6

cyanide - creeper

"we know no one forgives the fugitives of heaven"

"Are you sure this is the right house?"

"Yes, Nate. This is the right house." I grumbled as I continued to traipse through the Staedtlers' front garden, turning over rocks and garden ornaments in pursuit of the spare key.

Nate was standing on the front porch, a concrete slab with two steps in front of a bight yellow door. A bible verse was printed on the doormat, an outdoor ceramic frog parked next to the mat.

This was definitely the right house.

I turned over one of the garden gnomes, shouting triumphantly when I found the little metal key, pressing the cold steel to my lips as I kissed it. Salvation at last.

"Keep it down, Forrester!" Nate hissed. "What if Lords and his guys were in the area, huh?"

"Christ, Nate. Fine, but remember that I have the key!" I shoved the blonde aside and slid the key into the lock, turning it roughly and pushing the front door open, casting a worried look behind me as I slipped into the foyer.

I had never been so scared before in my life.

Not even when that post came out.

Nate closed the door behind him, a misplaced grin on his face as he pointed at the Jesus-on-a-cross that was hung above Alexia's front door, almost blending into the dark brown paint on the walls.

"Are we in a house of God? Is the Lord going to protect us from drug dealers?"

Despite myself, I laughed. We were in such a shitty, life or death situation, and Nate can still find some kind of humor.

I wished I was like him.

"There's that smile." He said quietly, a smile creeping onto his face that made me blush, even though we were standing five feet apart.

When it became awkward to look at Nate anymore, I turned away, catching a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. I was covered in blood, dried rivulets running up my arms, some of it smudged on my face, and even a little bit in my hair.

I looked like hell, and I felt like it, too. I felt like there was dirt creeping into every pore in my body, filth on my soul that could never be cleansed.

I cleared my throat. "Try not to touch anything, and only turn on lamps, not overhead lights." The Staedtlers had drawn all the curtains when they left home. "help yourself to some clean clothes, the master bedroom is upstairs on the left. I'm going to take a shower."

Nate nodded, reaching for teh IKEA floor lamp in the doorway between the living room and the foyer, and I turned around to head up to the second floor. Alexia and I were mostly the same size in everything, and I knew that my clothes were done for.

Alexia's room overlooked the entire street, a coffee table covered in plants just underneath the window, art prints from Van Gogh and Monet covering the walls. Her room felt cozy and homely, something I hadn't quite mastered in my own yet. A cork board was above her bed, and tacked to it were pictures dating back to freshman year, when we were inseparable. Before Simon started AboutThat and began to destroy our lives one by one.

You'd think his best friends would be spared from the slander, but Simon thought that would look suspicious, so he only involved us in minor things.

Until the scoop about Jeremy.

I grabbed some clothes, not even looking at what I had gathered in my arms before crossing to the bathroom and shutting the door. There were no windows in the tiled room, so I figured it was safe to turn the lights on. In the light, I looked even worse than I thought I had before in the half darkness. The fear in my eyes didn't go unnoticed, and I knew that I was going to carry that for the rest of my life

The hot burn of the water against my skin did nothing to relax me, lest I allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Even standing naked in the shower, I was worried that Lords would find us. If the urban legends were to be trusted, Iain Lords had eyes everywhere in Bayview, and he'd slit our throats once he found us. After he tortured us for information, that is.

Lasku's blood was still all over my arms. I couldn't get it off, aggressively scrubbing with the vanilla scented soap I found in one of the drawers, flecks of rust-brown cracking off my skin and circling the drain.

And that was when I broke. I crumpled to the floor, drawing my knees into my chest as the first of the tears began to escape my eyes, mingling with the hot water running down my face as I silently screamed.

All it had taken for my life to fall apart was five minutes with Nathaniel Macaulay and now I wasn't sure that I, Charis Forrester, would live to see another sunrise.

Fearing my skin was about to burn up, I switched off the shower, wrapping myself in a plush towel as I stepped out of the shower. I was ignoring my bloodstained clothes. They had been shoved in a plastic grocery store bag and forgotten, the bloodstains would never come out.

I take a look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself. My eyes are red, rimmed in despair. My skin is pink where the too-hot water killed the skin cells. I dressed slowly and awkwardly; all my limbs felt like they were made out of lead.

Alexia's clothes felt foreign. Here ass was bigger than mine, and her jeans felt like I was swimming in denim, even when I notched the clear vinyl belt around the waist. Her boobs were smaller, though, so even though we were all the same size in theory, the reality was a little harsh when the ribbed button-up fit more snugly than I would have liked.

Beggars can;t afford to be choosers.

Looking at myself again in the mirror as I pulled my hair back with a tan plastic hair claw, I thought for a fleeting moment that I was starting to look like myself again. Or at least, the version of myself that I wanted.

Minus the being-chased-by-drug-dealers thing.

I left the plastic bag and the towel in a cluster on the floor, switching on the fan to clear the steam from the air before turning the lights off and moving to head back downstairs, sinking my bare feet into the plush oriental runner that decorated the hardwood stairs.

I cleared my throat. "You clean up nicely, Macauley."

"As do you, Forrester." The boy quipped back, passing me one of the mugs. "Hot chocolate. For your nerves. I thought that it might help you relax so that we could think through the next phase of our plan."

"Plan? We don't have a plan, Nate."

"Yes we do." He said simply. "we survive. Because that's what people like us do."

Oh, how badly I wanted to believe him.

NOTES!!

im back !!! hahahah so the school year is over now, which i hope will give me more time to write, but i am also taking a three week break starting at the end of july because im going on vacation and will not be writing.

in the next chapter, we meet our detectives and there is more bonding between charis and nate. also maybe a dance depending on how i feel ??