“Maybe I should search for your file, huh. Post it all over the yard. Show the lads what a fucking psychoyouare!”
I looked at her for a long time, my eyes flicking between the darkness of hers. They were burning, not with hate.
But with hunger.
For life.
For my life.
The satisfaction she would get from ending my life made me want to return the favour tenfold. This back-and-forth motion between us ran deeper than just a toxic relationship; there was a pull. A tethered connection that I couldn’t understand as my grip lessened on her skin.
Her already colourless face started to slip into a paler shade than before when I released her, pushing back away from her as I did so. This wasn’t over by a long shot. But if I stayed in that room any longer, only one of us would be walking out alive.
My angered eyes remained locked onto her as I backed out of the room, returning to the one place I could reevaluate my next move. My cell.
I slammed the door behind me harder than I meant to, causing it to bounce back slightly upon impact with the door frame. The sound ricocheting outside of my cell, not that it mattered. The guards didn’t even flinch anymore, just shot a lazy glance down the wing and went back to their posts like they’d seen it all before.
I paced, fists clenched at my sides, chest heaving with something too sharp to be called anger but too hot to be called hurt. Four steps forward, four back, my shins hitting the edges of the metal beds.
I dropped onto my bunk, back flat, arms folded behind my head, closing my eyes. She really went there— all the jabs, the taunts, the games. I thought I could handle it. Hell, I enjoyed it half the time. It made me feel alive. It's like someone here finallyunderstood me and didn’t look at me as if I were a problem to be fixed. But this, going through Dr Brenner’s files, my file, that was something else entirely.
She’d told me from the start that she’d find my weakness, and fuck, she found it.
She didn’t know what was in there. She couldn’t. But the idea of her trying, of her digging, felt like she’d taken a scalpel to my ribs and pried them apart to get a better look at what made me tick, and I hated it.
I hated that it made me feel small. Like I was thirteen again, standing in that hallway with Danny’s hand at my throat and no one to pull him off. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree after all. I rubbed at my eyes, letting a taunted groan leave me.
I tried to make sense of it. Was it just a power play? A sick joke? Or was she trying to break me down for real?
I didn’t hear the footsteps. Didn’t hear the door open. Didn’t hear anything, until I felt the shift in the air, the sense you get when someone else is in your space, too close, too quiet.
My eyes slammed open as the weight hit me, my body jolting in surprise, and there she was. Misfit. Pinning me to the bed as her knees dug into my upper arms, her face contorted into something feral as she leaned in close to mine. This wasn’t another part of the game; this was intended to be the finale—the ending to all endings between us. A part of me hated that she got there first, wasting no time in satisfying the urge that had been clear for a while now.
I hadn’t noticed it at first; my attention had been entirely on her cold, burrowing stare, searching behind my eyes for a glimpse of fear. But I wasn’t about to let her enjoy the ecstasy of knowing she had made me feel that way.
It wasn’t until the sharpness pressed into the skin of my jaw that I knew she hadn’t turned up empty-handed. My heartskipped in my chest as she loomed over me, dangerous and unforgiving. I could have broken free from her grasp if I really wanted to. Her slight frame wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. But I didn’t move, her threats dripping with fury as she spat them towards me.
Call me an idiot, but I was curious, hesitating under her hold, awaiting her next move. So tangled in her trance that I hadn’t noticed the surge of guards filling my cell, dragging her from me, kicking and screaming. Pulling myself up from the bunk, I watched them take her down like a hungry bunch of lions taking down a gazelle.
If this was part of the killer foreplay, then I was here for it. Safe words be damned.
Officer Taylor approached me, “McCabe, you good?” My eyes remained on her. I mean, why wouldn’t they be? This was a spectacle to behold. A smirk spread on my face as I gave a swift nod to them.
She may be small, but somewhere deep down, she had unleashed her own monster, slipping from their hold in a moment of opportunity, heading straight for me. Yanking me from the bunk as she grasped at my jumper, only making things more exciting, more thrilling. The rush pulsing through my veins as she continued to drag me with her relentless vice-like grip. A chuckle escaped me as we stood toe to toe. It wasn’t long before her body was convulsing with the surge of electricity now firing into every ounce of her being. She’d ignored the guard's warning to release me, just continued with rampant screams of animalistic venom.
Releasing her grasp, she collapsed to the floor. The guards pushed me back as they dragged her from my cell. While Officer Taylor remained, looking at me in bewilderment. Their authoritative tone snapped at me, “This isn’t a laughing matter,McCabe. She could have killed you!” They shook their head at me as I failed to compose myself.
CHAPTER 12
The aftermath of our fight hadn’t settled. It had scorched the air, lingering deep within my lungs. I would rerun it through my head over and over until the same smirk appeared on my face. The cold gleam in her eyes, the weight of her pushing on my chest. I almost expected to see her smug little grin in the yard the next day. But she didn’t show, hiding in her room no doubt.
It wasn’t until my next session with the shrink that I found out. She wasn’t coming back. Misfit had been transferred to some psych ward. They wouldn’t tell me the name; they just kept saying it was for my own safety.
The bitch had snapped, and I should have felt something. Guilt, maybe, nah, it just made me laugh.
She had gotten under my skin, and we’d turned into reflections of each other’s worst parts. That mirror had finally cracked and there wasn’t a clean break, just shards. I listened harder at the doors after lights out, read too much into the silence when her name came up and was quickly dropped.
She was gone. And now, there was just time.
