psychotic; jmb

chapter eighteen

my eyes flutter open. i'm in a car, the same car that i was kidnapped from. am i dead? is this hell?

i look up from where my head is laying and see joey. his face is neutral but his eyes show so much pain and hurt. maybe i am dead. i might just be haunting joey.

"rose," he looks down and whispers.

"i'm not dead?" i question as i sit up.

by the looks of the outside surroundings, we're about to arrive at the mansion. joey brushes my hair behind my ear and wraps his arms around my waist. i place my head on his head. a water droplet falls onto my forehead. i look up to see tears in joey's eyes and on his cheeks.

i smirk at him and he grumbles, "shut up."

my fingers rub his cheeks to get the tears off of them. we arrive at joey's house. mackenzie gets out and slams her door as soon as tayler stops the car.

"great," tayler sighs as he follows her into the house.

joey helps me get out as i ask, "what happened?"

"well," he starts, "tayler, mackenzie, and i all split up throughout the building. charles found me and knocked me out. i woke up with a headache and tied up in a chair. tayler found a doorway to the room we were in. he aimed and shot bryce in the head. i didn't even know they had no idea tayler was with me. kenzie's mad because tayler could've gotten killed."

joey leads me into the house. inside, tayler and mackenzie are fighting. they're completely oblivious to joey and i because of the amount of noise they're making.

"you little bitch! i care about you, our little fling wasn't a fling to me and you know it," mackenzie shrieks at him.

tayler breathes in, preparing for what he's about to say, "you're just made because i cut off your little slut show. joey is my best friend, and if he knew that you cheated on him with me, he'd be pissed!"

oh my god.

i look up at joey, who has a poker face on. he wraps his left arm around my waist as tight as he can. while breathing out he lifts his right hand. it's too late when i realize what he's holding.

tayler's body goes limp and falls to the ground. the sound; the thump that was heard so many times by mackenzie and i hurt way more than any other time. mackenzie reaches for her back pocket but stops because joey already has his gun pointed at her.

"you grab that gun and i'll shoot you too," joey cautioned.

blood gaped out of the new hole in tayler's head. that bloody, horrid sight was one of many that your brain told you to look away from but your eyes couldn't. luckily, the tears streaming down my face temporarily blocked my view of it.

joey's breath stayed calm, as if he has no remorse for killing his best friend. or for killing my best friend.

mackenzie drops to her knees. she crawls to tayler and lays her head on his chest.

"his heart's not beating," her voice breaks as she whispers something no one wants to hear; ever.

her breathing intensifies and she starts to shake.

"kenzie, slid me your gun," joey requested, still calm.

she grabs the gun, places it on the ground, and pushes it. the noise was wretched and hurt my ears. the stupid, waste less chunk of metal stopped at joey and i's feet.

that's it. i need to get out of here. i don't care if i die too, but i will lose it if i keep having to smell and look at tayler's dead body.

"joey, let me go. i want to leave. i want to leave and never come back," i implored with a trembling voice.

his arm drops as he says, "if you tell anyone about this, i will have you and everyone you loved killed."

i nodded and almost slipped as i ran to the front door. my fingers struggled to open it, but once i managed to get it open, i ran until my legs went numb and i couldn't breathe.

joey, the only man i've ever loved, is a monster. a monster beyond any serial killer, mass killer, all of them. he's just as bad as charles. both want to feel nothing while making their victim feel every type of sadness, anger, and pain. love blinded me thinking he was a good guy.

i was lied to by my own mother. she told me he would take care of me, but look how i ended up. in the middle of know where with barely any signal after running away from a killing monster who tricked me into loving him.

i loved him in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us.

and i will never forgive myself for it.

the end.