Three Degrees Of Danger (2019)

|| THREE ||

"Oh my god." I'm screaming as the glass explodes. In a moment, the world is a hurricane of fragmented shards, of water that bursts through and collapse against my body. I don't even notice that my clothes become drenched within seconds because of Sav. Between the stages of my shock, she had shoved me up against a pillar and there's now a blade pressed against my throat. There's the sound of water gushing and glass hitting the ground but it all dies down. They become muted and fade into the background when I look into Sav's eyes.

"Beg." She hisses.

I shake my head, unable to coax a response from my throat. It feels like whatever I say will seem to scrape against my airways, render my vocal cords useless.

"I said beg!" Sav's screaming now and I can hear my heart thumping furiously against my chest. In fact, I can feel the motion- a series of vibrations that thrum along my ribcage.

No words come.

Sav's fance scrunches up, her brows pulling together as she scrutinises my features. It feels like she's searching for something and I force myself to stare right at her as she digs for whatever she's seeking.

Her second hand is lodged along my neck and the nails begin to dig against my skin, attemtping to prompt a plea for mercy. I stay silent even as a scream begs to be released. There's adrenaline pounding through my veins, acting as a lubricant for the fear to flow right through my vessels.

"You don't want to do this, Sav." The words are scratchy against my throat and I wince at the way they quiver, the thin thread of fear fraily being tugged along the seams.

"Oh, but I do." Sav shoots me a wicked smile, the expression of soughting for an answer on her face gone. Slowly, she lets the tip of the blade loop along my neck. It leaves invisible imprints that burn along the length of my skin and I clench my hands into fists, scared to even move.

"What's gotten into you?" I demand through the fear.

Sav beams at me as if it's the funniest question she has gotten. "You wouldn't understand, Vic. Some things are too complex for you to comprehend, whether you like it or not."

"Maybe, but this isn't you." The fear doesn't dilute the tinge of sadness in my voice and I can see that Sav catches it, too. For a fraction of a second, the look on her face cracks. And then it morphs back into a cruel facade.

"You're a liar, Vic." She accuses.

"You don't know what you're saying." Even with the knife sluggishly stumbling along the slant of my neck, my response is a coherent pitch of certainty.

"Wrong." The hand that doesn't grip the knife tightens along my throat. "I know exactly what I'm saying, what I'm doing. In fact, I have never felt so alive and clear the way I do now for a while."

"You're insane. You're rambling on about things that don't exist. Do you honestly think that you're not delusional right now?" And it's like the knife doesn't matter anymore. The way my life is being dangled over my head loses all meaning. My emotions take priority and my demand for answers, the burning confusion and betrayal that my heart aches with.

There's a flash of hatred that crosses Sav's face.

"Danger is real, Vic. It exists for me and it will soon exist for you. When you finally experience it which you won't since I'm going to finish you off, you'll understand, too."

"Right." I incline my head towards the light which forces the tears swimming in my eyes to blink out of existence. "So tell me one thing, Sav."

Sav raises her brows, waiting for the question.

"What would Danger say if you died in its hands?" The split second of confusion is more than enough to bring my feet down against her shoe. There's a sickening crunch where I think I broke her bones and her hands go slack. No longer wreathed along my neck, they fall to her sides and I slap the knife away from her grasp. The pain and the shock unsettles the balance of our fight and the knife clatters to the ground, no longer in her posession.

The noise acts as a trigger and we both make a dash for it, our bodies colliding momentarily. But I'm not in pain and the want to live pushes me forward. I snatch the knife up and leap backwards, nearly slipping where the water has pooled into a thick river.

"Come for me, bitch!" The tears wink back into actuality and I draw the knife before me, filled with newfound anger and hurt.

Sav stops where she is, seemingly caught between coming after me and staying in place. For a second, it's like she's hovering between the lines of the reality she refuses to accept and the delusion that has her trapped.

And then she makes her choice.

She smiles at me, a thin line that's eerie and full of charisma at the same time.

"Go ahead, Vic."

What?

She must have caught the confusion on my face because her smile only widens.

"What, thinking about backing out now?"

The knife feels wrong in my hand. My position in the situation feels incorrect, too. It's as if my role in the universe had shifted in a matter of seconds and I was unable to play catch up. Seconds too late to capture the ultimate objective of my presence.

"I- I'm not going to kill you, Sav." I bring the knife lower even though I don't entirely loosen my grip.

"That would be a mistake."

"Then it would a mistake I'll be willing to make." My pattern of my breaths hint that I'm lying. My nervousness is depicted in the swift rise and fall of my chest, the way my words seem to collapse onto one another. Sav's right- I'm a liar.

"Attack me." I say because there's no other way to do this. I won't attack without having a reason to go on offence.

Sav tilts her head to the side and it's crazy how the look on her face conveys a message that I instantly acknowledge and accept- she's not going to let me manipulate her. She's going to weave the situation the way she wants it.

I dive forward. My hand readies itself, turning the blade such that the tip is angled in a way I'm certain will protrude her chest.

But Sav doesn't move. I'm halfway in the action of shoving the knife against her chest and I can't pull back. Still, she refuses to move.

It takes a while for the red to finally register along her shirt. When it does, there's a feeling of sinking closure that dovetails with the seepage that colours her skin.

It's like I'm being freed. Like Sav's death is everything that I need.

Word Count: 1169