Page 15 of Collateral Damage

The engine roars, mimicking the sound of my rage as I grip the wheel tightly, grinding my back teeth trying to take my mind off the forgiveness in her eyes, her limp body onmybed, her acceptance as she lies there and waits for her end like a good littlevictimfeeling all sorry for herself, but I’m not the one doing it, it’s not enough. This ending is wrong. Her death is wrong. Everything about this is wrong…If anyone is going to kill her it’s going to beme,how it should be.

Thank you…

Her words repeat like one of my mom’s old CD’s, grating my gears as she would replay it through till the early hours of the morning just to keep the voices in her head quiet. Voices I have now inhabited.Her voice. My very own burnt CD.

She will never forgive me.I know that. I don’t want her to. I’m selfish. I’m as selfish as they fucking get, and I will save her ass just to kill her again if I have to. Whatever this is eating her alive is taking my kill.She is mine to kill.I didn’t do all this shit for something to wipe her out for me. I want to watch her bleed for me, I want to take her last breath.

My boot burns the break.

Fuck this shit.

I run my hands over the leather casing of the steering wheel, whipping it to the left into a side road, reversing the burning tires to come back on myself. I am twenty minutes in the opposite direction, and now almost four hours from Indiana.

What the fuck are you doing Hayden.

My hands and feet take control, my subconscious guilt is eating me alive, boiling my blood red hot as I keep my foot on the gas picturing her lifeless face. I accelerate. Completely oblivious to the speedo. 40…50…60…70…80…90…100…110.

This was not the plan, none of this was ever the fucking plan! I had it all mapped out and she’s gone and thrown a curveball in the mix. The needle of the compass is spinning out of control and all I can do is drive. Even if I wanted to stop the car I couldn't. It's like I am not in control of the wheel anymore.

Whatever this is, it needs to quit it. I don’t give a flying fuck about her, I only care about my body count. She needs to die by my hand, that is it. Then I can chill out. I don’t target women, but everything inside me wants to tear her apart from the inside out. That disgusting purity she brands herself with, it needs to be sucked out. She can’t just give the fuck up and take the easy road. She needs to see how ugly the road full of potholes are, where you puncture a tire and you swerve off track. Where it almost kills you and you get the fuck up and get back behind the wheel again. Where you face danger head on and you don’t cower.

She is better than this. I don’t pity her. I loathe her naivety. She needs to see how ugly the world really is. How ugly the people around her are.She needs to understand why people do bad things, and why she’s truly been hidden away for so long. I’ve never known of her existence because her Father hid her from his past, covered it all up with lies and a fake image. She deserves to know that before she dies.

She needs to understand Me.

??

Ipull up in front of her house expecting to see it smothered in tape and police cars but there is nothing. It’s a Saturday and it’s Halloween so I suppose my plan worked perfectly. No one has noticed. The house is just how I left it. Desolate and freeto enter. It looks like they aren’t home. I cleaned up my mess and exposed of the bodies, leaving a note on the front door that says they went on holiday for a week so they probably won’t notice for a while. Not until the middle of next week anyway. I force entry in somewhat of a hurry. The house that now homesmy Puppetsmemories. I make my way upstairs, facing the door I assaulted and traipse my way inside.

I'm wearing clean gloves so I leave no fingerprints and I start searching her room for the pen. Her bedside table is the first port of call and my suspicions were correct. I pull out the drawer to a grey case full of her prescription and Hypopen, tucking it away in my rucksack as I stand in her bedroom, peering at it now that I'm not chasing her through her house.

Even her room is pure. Bright and simple, plants and homework scatter her desk and dressing table. A Bass guitar hangs on the wall and I cock a brow.I never took her for the bass guitar type.I search for other bits and pieces I may possibly need as I have no intention of ever coming back here again. I go draw by draw, sifting through clothes, books, and other various girly things she has. I take more clothes and grab her phone and charger from her bedside table.Why am I taking her phone? It’s not exactly like I'm going to give it to her.

