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No hospitals.
No doctors.
And absolutely no calling her parents because he is watching them, and calling her parents would be as good as killing them.
Cen is so adamant, almost hysterical even, at having me agree to all of these things that I reluctantly give in and ask the driver to take us straight to Dark Rose House instead of the clinic.
"What happened to you?" I ask tautly as soon as we're inside the car.
The other girl's face pales, and her gaze turns haunted. "It was horrible, Halyna. He was horrible."
"Who's he, Cen? Do you know him? Do you know his name?"
A shudder rocks her body. "He has red eyes. That's all I know. I've never seen him before he took me."
It's my turn to feel my face whiten, and a stricken expression crosses Cen's face when she sees this. "Y-You've seen him, too?"
I force myself to nod. "Weeks ago, I was in a club, and he stabbed me."
"I'm sorry."
I gesture towards her, saying lamely, "I think I should be the one telling you that."
A ghost of a smile cracks over her lips. "I think you're right."
"Are you sure you don't want medical attention?" I press urgently. "Because I can—-"
"No!"
She says it so violently that I recoil slightly, and in the corner of my eye I also see the driver take a wary look at us through the rearview mirror.
Cen, however, appears appalled by her outburst, and her eyes have started to water again. "I'm sorry, but...I d-don't trust doctors. He told me he was studying to become a doctor, and he has f-friends."
"Not everyone's like him—-"
"I know. I just...please. Just not tonight, please? I just want one good night's rest, after..." Cen visibly swallows back a sob. "Please, Halyna. I know I don't have any right to ask..."
"It's okay." I take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. "You can just rest for tonight, I promise."
We reach Dark Rose House, but the moment the driver starts to step out of the car, Cen suddenly lunges forward, and something shiny flashes—-
No. No. NO!
The blade of Cen's knife slides neatly into the side of the driver's neck, and I don't wait to see what happens next. I quickly turn around to open my door, but my fingers have just grasped the handle when Cen yanks me back by the hair.
"Not so fast, bitch."
She pinches my nose and waits until I struggle and gasp for breath before spitting directly into my mouth. "All done," she says cheerfully, and I've just started to gag and thrash when she uses my hair to yank my head back...and then slamming it back down on the door.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
"That should do it, hm? I'm not going to make you sleep this time, don't worry. This time I want you to enjoy the whole fucking show, but...I also don't want you to do anything stupid."
Cen pulls me off the door to stare into my eyes. "Are you okay?"
She slaps my face.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
"Oh, look. Your lip has started to bleed," Cen coos. "Can you feel it?"
No. I can't. And the bitch knows it.
The other girl's lips twist in a vicious smile. "Your eyes are telling me to fuck off. But...that's all you can do from now on. You can look and listen, but you won't be able to say a damn thing or move a single muscle. Fun, right?"
I'm not sure if I'm doing things right, but I try it all the same. I look into her eyes and hope that my gaze tells her what I'm thinking: FUCK YOU, BITCH.
Cen starts arranging my limbs and snaps me into place with the seatbelt. "Now that you're taken care of..."
She gets out of the backseat, and my heart breaks when I see her do to the driver what she's done to me. Only this time, she doesn't stop until one side of his face is completely smashed open.
"Just making sure he's dead," the other girl sings out to me, and I can't remember feeling so much hatred for another person. I hate her, I hate her so fucking much, and I hate myself almost as much, for causing another person to die for no reason at all.
"Now..." After shoving the driver's blood-drenched body to the passenger seat, Cen settles herself behind the wheel and starts the engine. "You're probably asking yourself how it came to this." She speaks like we're two best friends, her tone so damn casual that I just know she's lost her mind.
"It's all about hate, of course. I hated everything about you. That's all."
The car starts to move, but it's hard to make myself get past my own hatred to care about where Cen's taking me.
"You were supposed to be worse off. Because I saw it. I saw how they were mean to you, too. They talked shit about you like they did with me. We went through the same shitty things, and that's why I couldn't get why you weren't having a hard time like me."
Cen's hand slams against the wheel.
"Why did you still seem so fucking happy?"
She's shouting all of a sudden, and she starts pounding the wheel with every word she spits out.
"Why were you still so fucking nice?"
Bam,bam,bam,bam,bam,bam,bam!
"And how dare you fucking pity me when all you had was a pretty face?"
Pounding the wheel no longer seems enough for Cen this time, and she begins yanking at it so hard the whole car starts rocking precariously even as we race down the road at full speed.
