by T. L Smith
“Don’t Miss Betty me, Jaya. If you don’t leave within two days, it’s all going to come tumbling down around you. Things will happen, Jaya.”
Waving to her, I shut the front door as Taj slides into a car with a driver that came to collect him.
“I told you, Jaya,” is all I hear and it’s the sound of Betty’s voice.
Then everything goes black.
MY HEAD HURTS WHEN I wake. My hands are tied in front of me and Toska’s sitting cross-legged on my bed while I’m on the floor.
“You’re heavy.”
My legs and shoulders sting, there’s carpet burn all over them. It must be from her dragging me into my room. I don’t notice anyone around helping her. I smirk as my fingers try to loosen the rope around my wrists.
“You made him extremely mad at you.”
She shakes her head with her trusty knife in hand that she takes everywhere with her. “He won’t find me after this.”
“Where’s Syler, Toska?”
Her eyes go hard as she watches me. I manage to get the rope binding my hands loose enough that I could pull both hands free but they are still behind my back.
“Oh, you want to talk about Syler, do you? My brother that you stole from me. The one that left me for you.”
My eyes bulge at her words.
What’s she talking about?
He was with her when I accidentally shot him, he wasn’t with me.
“Your brother loves you, Toska.”
Her head drops back as the laugh leaves her lips. “He doesn’t love anyone. I was just someone he had to look out for. Now he doesn’t have to. He has you.”
I hear the front door open, and before she can reach me my hands are knocking her to the floor. She tries to wrestle me off her, but I’m heavier than her small frame, and she can’t do it.
“Fucking hell,” Taj’s voice comes from behind me. I feel him pick me up, separating us, as another pulls both of Toska’s arms down, pinning them to the ground above her head.
“You just have to be in it all, don’t you? What the fuck, Jaya.”
He’s angry at me?
I scrunch my nose up at him. This is not my fault!
I never asked her to come into my house and bash my fucking head. Touching my head, I feel the bump that’s already formed, then I realize why he’s here. Turning to Toska, I watch as she’s trying to fight off the guard that has her pinned to the ground, but is failing.
“Like I fucking asked the crazy bitch to break into my house and whack my head. Did Miss Betty call you?” I can feel a massive headache coming on.
“You’re like a magnet, did you know that? For the fucking crazy. Have you ever been a magnet for the normal?” He doesn’t answer my question.
I think about his words for a second and shake my head. “Nope. The crazy does seem to be my thing.”
Toska’s picked up and carried out of the room. Her mouth is covered so she can’t talk, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to move. Taj pulls out a needle and inserts it into her neck and she instantly goes limp, her eyes roll back, and she falls asleep.
“Is that...” My hands are reaching for the needle. “Did she give me that...” I trail off as Taj pulls it back, puts the cap on, then looks at me.
“This is what she gave you. Do you remember?”
I shake my head. I’ve tried to remember. Every night before I go to sleep I try to picture myself at that very moment of my last memory. But it doesn’t help, none of it seems to help. There must be a trigger, I just have to find that trigger for my memory to come back to me.
“How do you know she gave me that?”
The guards call out his name. He turns to them then back to me.
“He’ll come here looking for you. You can tell him I have her.” Taj doesn’t answer my question, he just starts walking, leaving me in the room like a whirlwind, like my life lately hasn’t been ridiculous enough.
Chapter 20
Taste the Crazy
I have nothing to do but wait for him. He’ll come. It’s not the matter of if, it’s the matter of when he will come. It takes him all of two days. On the second night, he crawls through my bedroom window while I sit on the bed waiting for him to stand. My door is locked, and my father is home. He’s quiet as he climbs through just as he always does. His silence is deadly, yet it turns me on. Fuck my life.
“Mouse.” His voice sends shivers through my body. His arm where the bullet grazed him is not visible, but my eyes go to that spot anyway. He stands tall, his perfect jaw structure on view. His perfect hair messed on the top of his head, to his perfect green eyes, to his ultimately perfect fucked up heart. All of those things are in front of me making me feel dizzy, and I’m fucking sitting.
“Wolf,” I say back to him.
His eyes search around my room before they land back on me. “Has she been here?” I nod, and he raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to tell him more.
“Mouse,” he warns me, stepping closer.
“She’s been bad, Wolf, so fucking bad.”
He shakes his head, then he’s on me, pushing me back into my bed, his body hovering over me.
“Where is she, Mouse?”
“She tried to kill me twice this week. Did you know that? One of those times she used Taj as bait. Can you guess what she did to him?”
Syler’s off me and standing. He turns, walking straight to the window. I watch as he goes to climb through it.
“Syler, just this once, don’t rescue her. Choose me.”
He looks back to me, while he’s half out the window. “I’ve been choosing you. It’s the reason she’s in the situation she’s in.” He watches me and steps away, disappearing into the darkness. Grabbing my shoes, I run to the window and chase him out, running to his car which he’s already in. Pulling the passenger door open and getting in, he doesn’t say a word as he starts the car and drives. We sit in a comfortable silence, both of us not knowing what to say to each other. Or maybe I don’t know how to speak to him. Did I ever, though? He’s always been a man of few words, and those words he’d give me were few and far between. I soaked each and every one of them in like acid. He’s my fucking acid, and the burn feels so good coming from him, even when it shouldn’t. Even when the burn should stop.
