Page 24 of Collateral Damage

“Aren't you meant to be out doing whatever you do?” I ask, running my hand through my matted hair, glaring at my feet where her four-legged friend is sitting beside me with his tail brushing against the floor.

“Day off.”Day off? Is that why she's out most days? She can't work.Surely not.

“You work?” My brow tugs, taken back by her words, she's yet to look at me and her face is still painted with another. Clearly still too afraid to show me who she really is.

“If you want to call it that.” A knife slices against the chopping board that's firmly in her hand. A weapon I could use, or a weapon she could lodge inside me if I do something stupid, but by the smirk tugging at her cheshire cat smile and her sarcasm, her work is dismembering bodies. Victims like me.

“Of course.” I mumble, huffing in annoyance, rolling my head back as I smile in pure disbelief that I even imagined for a mere moment she could possibly obtain a job without the dire need to kill the manager if she was given a task she didn't want to do.

“Don't sound so surprised,Puppet.” For a moment I imagine using her knife to rip open her stomach and gouge out herbloody eyes. Sickening images flash before me, shaking off my disturbance.

She's already getting into my head.

“So on your day off you've decided to, what? Make pancakes and kick your feet up as a reward?” My upper arm finds the frame of the kitchen door, cupping my elbows as I tilt my head.

“Precisely.”She pauses, slowly rotating her neck to look at me, licking the residue of food she's making off her thumb and my tummy knots with a feeling I can't explain as I glare at her tongue, decorated with piercings and split right down the middle making my skin crawl at the thought.Ouch-how did I not notice that sooner?

“What is wrong with you? Seriously.” She is so careless with the thought of other people's lives so why am I still breathing? None of this makes sense. One minute I feel like I'm starting tounderstandher and then she throws me completely off with the way she walks amongst the simple minded like she herself is one. She is a rubix cube and I've never been good at them,she is far from simple and she is not like them.

“Throw another one and I'll lock you back in there.” That room is the least of my worries, in fact I feel safer in there, it's become my safe haven. Venturing out is stirring anxiety in me, but being cooped up for weeks does that to a person.

“Am I meant to say thank you?” A ceramic plate scrapes across the concrete countertop, decorated in fluffy pancakes as she nudges it across to me, completely ignoring my hostility.

“Eat. Your insulin is on the table.” It sounds crazy, but for just a second, I hear my mom and my heart warms with a thud. I imagine home, sitting at the island in the middle of the room reading the next chapter of my book before college, completely immersed, forgetting to eat the food in front of me. She'd have to remind me multiple times and I'd shove toast in my mouth as I ran out the door. That memory slowly fades as I realise that itis only a memory now, something I will never get back and will only be able to picture like an old tape which sends my blood boiling with anger. I don't know what stage of grief I am in right now, but the feeling never gets easier.

“Why did you uncuff me?” I glare down at my open wrists, stretching out my stiff joints waiting for an answer but she avoids my question.

“Syrup?”Why is she avoiding the question?

“Why did you uncuff me?!” I don't want the damn syrup, I don't even want to eat right now, I just want to get out of here and go back to normality which I know will never happen. Even if I did escape, there is nothing left for me. I am a pile of forgotten bones. I wonder if anyone is even looking for me right now.

“Because I can supervise you. I could quite happily put you back if you like?”Supervise me?What am I, five?Although I do need to stretch my legs, so on further thought I decline.

“No…” I begin to chew the sleeves, standing here drooping in her t-shirt like a one-night stand in a romcom movie and I'm cringing at the sight of me.

“That's what I thought.” She knows exactly how to keep me curious and pry for more answers. Answers that I will get when she least expects it. I've already noticed that she doesn't spend any time in here, it's always behind that door by the dining room table. Muffled unexplained noises radiate through that door any moment she is here, like the music the other night. Maybe it's a gym, maybe it's a torture chamber, who knows, but at least I'm not in there, although I can't help but wonder.

“You were supposed to be keeping me warm.” I swiftly change the subject so she doesn't catch on that I'm aware of her hide away. The questions will come but not yet.

“I did.” She picks up her cup of what I can only assume is coffee by the strong scent of earth lingering. I can't see the bagsunder her eyes as they are smothered in paint but I just know they are heavy. She swigs from her ugly cup before turning to face me, leaning back on the counter with her plate of food in hand, smothered in black attire. She looks like the dark figure you'd see in a horror movie, yet this isn't a movie, this is real and she frightens me half to death but I'm finding inner strength being cooped up like a caged animal, strength I didn't know I had in me and it feels sort of good.

“You left the bed cold.” I reply sternly, crossing my arms to show my disappointment.

“Would you rather I of stayed? I don’t sleep with people. Certainly not a hostage young enough to be my sibling.” My eyes bulge. I don't believe that for a second. She is the epitome of afuck girlif ever I saw one. I don't know what exactly she's into but it doesn't take a genius to see that men aren't on her shopping list. Maybe I'm just blind. Plus, she looks twice my age, she can't tell me she's never slept with anyone.

“You've never slept with anyone in yourownbed?” My attention drifts from the food I should be eating, concentrating solely on this conversation and I don't know why it interests me. Maybe it's because this is the most socialising I've had since she locked me away.

“No.” She dabs at her pancakes, eating it with her fingers as she smears it in the syrup caking the plate, so much syrup I can feel my mouth foaming. My sugar levels are screaming at me.

“Surely you've had people over?” My body weight rests on my left leg as I hold the countertop next to my plate watching her eye up my hand.

“Oh, wouldn't you like to knowPrincess?”A subtle smirk lifts the corner of her mouth, sucking off the excessive amount of syrup now stuck to her fingers as she locks her eyes on mine. She's making an inappropriate innuendo with an even more inappropriate action like I'm going to find that hot.I don't, butthe sudden surge of heat in my face is telling me something different.

“That's not what I meant.” I shy away, rolling my embarrassment out and a pause settles as she finishes her last mouthful, setting the plate down as she grips the worktop in the palm of her hands holding her body weight. She inhales slowly and exhales sharply, like she's holding back things she wants to say but throws it at me anyway as she gawks out the dirty window.

“You're the first woman to sleep in my bed.Happy now?”There's that look again. Look of guilt. Guilt that she's confessing things she shouldn't. Guilt at herself for telling me things that stone cold criminals like her wouldn't tell anyone.That's embarrassingbut I'm just as embarrassing because neither have I.

“Lucky me.” I mock my way through this in hopes she doesn't think I care, because I don't care that I'm the first to sleep in her bed. Nor do I believe her. Me and a million other girls. Hurt no doubt, so what's so special about me?Nothing is special about you Lora. She's just savouring you for later.

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