Page 35 of Stained Protector

It’s okay, I had said to myself when the clock struck away another hour. She’s at home, or she truly uprooted her life and eloped with the mysterious man.

She’snothere, in the windowless room and on the tarp floor covering.

“You didn’t leave,” Levi quips from behind the couch.

I jump in shock and let out a hushed scream as he offers to make a cup of coffee for me. He treks to the cream-colored counter and starts his morning coffee, one cup with ice and no sugar or cream. He says it defeats the point of using acidity to fight drowsiness.

Crimson dirties his beige shirt with streaks, dots, and smears. The smell of dusty wood mingles with a sharp pinch of iron, rustic even, and lingers by the couch.

He drinks and leans on the counter like the monotonous days interlacing in my memories. Next, he’ll bring me a cup of sweetened coffee and work until an inch of liquid is left at the bottom. The open windows will air out the pungent paint thinners and stuffiness from the night, then we’ll fall into a comfortable silence while we do our own thing.

“It’s hot,” he says as he hands me a steaming cup.

I take it out of habit, fingers brushing his cold ones as he smiles at the rigid gratitude. He doesn’t pat my head, and a raw whimper scratches my neck as he rummages in a drawer by the coffee machine.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, lighting the end with a flick of his thumb. “I don’t normally do it, but he was uncooperative.”

Fear tackles me, throwing itself onto my trembling knees and knocking the air from my lungs. My nails pinch my palms, hoping the pain will wake up my legs to escape the monstrosity mere feet away.

“Wait there,” he says and waves away the smoke.

He holds his hand up as the cigarette hangs between deft fingers, dried blood cracks on his knuckles, and a faint slash stands out on his wrist. The end of the wound ruins his skin’s pristine ink, and the injustice of a damaged masterpiece viciously crushes feeble sympathy.

That man, the atrocious animal tormenting me, deserves the spilled blood and a quick end to his fate. It’s a crime to destroy a beautiful piece of artwork, a priceless creation Levi is so proud of. One that he willingly showed me as a private side of him.

Black and red hues flock from the corners of my eyes, pricking needles on the surface as they blur with frustrated tears.

How dare he? A voice slices through the air like a knife.

“You didn’t like me yesterday.”

His voice is even, deeper, and with such composure that the gruesome hole in my heart stitches itself. He’s offering a chance, albeit slim by the crystallized blue in his disinterested gaze, but his rising anticipation warms my petrified resolve.

I want him and the secrets in that room.

Perhaps my sister was right about genetics, and I’ve inherited a recessive trait of attracting toxicity.

“Trial and error,” he states and crushes the burning tip in the sink. “I thought about it, becoming someone else, someone you would come to like. But a relationship built on lies is bound to sink.”

The faintest sneer appears, but it’s smoothed over in an instant as he strolls up to the couch with the steps of an agile jaguar.

“You’re special,” he purrs as he plucks me off the couch and onto his lap. “But don’t think you’re important enough for me to not hurt you.”

What used to bring comfort and warmth are now skeletal-armored snakes weaving into my hair and ominously cupping the back of my head.

“I know you don’t want to wake up with him under your bed. Do you?”

I shake my head while ignoring the painful tugs. He asks in the gentlest whisper to look at him because he misses seeing my face, so against my better judgment, I do it with regret defiling my soul.

“Sometimes…” he mutters, words hissing through sharp canines and a serpent’s smile, “I still want to kill you.”

There is nothing within arm’s reach to defend myself when his morbidly blue eyes demolish my world and faith. His kiss is the lifeline as I drown with everything he gives.

“Dead people can’t run.”

Epilogue

Anya

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