Page 34 of Stained Protector

My lips chase after his, earning a raspy chuckle from him as he turns to face the lump on the ground. I didn’t notice before, which is hard when it’s a whole body with the head attached, and Levi stands over him.

The man’s face is turned to the wall as Levi nudges him on his back with his foot. A scoffed voice in my head belittles me for standing there like an idiot; I should be out the door, phoning the cops because Levi has an unconscious man in his house and is unscrewing the wrist—

Huh? Is it another prop?

More are detaching from the body; even the realistic arm has a screw nestled in the joints. Gelatinous fluid pools to the ground from the crevices, and I recognize the consistency of red paint.

“You have to loosen the joints, or else they won’t detach,” he answers the floating question and drops the foot on the moss-green tarp.

My pulse beats with the minutes as I watch in horror when his thumb traces the throat of the marionette. He’s probably looking for the seam that the silicone hid. During the search, the prop’s head moves ever so slightly, and distress gnaws at the ribs to eat my heart.

The prop reminds me of the attacker, who was supposed to be in jail waiting for trial but made bail. Detective Davis gave me the bad news by voicemail at four in the morning.

I don’t want this gift or anything in the room.

A dribble of red trickles from the prop’s neck as an almost unnoticeable shudder pulses on the chest. Gasping hotly, I stagger back toward the door and clench my shirt above my pained heartbeats.

Levi turns and smiles beautifully. “I won’t be done for a while. I brought you here to see the process and how you like it, so I can make changes.”

Compared to blood red, I’m more scared of deep-sea blue. Dormant mysteries, he watches like I’m about to be one of them.

“You’ll come back tomorrow, won’t you?”

A siren’s call between dark waves. A snake’s hiss between fine-tuned hypnotism.

There isn’t an inch of imperfection in his smile, only widening at my prompt rejection. If I was a little more naïve and trusting, I wouldn’t hesitate to take up his offer.

He’s very handsome, with a type of allure that unintentionally dulls all six senses. But mine are on a burning stake, screaming through every cell to run away.

I see a refined, polite, likable man. I feel he’ssomethinggift-wrapped with flawless skin and regrettable temptation.

“You are my muse, always will be.”

There is no room for refusal and no strength to fight the radiant benevolence in his eyes. Levi doesn’t give a moment of consideration when his fingers curl over the man’s throat, and droplets of blood leap from his parted lips.

He’s going to hurt me; that’s what is running through my mind. It takes a lot to not react when a brutal shiver skitters down my back.

“Okay,” I croak spinelessly.

I won’t have a spine anyway if I reject him.

“Be safe on your way home,” he says and stops abruptly.

He wants to say something else by the guttural drawl, but he only hums lowly in his throat.

The world weighs on my hand as it grips the doorknob. A snap of the metal handle shines light into the dim room, masking the quiet crack of bone that I’m too scared to prove.

I’m a captured Polaroid film, and he’s keeping me forever.

*

Hours later, I’m on the couch staring into space.

Whether it was fear or the belief he’d hunt me down, my legs trembled harder as I got closer to the door. I chewed through the skin on my bottom lip, picked my fingers until they were sore, and cried as the sun rose on the horizon.

I’m scared, so utterly terrified of being next. There’s a cinematic film of my future, a delusion of normalcy assembling a haven in my mind. It taps my courage, disintegrating it while it pulls back because one touch of evil is enough to spread like wildfire.

Amid the traveling clouds, the moon witnessed the calls I made to my sister through the frosted windows. One automatic voicemail after another, the line disconnected on the tenth unanswered call.

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