Teenage Bones

New Routine

The sun was causing me to sweat- a ton. As I sat, waiting for Tyler to be done in the shower or Jace to wake up, I clicked on the TV.

"...yes, you are correct. There have been four murders in the local area. Currently, the police have no suspects and are exhausting every possible resource to find the murderer. Rumors have spread that each victim has died due to blood loss.."

Tyler walks out of the shower, fully dressed, and his hair not even wet. As he walked toward me, his eyes held fury as his fingers wrapped around my neck, squeezing the life from me. I'm thrown onto the sofa and he climbs on top of me, his face morphing into Mr. Clarke's as they repeatedly hit my head against the sofa. 

"You are a monster- nothing but a monster!" He screams it loudly, over and over again. Jace is crying in the bedroom and I call out for Tyler. Mr. Clarke laughs at me.

"Aren't so powerful now, you little bitch."

He lifts me, smacking my head into a mirror, blood begins to drip from it, pooling into the carpet as I'm repeated hit into the mirror. I could feel shards of glass bury deep into the skin at the back of my head and I scream, hoping anyone would hear me.

Mr Clarke's face begins to get blurry and the edge of my vision begins to go black. All he does is smile at me.

As I sit up in bed, screams have left my mouth as I twist my wrists impulsively, breaking the light bulb into pieces. I don't open my eyes in case I'm back with Mr. Clarke. I get pulled into someone's lap and try to fight them off.

"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" Kicking and screaming, pulling whatever I could with my power and screaming only ended with shouts from a male I recognized.

"Esmé! Wake up! Stop being a fucking idiot!" 

Then I do stop, seeing Tyler holding me. The light bulb has shattered, covers thrown halfway across the room, nightstands on the floor, curtains ripped from the window, and windows wide open. Jace's cot was untouched. As I stopped thrashing, Tyler sat back and took his arms from around me.

"I have to clean that up," he whines.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay... You want to talk about it?" He's chewing on his lip ring, black eyes inspecting me carefully. 

"No, I'm just hungry."

The morning light was early and I wondered why Tyler was already dressed and up- with Jace apparently. I then notice he's wearing long sleeves- he never does. Wordlessly, my head shakes.

"You're lucky, I've just done breakfast." He smiles at me.

"Fine, but get into a normal tee shirt, you look weird in the long-sleeved one." He freezes and at last, my idiot brain catches on. "You did it again, didn't you?"

He nods and changes into a short-sleeved tee, showing a deep cut on his veins that was still bleeding. Grabbing his hand, I put my saliva on the deep gash.

"Seriously, stop it." Padding toward the kitchen, Jace runs to me, letting me swing him on my hip. "How much came out of it this time?"

"Half a glass."

I nearly dropped Jace.

"Half a glass! That's a lot! You can't just slice yourself up," I need to remember to breathe. "It's not okay."

I found out that Tyler made me eggs on toast with mushrooms, half a glass of blood afterward. It went down pretty well and even got time to do a puzzle with Jace. It was a picture of a cat with a top hat.