Page 1 of Euphoria
Prologue
Phoenix
I rememberher face clear as day. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see her in my dreams. First, the pure, innocent looks she gave me all throughout high school, but then one night, it all changed. I was no longer in control of who I was, the beast inside of me, the true meaning of my name burst wide open letting me be who I truly am. I couldn’t see past it and she was snatched from us. That night changed more than just my relationship with her, it changed it for my best friend too. We all fell apart even though in the back of our minds we all knew that we were better together.
Our girl isn’t dead physically but everywhere else inside of me she is. I haven’t talked to my old best friend and don’t know how it is for him. What the fuck were we supposed to do? Call each other each year and figure out how to get over her? How to control our lives when she’s the missing piece? Fuck her and fuck him too just for the fun of it. Why can’t I shake that girl? I haven’t seen her in years yet I’m walking around as if there are eggshells everywhere.
Am I awake right now or am I dreaming? Is anything real anymore?
“Phoenix…” She calls my name out. “You’ll always have my back, right? You’re not going to ever find me disgusting, will you?”
It was a fucking stupid ass question that she’s asking, but I indulged her. “There’s never going to be a time for me to be disgusted with you… It’s you, Bam-bam.” I call her my favorite nickname because of her name, Bambi.
“I miss Bow,” she says, and she holds onto me tighter. “When is he coming back?” She asks.
Bowie is gone with his parents for two weeks. He didn’t want to go but they went on a family vacation. Founder’s Kids, like Bowie, don’t have to stay in school because there’s always a tutor available. It wasn’t the fact that he was missing classes that made him upset; it was the fact that he wouldn’t get to see our girl. He was or rather is in love with Bambi. He would do anything for her.
I think about the first time we first spoke to her. She was like the little deer, spooked out of her mind and staring like she didn’t understand what we wanted. After learning her name, I knew that it fit her perfectly. Bambi holds me closer as we lay in the darkness of her room. Her door is locked, and her stepfather isn’t home. I don’t like it when she’s here alone with him. Usually, it’s either me or Bowie that stays over, sometimes both of us, stay.
Her stepfather’s a fucking abusive drunk and I want to kill him but that would mean she has nowhere to go. She won’t let us help no matter how much we tell her we can help her out.
“I want you to know something, even if you and Bow weren’t my first, you’ll be my only when it comes to my heart.”
I scoff. “Neither of us wants just your heart, Bams.” I move and now I’m hovering over her. I stare into her big, permanent deer-lit dark brown eyes. “We want you. All of you. We want your fucking mouth, your body, the hair on your head, every fucking thing,” I say with conviction.
“Everything?” Bambi repeats.
“Yes. All of it, including your soul. It’s ours, Bambi, and no one will ever take that from us, not even you.”
She gasps as I lean in closer. I softly place my lips on hers, trying not to spook her or have her think all I’m about is sex. Today, I won’t do that to her. I won’t take her as roughly as she lets me instead, I’ll just hold her. We haven’t been kissing long when I hear the door slam shut downstairs; I know it’s her stepfather. Bambi pulls away from my lips.
“Please, go. He’s going to kill both of us.”
I smirk. My little deer does not understand. I’d kill her father before he could blink again. As I stare at her saying nothing, I now notice the mark on her brown skin. It looks new. I know every mark on her body, it’s like a competition for the ones on my person, but mine has faded along with the memory of the bastard who put them there. But not, hers. This one is new. I glare at it, trying to control my breathing.
A heavy knock comes from the door, then the rattling of the knob. “Open up the damned door, girlie. You know what I like when I come back home. I like for you to be nice and ready for me.”
I suck in a deep breath because now all the pieces to the puzzle are fitting in. Bambi tries to wrap her body around me, but I untangle her before she succeeds. I get off the bed, get dressed and grab the knife that Bambi never noticed I carried around. I walk up to the door and yank it open mid knock.
“Who the fuck are you!” He shouts. “You’re fucking someone else, you fucking slu—.”
Bambi’s stepfather doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence as I get all up in his space and I stab him. I know exactly how I’m feeling like I’m void. I yank out the knife and repeatedly stab him while I hold him to me. He’s coughing while I hear Bambi crying from behind me to stop and threatening that she’d call the police. I don’t know if it’s saving me or her rapist stepfather. I grunt as I push her stepfather to the floor and pivot on my heel towards her. I get to her quickly, shoving my entire body onto her and causing us to fall back on the bed. Bambi is crying, I don’t like it when she cries so I reach out trying to wipe her tears. As I wipe her tears away, I smear blood on her face, which causes her to cry even more.
“Please leave. Please go. Markos.”
My eyes snap to hers. She never calls me Markos, never, but now...she’s abandoning me. I can see it in her eyes, the determination there. I grab her jaw causing her pain, which makes her bawl. My little deer, she’s so scared.
“You’ll always be mine, Bambi. Mine.” I don’t think as I get off her, but I pin her to the bed. I spread her legs apart and make it permanent. See, Bambi had this thing about signing her name after a letter or when she wanted someone to identify it as hers. So, I made it clear for her; with my other knife. I always carry more than one. I carve out… X.O.
“It hurts, Nix. It really hurts.” Bambi cries harder. I move off her and walk over to get the rubbing alcohol, stepping over her bleeding stepfather. When I come back in the room, Bambi is on her bed staring at her stepfather’s dead body while in the fetal position.
“Open,” I command.
Bambi does as she’s told, opening her legs. I pour some alcohol directly on her inner thigh where my signature is, and it gets her out of the trance she was in. “Please, leave,” she says in a small voice.
I grunt, throwing the bottle on the floor, grabbing all my things as I walk out. Before I make it out of her room, I stop. “I told you what I wanted, Bams, and you thought I was joking. I’m not. We own you, Bambi. You are mine. No matter where you go, we will always haunt you and when you get sick of it, you’ll come to us because no human can live without their soul.” With that, I walk out. I never saw Bambi Laurence-Vasquez again, not even when I called Andres to tell him about the body.
When Bowie came back into town, he knew from the look in my eyes something was up and I knew from the look in his eyes he would never forgive me for making her leave.