You're human - nothing but a pathetic human—-"
Veins start to pop out of her throat, her screams so loud it's almost as if she believes she's trying to convince herself of her own words.
"And I'm the daughter of a demigod, so why are you the one who's happy and not me?"
"That's what started it all, you know. You made me SO ANGRY, so fucking angry that it's because of you I managed to do this."
Cen throws back her head with a laugh that I can only describe as soulless, and I can feel my blood turning into ice as I watch the girl's reflection reveal eyes that slowly darken from silver into red...and when she turns around to smile at me, she's transformed completely into a five-foot-tall frog.
My skin crawls as I watch the girl's thick amphibious lips part wide open, and her long tongue snaps in and out. Cen lets out a croaking sound that I suspect is another laugh, and then she's shapeshifting again, and it's all I can do not to scream as she turns into the face of my nightmare.
"Say hello to Hector, bitch."
Her tone is as deep as the man she now is, and so vilely amused that I can feel my fears completely leaving me until all that's left is rage.
"The only reason Hector left you alive is because we wanted to see you suffer," s/he snarls. "I even made Hector here blackmail Myrrha into becoming friends with me. I wanted you to realize you're nothing like me...but instead you ended up in fucking Rosethorne!"
Cen takes a hard right with a sudden yank on the wheel, and I can see her lips stretching into a smile of cruel pleasure while she watches the side of my head bang against the car window.
"Sorry about that," she sings out again.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
"I was worried you'd be a little bored with too much storytelling, so I thought I'd make things exciting a bit."
FUCK YOU.
"Your eyes are swearing at me." Cen is pouting, but because she's in her other form, she just sounds like an adult trying to be cute by doing baby talk, and it's gross as hell. "That's not nice—-"
She forces the car to take another hard turn, and my head bangs against the window yet again.
"Learned your lesson yet?"
This time, I don't meet her eyes.
"That's better."
The car starts to slow down, and my heart begins to race.
"Now, where were we? Mm...oh, I remember now. Myrrha. Dear, dear Myrrha, who only died because you had me so mad I ended up telling her a little too much, and so she had to go."
Cen says the last words so simply, so, so simply that I know there's no innocence left in the other girl. Murder has ceased to mean anything for Cen, and now I also have Myrrha's blood on my hands.
"That's when I had my lightbulb moment, too, you know. It happened when Hector was raping Myrrha, and I started thinking, why shouldn't you go, too? So that's when I went "missing", and I just waited patiently, you know."
Cen searches for my gaze through the rearview mirror. "Things like this mustn't be hurried," she tells me earnestly, "so I was cool with waiting. But you know what's not cool? You showing up in club when I least expected you—-"
Her voice has started to rise again, and I know I have to prepare myself.
"And finding out later that you've become the fucking girlfriend of Sub Rosa's god!"
She slams on the brakes in the next moment, and even as I feel my nose break as I hit the back of the headrest at the wrong angle, I know it's now or never—-
"I hate you, I fucking hate you, I HATE YOU!"
And so busy she is at hating me that she doesn't even realize I'm not paralyzed like she thought I was, and I've already unbuckled myself—-
She's so fucking busy hating that she doesn't even hear me pull her knife out of the driver's throat—-
So fucking busy hating herself that by the time I've stabbed her just below the collarbone, it's too late—-
A beast with white-as-snow fur crashes down on the car's front hood.
Eros!
But before either the god or I can do anything else, Cen yanks the knife out of her body and mutters a curse just as she stabs herself in the heart.
The beast disappears from view, and the door on my side flies open as invisible arms pull me out of the car.
ARE YOU HURT?
I can't even speak. I can only shake my head, my mind still grappling with the amount of insanity and hatred festering inside of Cen.
I didn't mean to kill her...
My body starts to shake until I'm trembling violently despite the god's tight embrace.
But she killed herself.
She killed herself, and I heard her.
I heard what she said!
Halyna—-
The moment I start to cry, I feel as if I'll never be able to stop. So much death. So many fucking lives that didn't have to be lost, and it's all because of one girl who hated herself so much she couldn't bear seeing someone else's happiness.
And even with her last dying breath, Cen refused to stop hating, and the memory makes my knees crumple—-
I heard her, Eros! I heard her—-
Eros catches me in his arms, and I sag against his chest.
It's over now, moraki mou. She's dead—-
You're not listening to me!
I told you I heard her.
I heard her curse.
I feel the god stiffen, and this time I know I have his attention.
Tell me.
She gave up her life, so she could take my happiness away.