“You’resorry?” Her eyes flick to mine, and they’re absolutely relentless. We’re blazing a path of destruction and brutality, and it’s the only one I want to be on right now. “Hear that, Noah? He’s sorry! Maybe we should stop?”
With her face splattered in blood, she’s a fucking vision. I shouldn’t be so turned on by what she’s doing, but it’s like she brought me back to life in ways that I never was even before I died.
“Well, if he’ssorry…” I shake my head. “That makes everything okay?”
“Let me see.” She muses, slapping him across the face to stop his eyes from rolling back in his head. His gaze focuses on her once more, and with it, all the fear comes back and he renews his struggle to get away… as if he’d get far.
“Shh.” Nikki soothes. “I want to apologize.”
Cole stills, not because he wants to hear her out, but because she lifts the axe again.
“I’m sorry I chopped your dick off.” There’s a beat of silence, broken only by Cole’s ragged breaths, before she prompts him. “Well? Do you forgive me?”
His nearly severed hand is pressed against his chest, and he uses the heel of his other palm to try and stem the blood flowing freely from between his thighs.
Nikki doesn’t seem to enjoy waiting for an answer; she uses the handle of the axe to pin him against the couch, leaning down over him so that he’s trapped like an animal in a cage as she looks down at him.
“I asked if you forgive me?” Her words are shorter this time, more clipped and tense. And that shift, finally, seems to snap Cole out of it a little.
“Psycho fucking bitch!” He growls, pushing against the axe in an attempt to dislodge her.
“I’ll take that as a no, then?”
“Get fucked, cunt!”
“Oh,” Nikki laughs. “I did. By a real man…” Her eyes flick to mine and I catch the amusement as she debates whether that’s the right word for it, considering we have no ideawhatwe are. “And it was amazing.”
“Slut!” He hisses, trying to wriggle out of our grasp.
“Slut?” Nikki gasps dramatically. “Well, that’s a low blow.”
“I’m gonna fucking kill you all over again.” Cole growls, adrenaline giving him a last surge of energy, one last shot to try and escape us as he pushes against Nikki, trying to shove her out of the way.
I see the shock on his face as his hands reach right through her, disappearing inside of what looks like the solid form of her. He stares for a moment, horror mingling with his surprise, and then slowly tracks his gaze up to where she’s smirking at him.
“Boo!” She teases, lunging at him as he screams, shrinking into the couch like that will protect him.
“You can’t choke a ghost, Cole.” Nikki shakes her head. “Can’t rape one, either. But me? I can do whatever I want to you…”
“Stop.” Cole pleads, tears and snot streaming down his face, cutting through dots of blood from the splatter.
Nikki rolls her eyes, but she steps away from him anyway, taking the axe with her as her eyes find mine.
“He said the magic word. I guess I have to stop.”
Cole appraises her for just a minute, and I decide to play into her game, releasing him from my hold.
He doesn’t hesitate, scrambling to his feet, where he immediately slips in the pool of his own blood that’s collected on the hard wood floor. He looks like a newborn deer or a kid getting on ice skates for the first time, but he doesn’t fall; he just moves awkwardly to the door, trying to unlock it with a single bloody hand that only slides against the doorknob.
Nikki’s at his back in an instant, the handle of the axe shoved against the nape of his neck so that his head grinds against the door. Freedom is so close, but of course he’ll never reach it.
“I’m sorry, did you think I was going to stop just because you told me to?” She laughs. “You’ve had your whole life to figure out consent, andnowyou get it?”
She steps back from him, and for one foolish second, Cole thinks she’s relenting. He finally manages to get his fingers around the doorknob, cracking it open just enough to let the brisk light of the afternoon sun filter in with the cold.
I reach around him to shut the door easily, and he wails, seeing his hope slip away. He slams his head into the door like maybe that will help it to open, his frustrated sobs blunted by the impact as reality closes in on him. And through it all, Nikki watches him coolly, the axe in hand, waiting…
"Cole?"