“You know he has her?” I ask him as we drive up to Taj’s estate. He drops the car back a gear, slowing it down as we near the gate.
“She’s my sister, Mouse. I will not let Taj kill her because I know that’s exactly what he has in mind.” I laugh at his words. It’s funny when you think about it. I’m sitting next to him, and I want to kill her. She could already be dead for all he knows. A part of me hopes she is.
“Maybe I haven’t trained you right, Mouse. Maybe I was too easy on you.”
My laugh stops when we arrive. Standing out front is Taj who seems to be expecting us. He’s dressed in an all-black suit, his hands in his pockets as he waits for us to get out and walk up to him.
“I didn’t think it would take you this long, Syler.” Taj’s hand touches the stubble on his face.
“I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to take my sister.”
Taj laughs at Syler’s words, then his eyes skim to me.
“You don’t remember yet, do you?” My eyes squint when I look at him. “You should really try harder, Jaya, a lot harder.” He turns, walking back up his steps and inside his house. “If you can make it in time you can save her. She may already be dead, but she’s at the dump.”
Syler doesn’t wait for me to get into the car and I have to run to catch up to him. The second I slide in, he drives fast, spinning around the corners. I wonder why I’m sitting next to him or even going with him. Am I that much of a sucker for punishment that my mind goes to the only option of being with him. Right now, I’m going to help him save his sister when all I want to do is push her off the cliff at the dump and never see her ugly face again.
“Stop!”
He doesn’t listen. His dr
iving is fast, and my hands are gripping the door and the seat.
“Stop. The. Fucking. Car.”
He slams the brakes so hard that if I didn’t have the belt on it could have been very dangerous. I slam the door shut the minute I’m out, then lean down so I can see him.
“Fuck you.”
Then I walk away, hoping home isn’t too far because I have no idea where the fuck I am. Time to leave this fucking town and never come back. All this is, is a fucked-up mess and it’s not good for my soul.
IT’S DARK, AND I’M lost. I forgot my cell in my rush, and I’m pissed off well and truly.
Why did I get in the car with him? He never needed me, not as much as I thought, but I needed him. He’s always on my mind even when he shouldn’t be.
Syler is the devil I didn’t even know I needed. But he also came with his own personal Hell Hound, and she was determined to rid me of him. I should have never told him who had her, I should have kept it to myself and let Taj finish her off. We all know if anyone deserves to die it’s her, for sure. She’s taken her fair share to hell without their permission.
Tires screech behind me. The road is dark, and the night is black. I don’t see the car coming up although I can hear it. I step off the side of the road hoping to avoid it. It’s a pretty safe city, my father would never live here otherwise, even with his job. But in the night creeps your nightmares, and mine right now is coming to me fast. My hand goes up, but it all happens so quickly. First, my legs give way, and I feel my body hit the car, then everything goes blank, but I start to remember.
Chapter 21
The Night Before
Heavy footsteps took me to the front door of their house. I didn’t want to go in. I’d successfully avoided the place for almost a year. Only seeing him every night at mine, Syler would sneak into my room like we were teenagers and hold me trapped to him all night. Tonight, he’d asked me to come to his place. His voice was strange on the phone call when he asked me to come. I’d never heard his voice sounding so... off before.
Arriving, I did something I’d never done before. I knocked on the door.
No answer followed my knock, but just as I went to put my hand on the door again, it opened with a smiling Toska on the other side of it. She waved me in, her smile not leaving her face as she did so. Walking in with her behind me felt weird. I couldn’t trust her, and having her behind my back didn’t make that any easier.
Then I saw him.
He was out of his room. He was never out of his room when we were here.
Syler lived in there unless he was at my house. His head was down between his legs, and he didn’t look up when I spoke his name. Her hand touched my shoulder, followed by her breath tickling near my ear.
What does she want?
“Syler.”
Her laugh sounded distant, but it wasn’t, because she was right behind me smiling.
“Syler... well, Syler is preoccupied right now.” She was laughing as she spoke to me. His head dropped to the side, then something sharp hit my neck. Pulling and turning away, Toska laughed.
“You always thought you were better than me, but I have news for you.”
I shook my head. Whatever she managed to put into my bloodstream was starting to make me feel lightheaded.
“What are you talking about?”
I stepped away from her but stepped closer to Syler. He didn’t look up as I positioned myself in front of him. He didn’t even reach out to touch me, and he always touched me. My hand went to touch him, but I pulled my hand.
“You know what I mean. You think you can come in here, unfriend me when I was the one who brought you in. I didn’t bring you in to play hooky with my brother. He isn’t yours, Jaya.”
Staring down at him, I waited for him to say something. But there was nothing. Turning, I faced Toska. She had a drink in one hand, and the needle that she stuck in my neck was held loosely in her other hand ready to drop to the floor.
