I don’t know.
Pulling an all-nighter is catching up to me and my head is gravitating to the vanity. My weight slumps, relying on the glossy wood to support it, and my eyes close.
“I expected better from you.”
Carl’s voice seeps into my spine, shooting me straight up and knocking on my heart with a nauseating surge of fear.
I can’t shelter the whine rattling my thick throat, twisting around and bolting off the stool to get my back to the wall. My hands claw at the loose velvet, curling into folds while my accelerated breaths shift my eyes to every corner—looking for him.
Again, not here. But his voice was right behind me. Clear as day.
Or it just resounded from my trauma and I’m tricking myself into thinking I actually heard it.
Regardless, I’m scared.
I can control my breathing and tame my thoughts, but I wouldn’t have felt the impact of running into the evaporating man if he was a figment of my tired imagination.
Would I? Am I asleep?
Not a single thought skips or hops in my mind. My right hand raises and before I can register it, my flat palm is cracking against my cheek, and my head is whipping.
Pain blisters all the way to my temple, searching through my messy hair for any inclination as to why I would just do that to myself, my stiff hand paused in the abusive act.
What is wrong with you?
A lot.
A whine scratches at my eyes, my throat clogging and my rippling focus slicing the room to pieces. I don’t want to be in here. I don’t want to behere. But now I’m really fricking scared of leaving.
With a jolt of courage, I kick off the floor and bust through the curtains, veering left and sprinting past the empty chairs.
What if someone’s watching?
“Oh, my God,” I whine, tears slipping down my cheeks and film settling like a cellophane in my throat.
I’d rather not know, so I don’t look. I punch out of the tent, running through the spears of sunlight eating the fog, then beeline into the tunneled trees, only stopping long enough to lift the latch on the gate.
My legs kick harder, stomping and crushing twigs, until I’m flying over the grass and reaching out to the rusty screen door of the trailer.
I’m usually quiet this early in the morning. But the horror pulsing through my veins has me thrashing the main door open and thundering through the heinous screech.
Cash and Aries bolt upright, palming at the pullout bed and sweeping their bodies into lunging positions.
I throw a hammer punch back to close the door, sniffling and choking, self-pacifying the sob trying to rack my chest.
“Bun? What happened?” Cash asks, wrestling a leg out of the sheets, over the side of the mattress
Kicking my shoes off, my legs shoot me over the gross carpet, and I crawl up the middle of their bed, planting my face in the gap of their pillows.
Aries’ light touch rakes down my back, the bed squeaking with both of them shifting around.
I know they’re waiting for me to say something. The suspense is needling through the air. I try to swallow down the knot in my throat so I can explain, but the rumbling in the floor and a door screaming open kicks in the dread of being a problem, a disturbance.
Which is exactly what I’m being in this moment.
Reaching on either side of my head, I clutch their pillows and drag them up and over, smashing my face to the sheet and hiding my face from the presence swelling in the living room.
“What happened?” Razor rushes hoarsely, the air of his frantic movement racing up the back of my exposed legs.
