The Girl In Apartment 13 | Apply Fic

Chapter Nine: Cruel Intentions

Carter rubs her eyes as she walks down the hall, mumbling to herself in frustration. She gets to Yumi's place and uses her spare key to let herself in. She goes into Yumi's bathroom, grabbing the things she needs to deal with a wound. She knocks on Yumi's door, announcing her presence to the other girl.

"I'm coming in. Don't be naked," she warns.

Carter lets herself into Yumi's room as the other girl sits up. She keeps her eyes on the ground so she doesn't step on any shards herself. Immediately, she digs around in Yumi's blanket and pulls her foot out.

"Nice bandage job," Carter mocks, laughing. "Why is there glass all over your room?"

"I was having some weird late night delirium," Yumi admits. "I think I'm going insane."

Carter snorts, shaking her head.

"Peaches, late night delirium doesn't mean you're going insane. Sleep deprivation is a bitch and I don't know how Oscar constantly lives with it."

Carter checks out the cut on the bottom of Yumi's foot, cleaning and patching it up for the other girl. Once the wound is clear, Carter heads out of the room to grab a broom.

"So what actually happened last night?" Carter finally asks as she comes back into the room to help Yumi clean up the mess.

"Like I said, just some delirium. I thought you guys were talking to me but it was I guess coming from the picture. I dropped the picture frame and it shattered. Then I went back to bed."

Yumi gets out of bed and starts getting dressed. Carter dumps the shards in Yumi's garbage can before dropping down into her desk chair. As Yumi starts to pull her hair into a ponytail, something catches Carter's eyes.

"What happened to your neck?" Carter demands, jumping to her feet.

Yumi freezes as Carter approaches her, moving Yumi's hair to better see the marks on the back of her neck. There are massive red marks, already bruising covering her neck with more red marks crawling down below her shirt.  Carter starts pulling on the neckline of Yumi's shirt, seeing that they go towards her arm but stop where they would be out of Yumi's line of sight. Carter's hands are shaking hard enough that she releases Yumi's shirt unwillingly, the fabric snapping back into place. Yumi walks out of her room into the bathroom, grabbing a mirror from her bathroom drawer. She pulls off her shirt, using the hand mirror to look at whatever Carter saw. When she sees the injuries, her heart drops into her stomach. She barely manages to keep the mirror in her hands. She drops it on the counter and goes back into her room. Carter's eyes are wide, a look of concern on her face.

"What happened?" Carter asks again.

"Last night, I had a nightmare where I was attacked in my apartment. Random things were attacking me and these marks are consistent with something from my nightmare. Call everyone. We're going out for breakfast because we need to figure something out. This isn't normal and this is dangerous."

-13-

Carter slowly drags her thumb over the back of Yumi's hand, trying to calm the other girl. Yumi's just staring ahead blankly as they wait for the rest of their friends. Neither of them can say anything, Yumi still trying to piece her night together while Carter doesn't want to stir anything up with the other girl.

Carter looks up when she hears the bell ring, indicating someone entering the diner. She notices Pierre, Oscar, and Jade coming in, Hensley following behind them. Carter can't figure out why but seeing Hensley causes anger to boil up in her chest. As the group gets close to the table, Carter gets up, stepping between Hensley and the rest of her friends. Hensley is taken aback, moving away from Carter.