“I didn’t take your brother away from you, Toska. He followed me like the Wolf he is.”
Her bottom lip turned up, and I knew I’d just made her angry. Or angrier.
“You’re a fucking liar!” She laughed loudly. “He warned me to not fuck with you, that you were his now. But did he think I would listen?”
Her head leaned in. Her eyes went wide. She was high. I crossed my hands over my chest, trying to not succumb to the drugs she’d given me, but the only problem was they were working their way through my system. And soon I would be at the drug’s mercy.
Maybe that was what she was waiting for? For it to affect me in full.
Would she do to me what she’d done to her past fucks because I’d seen what happened to them, throats slit and now dead?
“What did you do to him, Toska?”
She sat down on the sofa, the same one she usually passed out on when she was high, and her eyes looked up at me.
“I may have given him a taste.” Her eyes were on me, hard, then they skimmed to him then landed back on me. “Did you know he had a drug problem? Did you know he gets addicted, to everything? What do they call it...” her finger tapped her lips, “... addictive personality? Maybe that’s why he’s kept you around, he doesn’t realize he has to kick the habit.”
Shaking my head, I didn’t believe her words, I never did. Looking back over to him, I could tell he was trying to fight it. His fists kept on clenching then letting go. My vision started to blur. Closing my eyes and reopening them, I tried to fight it.
“What did you give me?” She smiled, and it was more than evil.
“Do you really need to know? Wouldn’t you rather die peacefully? The only reason I’m not slitting your throat is because I think he won’t like to clean the mess up, and I’m already going to make him mad as it is.” She rolled her eyes, and I wanted to punch them in. But like the silly girl that I was, I looked back to Syler, hoping he would snap out of it and tell me it would all be all right. None of that happened.
“What did you give me?” I asked this time a bit more forcefully.
She laughed. “I give it roughly another five minutes for you to pass out. Then it’s goodbye, Jaya.” She waved her hand in a bye-bye fashion, and I turned, going for the door. I managed to reach it, pulling it open, but she also managed to catch me before I could get any further. Her hand tightened on my arm. I had one foot out the door and one still inside. She tried to pull me in, but I stood my ground. Even if I was feeling weak.
“Don’t try me, Jaya, this is a game you will NOT win.”
My arm collapsed, and my body felt heavy like I was about to drop to the ground.
Her breath touched my ear. “It’s kicking in now. Can you feel it spreading like poison through your system?”
I nodded my head, even though I didn’t want to. It just seemed to happen.
“Syler,” I said his name again. This time he glanced up at me with glassy eyes. They squinted at me, but nothing else happened. Toska tugged my arm, pulling me back into her house. “What happened to your face, Toska?” I gathered all the strength I had and rammed my body into hers as hard as I could. We both landed on the floor, me on top of her, my fists rose, and I slammed them into her as hard and fast as I could muster. She laughed but didn’t stop me. Her mouth was bleeding, and her eye was busted, but she didn’t stop me. Instead, she just laughed harder.
“He doesn’t love you, he loves me.” She smiled then just as I was lifted, my body going flat.
“Shhhh....” I managed to turn my head. Taj was holding me up away from Toska. I fell into his arms, and I looked one last time, hoping Syler would get up and help me, but he didn’t.
“YOU CAN’T HAVE US BOTH, so I chose for you.” Toska’s voice came from somewhere, my eyes were too heavy to open.
“I don’t want both.”
He was awake.
Wait! Why wasn’t he telling her she was wrong? That she couldn’t have me.
I dozed in and out, only catching tid bits of their convers
ation.
“Taj gave me the drug. She won’t remember anything. But I don’t plan for her to remember, Syler, I plan for you to kill her. You will do that for me, won’t you? Like you did when we were kids. You’ll protect me from her. She wants to take you away from me. You promised me when we were kids you’d never leave me. You can’t leave me, Syler, so you must kill her.”
“Toska,” he said her name, then I felt a needle in my neck again. But I couldn’t move.
“This should kill her. If you don’t do it then this should do it.”
Syler said something else, but I couldn’t hear it.
My last thought was—why did I fall in love with the devil who had a wicked Hell Hound attached to him?
Chapter 22
Memory
My head hurts when I wake, much like it did that night by the water, except this time it’s from being hit by a car. Moving my legs, which feel heavy, I open my eyes. I want to scream until I see him sitting across from me. His hands are tied together, and he has a look on his face like I’ve never seen before. Contemplation, devastation. Maybe there’s a bit of both.
“Syler.” I check around trying to find Toska. She can’t be too far, she never is. He would have saved her like he always does.
“She’s asleep,” he says, answering my unasked question. He knew what I was searching for when I looked past him to his door. Sitting up on his bed, he stays where he is on his computer seat watching me.
“Let me leave.” His eyes hold mine and don’t speak a word. “You aren’t going to say anything? You hit me with your car and what? You want to keep me here?”
He mumbles something, but my head is too sore to make sense of it, so I say, “What?”
“I said... she hit you with my car.”
Of course, the bitch did. Of course.
I laugh, because what else is there to really do in this situation.
“So he didn’t end up killing her.”