Canine Cyborg Boyfriend

Chapter Nine

Slick slime dripped from the A/C vent and down the wall of Karen's cheap one bedroom apartment. There was a heap of flesh and gore trailing to the bathroom and leading to the tub. The florist sat naked in the dingy tub, clinging to her stained shower curtain and sobbing uncontrollably.

It had been hours since the attack. 

The memory was all too fresh in her mind and she wished she could just forget. How she awoke in a vast maw of void, filled with nothing yet she sensed... a presence staring back. Then she remembered the painful agony as her arms and legs divided infinitely. The searing pain as her skin melted into a hungering monster whose overwhelming desire was to feed.

A trembling hand reached for the handle, turning the cold water on. Her whole body shook as she watched the fleshy gore of what she had become wash away and circle the drain.

Ben's words echoed in her head as clear as the night he had said them to her. She wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her face on her knees as the water poured down. The fight was useless now and all she felt was empty. But, hadn't she felt that this whole time?

Her mind cast back to a time before all this mess. A time before she even owned a flower shop. And further still, before the trail of heartbreak and pain she left in her wake. It was before she moved to Stars Fall. She turned the water off, her cries fading as hands quaked to pull herself up. Her feet dragged over to the sink to stare into the mirror.

Karen remembered Luca. Devilishly handsome with a storm of green in his hazel eyes and a cruel twist to his smirk. The three years she wasted on him felt like an eternity. And as she stared into her reflection, she could see his own evil eyes staring through hers. 

The marks he left on her were never physical. But, he had caught her in his web and twisted her into his own creation. He was the puppetmaster, she was the puppet. Luca pulled the string and she'd dance. He was a master manipulator, full of deceit and lies... no, not lies. Always half-truths. So you could never really know what was fantasy and what was reality. 

He had pulled her into his world by showering her with affection. She was young, she was hopelessly in love. She was everything she had seen in Cindy's eyes when she looked at Ben. It was a hope that the future might not be so bad, that it might not be so lonely. She couldn't even pinpoint when things went sour between them, that was the worst part. Or perhaps, what she really dreaded was knowing that Luca had never loved her to begin with. That she was so deeply flawed that she was just inherently unlovable.

And she had spread the pain he caused to others. Because if she learned to be like Luca, she'd never really be alone. She'd string men along, juggling them and toying with them. She'd be cold, callus, and self-absorbed because at the end of the day all she had was herself. And best of all, she'd never be hurt by him again if she could be like him. No one could touch her.

Karen's reflection let out a pained sob and she clutched her chest. Yet if no one could touch her, that meant she was alone. And she knew it was her own doing... all of this was her doing...

She had two options left-- to self-destruct or to change.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was a record high heat wave in Stars Fall. Cindy and Ben didn't leave the house until the next afternoon. Ben went around the back of Tequila Mockingbird to charge his phone and change into a fresh set of clothes. Cindy went through the front, agreeing to meet up when he was finished. Ben still hadn't seen Matteo and he wandered what his friend had been up to as he climbed the stairs.

LB came in shortly after Cindy, approaching her at the bar. It was the lunch rush and you could smell the fragrant aroma of today's special, pasteles y sopa de pata. It was evident that Domingo was back from his fishing trip. She could see Matteo working up a sweat in the kitchen, trying to keep up with the demand.