A calendar hangs by the bedroom door, smothered in so much writing you can barely see the paper. I turn the pages. Times and appointments, reminders and schedules are plastered all over it. No wonder she wants to kick the bucket. What a life to live, does she even get time to breathe?It goes all the way into next year and there is not one holiday? Although she has some interesting things in here. ~Happy Dooms Day to me. Another year older and I'm still single. Yay!~I laugh to myself, not because it’s funny, but because I relate. I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone and after I got thrown behindbars I stopped waiting for it. It’s a waste of time. She’s not missing much.

I shove the calendar in my rucksack making a quick exit, being here already far longer than I planned and jump back into the truck, flooring it back toher, spending the next three and a half hours convincing myself I am losing my mind. She’s my hostage. She means nothing to me. She'sCollateral Damage.Nothing more. I’m doing my moral part and beingconsiderate. She never did anything wrong, none of this is her fault, I ripped her life away selfishly and now I'm trying to make it up to her when I should be cutting people’s heads off.This is ridiculous. But I won't take back what I did, and I will never apologise for grieving my own way.

Even if it did pass this grief on. She can learn to live with it like I have. Even burnt to ash and dust it never gets better, it doesn't get easier. It just becomes more bearable to withstand, but only if you are strong enough to fight it. If she is my karma for chasing my revenge, then so fucking be it. She is beautiful damn karma to say the least. That much is certain. As much as I hate to admit it to myself. Having her around has given the house a weird aroma I cannot shake. Maybe my loneliness is showing, but having a plaything has kept my mind occupied and stopped the voices in my head. No one’s stepped foot in that house apart from me since the day I was dragged out of it into the back of a van. People were so afraid of it, afraid of me, afraid of the stories, that they wouldn’t even touch the place when I was gone. I came back six years later exactly how I left it…Weleft it.

Broken.

Play - ‘Breathe Me - Sia’

I pull up the drive, it’s now dark out and I forgot to leave lights on for her. Not that she would notice, she is in La La land. I drag my heavy-duty bag and rucksack from the passengerseat, striding inside the front door.I never use the front door?My bags are thrown to the floor, taking out her prescription she needs. There is no movement or voices from the bedroom as I approach, and I am met with her lifeless corpse, sprawled out onmybed, she’s practically blue, and a sharp rock slides down my throat as my chest clamps shut.

“Puppet...” I stand frozen. Glaring at the white crust on her lips like frostbite. She can’t be dead. There is no way it killed her that quickly. But why do I even care? She’s gone. It’s done. It’s over.This is over.

Then why do I feel my jaw clenching and my fists tightening at the sight of her. Why is my chest heaving beneath my rib cage?

“Hey.” I reach over to sit beside her, she’s stone cold against my skin as I touch her. I lean my ear against her chest, and a shallow heartbeat aches beneath hers. Her body's fighting.

“Wake up.” I grab her arm, nudging her to respond to me but I get nothing.“Stop playing.” Nothing about this is beautiful, she looks hideous, death looks ugly on her. My mind closes in on memories I don't want to remember.Mom. Mom! Hey. Wake up. Mom, talk to me! Say something!My grip tightens against her feeble flesh, squeezing it in the palm of my hand, her brittle bones moulding into my own.

I can’t do this shit.I reach over for her case, frantically unzipping it, rummaging for the orange and white Hypopen in its pouch, holding it in my hand as I stare at her. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing but something takes a hold of me. I pull off the red lid and inject it into the fleshy part of her upper arm that is exposed to me, clicking it. I don’t even know if this is going to work, I don’t know if she is too far gone. I sit staring at her waiting for any signs of life and she gives me nothing. Her arm slams hard against the mattress as I let it down from its cuff, finding my thumb rubbing against the red rim of her wrist.

“Puppet. Come on.” I bite my tongue, both hands clasping at her forearms, my inky fingers tainting her nude skin.

“Wake up.” I inhale a large sigh, keeping my composure but my heartbeat has other ideas, rattling its cage as I rattle hers, shaking her arms in frustration, suddenly clinging onto that tiny heartbeat still pumping, but she’s floppy and vacant. “Wake the fuck up!”

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