I wanted it all gone, but it wasn’t going away! Screaming in my mind, I stabbed his now-mushed eyeball and destroyed face.
In the middle of my insanity, I could feel that my mind had long left this world, but then from the corner of my eye I saw a movement. It washim. He’d watched everything I’d done, watched me lose my sanity over and over again, wailing and crying while stabbing Mael. The nameless one who turned out to be just as sick as the rest of them, the one whom I’d placed the last of my hope on. It dawned on me that the thumping from earlier washimknocking Mael off me with the chair he was holding. He walked to me slowly as if I were some dangerous feral animal and offered me his hand.
“Why?” I asked, lifting my gaze from his hand to his eyes, and got up without his help, unsure of his angle. He backed away from me. We both knew if he ran, I’d run after him.
I was the predator, and he’d become my fucking prey.
“Why?!” I screamed through my teeth, making him wince. Was he going to keep me for himself? My grip on the knife tightened until my fingers hurt and my arm trembled. There was nothing I wanted more than to stab him too. Was that why he’d done this? To keep me for himself? My skin crawled with goosebumps at the thought.
I never wanted anyone to touch any part of my body ever again.
“I’m sorry for?—”
“Sorry?” I paused. “Y-you’re fucking sorry? Don’t you ever say that stupid useless word to me! Death would’ve been better than what you just let them do to me!” I yelled, twisting my wrist, craving to feel the knife slicing skin, so I unknowingly kept sliding the knife’s edge against myself, rupturing tissue in my leg. Part of me knew what was happening, but the anger numbed the physical pain and the slicing became cathartic.
“What I did to you earlier…” He shook his head and swallowed deep. He curled his upper lip and closed his eyes tight for a second, then shook his head and stopped moving away. The thought of him not being afraid of me blazed my wrath even more.
I wanted to stay the predator, not become the prey again.Never again the prey.
“I’m sor—I didn’t help you before, but I couldn’t. T-they’re… they’re very powerful, his family. It’ll be a miracle if we survive this. If their families find out, they’ll annihilate everyone we’ve ever loved.” He paused. “Do you understand?”
Only the bugs and the wind spoke as we stared into each other’s eyes.I want to be the predator. Be the fucking predator, Magdalena!He gently raked his hand through my hair and caressed my cheek. He had been the only one to show me any gentleness, and he’d helped me kill Mael. I shook my headviolently at the memory. Why was I remembering this? What the fuck did it matter?
There was something about his green eyes that calmed my hunger to use my knife on him, and I despised it. Something about him drew me to him. I couldn’t explain it. It was a strong energy, something I’d never felt before. I hated that I was susceptible to anything other than killing.Stop being the prey…Self-disgust and shame washed over me. I was hesitating to kill him, and I didn’t understand why. “Is-is it true?” I stuttered, not wanting to think about it but it was too late. “About the psych ward?”In that moment, I needed him to lie to me. Instead, he nodded, crushing what was left of my heart…
“His family… They force others to participate in this… and that’s how they control us. It’s no excuse, but I had no choice. I had to protect my family.”
I didn’t give a rat’s ass about his fucking family. All the images and nauseating sensations rushed through my mind again. I even turned to either side to make sure they weren’t there because the sensation of their fingers digging into my arms was that vivid. Then I remembered, I’d killed them all.Now, I just need to kill this one and then all my monsters will be dead and I can go on with my life and forget this ever happened.Uncontrollably, I shook my head while sliding the knife back and forth, slicing my leg.
I struggled to stay grounded, even with the new cuts bleeding down my leg.Go away. Go away.It was as if I couldn’t control certain movements as my mind broke down without the height of adrenaline driving me. At the same time, I needed to feel the pain, the punishment for not killing him yet. A whimper escaped me as tears fell from my eyes like raindrops in a violent thunderstorm, flying as I shook my head.
“Magdalena…” he whispered. I met his gentle gaze again. How long had I been gone? How long had I been in the trance?“S-stop stabbing yourself… please.” There was anguish on his face, for me.Why?
It hurt to not kill him, but a part of me refused to do it, and it pissed me off that I couldn’t figure it out. “It’s no excuse,” I repeated over and over again.
I think he nodded his head. “You’re right. There’s no excuse.”
Finally, I gathered my thoughts, then released a feral scream and lifted the knife in the air to penetrate his throat with it. A part of me anticipated his warm blood on my frigid skin. He flinched but didn’t move, as if he was willing to die for what he’d done to me. I stopped midair and dropped my arm.
“It’s no excuse! It’s no excuse!” I didn’t know how much time passed while I wept. Nothing would make me feel better again. There was no way I could hide this. I got lost in the symphony of buzzing bugs and the whoosh of the wind as it swept by, dancing with the trees, caressing my skin.
“Do you have someone who can help you get rid of him?” The change in subject helped distract me from the need to kill myself.
“T-there’s no signal up here.”
“There will be now.” He took out his phone, typed, then slid his finger on it. “Mael was blocking the signal so that you couldn’t call for help. I already moved Gabin, and I’ll take care of Sylban, but I need to leave to have an alibi.”
The adrenaline must have been dropping fast because I couldn’t stop shaking or shedding tears.
“Magdalena,” he called, and I realized I’d been staring at Mael for a while. How many times had he called my name without a response? “You need to leave the country, okay? You need to really hide. Change everything. If you can have plastic surgery to change your face, do it. Are you listening to me? You’ve become a target. I mean you’ve been in their target for years now.” He bent his knees to lower himself to my gaze, butI couldn’t stop staring at Mael. His body had so many cuts. I smiled when the phrasedeath by a thousand cutscame to mind.
“Fuck, don’t go into shock on me now. Come on, Little One.”
“Leave,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Fucking leave! Go get your stupid alibi before I kill you.”
