“She’s right,” another voice says, this time a male. I find him perched in one of the chairs, a foot pressed against the coffee table. He, like the older man, has some spraying of tattoos over his arm and neck, though not a lot. Not as much as the other guys who are in here with them. One even has them on his face. “You can’t hide her in this house anymore. She’s part of this and you know it.”
“Part of what?” I muse. My English is fluent, but the end of some syllables still has my tongue slipping and struggling around. I was told I had a speech impediment from a young age, though that has long since left the building. Now Brantley probably wishes he could get me to shut up.
Brantley moves away from me and heads toward the alcohol cabinet. His long fingers wrap around an aged bottle of whiskey as he slams it closed again and spins back around to face me. I can feel the heat radiating off of him in waves, with a tide that’s directed at yours truly. I find his gaze instantly, offering a small smile. I’ll be fine, it says. I’m going to kill you, his replies. We both know it’s not true. He tolerates me like one would a pet. He keeps me close because he thinks he has a responsibility to take care of me, but I’ve grown to know the truth. I’ve always been a pest to him, nothing more and nothing less. Me coming down here was hopefully the first step to me gaining some sort of separation from him, to remind him that he isn’t stuck with me. Or at the very least, he doesn’t have to be. I owe him my life, but he doesn’t need to be in it forever.
“I’m Tillie,” the pink-haired girl says gently. She points to the guy next to her. “This is Nate, the two people who just walked out were Scarlet and Hector Hayes, and that—” Her finger lands on the guy who is sitting on the chair with his leg propped on the coffee table. “Is Bishop Hayes. That is Eli, but you can ignore him.” Eli snickers under his breath as she carries on. “Hunter and Chase are the older generation, so you probably won’t see much of them, but they’re around a lot—” she rambles, but my eyes are stuck on Bishop, who seems to be watching me carefully. I hold his stare obstinately, ignoring the fact it’s like an open flame in a dark room. Finally, I pull my gaze away from him. “—so what else did I miss?” Tillie asks, oblivious to my wane of attention. I don’t know what she was talking about because my mind was trapped in one dimension and one dimension only.
“Ah,” I murmur, shuffling on my feet. My palms itch. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, me coming down here after all.
“She doesn’t know anything, Little Terror, shut up,” Brantley growls from the other side of the room. It wasn’t harsh, or loud, or angry. His tone had a dismissive, roguish edge to it. Maybe he didn’t need to yell to be heard, people just listened. It was obvious that was what was happening right now.
Tillie cocks her head to the side until her pink hair falls over one slender shoulder. “Well, that has to change, and you know it.”
I’m confused.
Everyone danced around me to the heavy sound of Korn. I loved Korn. Their music was enticing, exhilarating, and, if I was being honest, kind of exhausting, but it pulsed through me anyway, relentless with its mission. I just wanted to feel. To get lost within the sea of sweaty teenagers and to pretend I was just like them. So like them. Even if I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t, and if they didn’t know I wasn’t, they would have thought something was wrong because everyone who came near me, always made sure to stay just far enough away to not lose their fingers. If anyone had gone out of their way to ask me, I would have told them that they’re wasting their time fearing for their lives. They can dance up on me. No one is here watching. No one.
I raised my arms above my head and moved my body to the menacing tone of Jonathan Davis. I wanted to have sex with his voice. Wrap him between my legs and swallow him whole. A smile traced my lips at that thought, and I slowly peeled my eyes open. That smile only grew when I noticed two guys sitting on a sofa, watching me. They wore dark clothes, but one had white sneakers on and the other black boots. One had tattoos running up an arm while the other seemed to have none. They had the same build, only one was taller, broader, and angrier, while the other just seemed simply disinterested. He could pretend he wasn’t interested all he wanted, but I felt the flames of his eyes lick me from my waist down.