hurt me in front of Dark just to piss him off more. Die impaled me with a knife a-and dragged in down. I-I felt like I was going to die."

Quinton's hand grips my jacket, still hugging me tightly. I know it's hard for him to hear about the bad things his fiancé did, but he needed to know and understand why everything happened. He was completely clueless before this meeting.

A weight had finally been lifted off of my shoulders, but that didn't mean I felt okay. I still felt horrible; he loved Die so much.

"There's something else, though," I say, pulling away from the hug and wiping away my tears. "I don't think Die... wanted to hurt me. He was our friend. He loved a lot of people. And you know that something happened. Everyone saw it. He changed and no one knew why. I have a theory that someone was... controlling him. Like they had power over everything. His body and his words. I'm just not sure who or why someone would have done this."

"You're right about him changing. I saw how he treated other people. But whenever he was around me, he seemed himself. He seemed happy. I don't know what happened and that scares me," Quinton said, also wiping the leftover tears from him eyes. "But about everything else... I... I understand why Dark did it. I probably would've killed Dark if he had hurt Die like that too. I understand."

"Thank you for letting me tell you everything. I really appreciate it," I say, sniffing a bit.

"I needed to know why. That's the only reason. But now... it's something bigger," he looks at me with something in his eyes. I don't know what it was, but something flickered inside of him.

•How was this?•