LadyStoneheart23- I like that quote. Kinda sums up how I feel. I won’t be shackled anymore. I want to let my rage out.
Legion- Then do it.
JoeNotExotic- Wasn’t legion a shitload of demons exorcised from a possessed man? All sounds a bit dark, mate.
Legion- Isn’t that what this chat is for? To exorcise our demons. To go to the dark places other people don’t want to hear about. Not in the real world, anyway. A freaks playground.
Fucking_Alan- He’s right. We are all a bit freaky in here.
EmoGirl- Speak for yourself, Alan.
JoeNotExotic- Naming yourself after a bloke who was possessed by thousands of demons is as dark as they come.
Legion- Feared by many, loved by few. That’s me. But then, I’ve always lived by the motto, ‘It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot have both’.
EmoGirl- Machiavelli
Fucking_Alan- Dude, enough already. You’re making me look bad.
EmoGirl- Alan, these quotes would go over your head anyway. Nineties rap and your mums record collection are the extent to which you go.
Fucking_Alan- And who doesn’t love a bit of nineties rap? I’ve got ninety-nine problems but a stalker aint one.
JoeNotExotic- Low blow, dude. Low blow.
I saw a private chat pop up along the bottom of my screen, and thinking it was from EmoGirl, I opened it. It wasn’t.
Legion- Burn them to the fucking ground. That’s what I say. Burn them all, then rise like a phoenix.
One chat and I already felt like this Legion guy got me better than anyone else I knew. He got my situation, anyway.
LadyStoneheart23- I plan to.
I replied, then shut the window down, smiling to myself. At least someone had faith in me.
My insane hunger was turning into an unquenchable thirst. I’d hungered for redemption for so long it’d become an everyday emotion for me, a need that burned deep. But now, since her, I needed to know more. I was thirsty for knowledge. I wanted to know more about her. What made her tick?
I’d seen her cry at her brother’s funeral. I’d watched her rage and go wild at Ryan’s garage. And I watched her swing from fear to defiance at my little calling cards. And through it all, I couldn’t ever get a handle on the girl. I could never second guess her. Like yesterday, she’d gone into that office building to do whatever the fuck it was she was doing, and when she came out and saw my rose, she smiled like it’d been left by her fucking boyfriend.
I used the car I’d hot-wired to follow her, expecting her to go straight home, but no. She’d rocked up to the fucking Lockwood’s of all places, and then totally blew my expectations out of the water when she started getting arsey with them. I could see she was arguing with Lockwood, and when his dad came out, she turned on her heels and left, flying down the driveway like a bat out of hell and looking like she was ready to go nuclear on all their asses.
She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. She was unstable, unpredictable, and slightly psychotic. It was like looking in the mirror at a daintier, blonder version of me. Hell, she was me. A female version of me, anyway, and I needed to find out more.
That was why I’d ventured a bit further over the line tonight, coming out from the shadows where I usually stood. I was on her back patio, looking up at her bedroom window. I knew it was hers. The glittery pink skull in the windowsill gave it away.
The window was open, and it crossed my mind to climb up the drainpipe at the side of her house. Maybe use the flat roof of the extension to help me get across and through into her window. But I didn’t. Instead, I tried the patio doors that led into her dining room, and sure enough, they’d been left unlocked. Pretty stupid when you considered all the criminal damage that’d been going on around Sandland over the past few weeks. You couldn’t trust anyone these days. The Yates’s obviously thought they were safe. Looked like I wasn’t doing my job properly. I’d have to do something to rectify that.
I stood at the door for a few seconds, letting my eyes adjust to the dark so I could pick my way around the furniture by the light of the moon without making a noise or waking anyone up. I’d have hated to have to up my plans so soon and start using violence to get my point across. Best they all stayed asleep. The bogeyman works better when he’s left alone to do his bidding.
They had an open-plan kitchen diner, and I made my way around the table towards the breakfast bar, ready to leave my next surprise for her. The electrical buzz from the kitchen appliances gave the house a comforting feel, and I could smell the vanilla from the plug-in candle thing her mum had next to the door, wafting over me like it was trying to calm me down. Must be nice to live in a house that pumps out a fresh scent even when you’re asleep and can’t smell that shit.
I laid the white rose I’d stolen out of the next-door neighbour’s garden on the work surface and took the paper out of my back pocket, tucking it underneath. Then I got an apple from the fruit bowl and placed it on top of the paper, just to make sure it didn’t blow away when a door opened. I wanted her to see it. I couldn’t wait for her reaction, knowing I’d been inside her house. Would it scare her to know I could get to her anywhere? Or would it give her
a thrill? I had no idea, but I’d enjoy finding out.
Standing in her kitchen, power coursed through my veins, and I didn’t want to leave yet. I hadn’t quenched my thirst for all things Harper. So, I walked over to a sideboard that ran the length of the wall opposite the kitchen area. I took my mobile phone out from the pocket of my jeans and clicked the flashlight on. Probably a shit move if the neighbours saw it, but I wanted to get a better look at what lay in front of me.
There were framed photographs of the family on the top of the sideboard, lots of them. I loved my nan, and she’d done the best job she could at bringing me up, but we didn’t have framed photos in our house. The only photos I’d seen from my childhood were faded, curled at the edges, and kept in a shoebox at the top of my nan’s wardrobe, like she was trying to hide away the reality of our shitty lives.