so despite your better judgement, and despite that voice of reason in the back of your head that tells you you’re just setting yourself up for disaster, you still go.
normally, after drinking as much as you have tonight, you'd opt to walk or you'd take an uber. there are about a thousand reasons right now why you chose not to, though. (but because you’re an adult and despite what a lot of people may think and the large majority of your actions, you don’t actually have have a death wish, you don’t drive, either.) instead, you opt for flying. partially just because you can, but more than that, you do it because there’s something freeing about being able to leap out your window and soar through the sky. it puts distance between you and the rest of the world and you need that as much as you need air. the cold night air rushing past your cheeks is sobering and soon, the dull buzz of alcohol wears off, but that’s okay, because up here, it’s easy to shut out the feelings, to turn it all off and let your mind go blank.
you land in an alley around the corner, as to not draw any unwanted attention to yourself. it might be dark out, but it’s still early enough that people are on the street. there’s a moment when you let your body go slack against the wall and you have to shake your head and remind yourself that you need to tune out all the things your feeling. after nearly a minute, you take a deep breath and push off the wall, pulling the hood of your sweatshirt up as you head into the street.
you keep your head down and walk quickly, just trying to shut out everything and everyone around you. it should be quick, just a right and then a straight shot down the block before another right up the front stoop. but quick and easy are two entirely different things.
the sound of shuffling nearby draws you out of your revery and you glance up to see what the cause of it. a single glimpse of that red hair and pale skin is all it takes for your heart to drop into your stomach and you stop dead in your tracks because this is the last person you wanted to see right now. somewhere, in the back of your head, that little voice of reason pipes up and reminds you that this is where she lives, that she’s not doing anything wrong by unloading her groceries and minding her own business, but you quickly squash the voice and shut it out, because as it is with so many other things, you just don’t care.
there’s a split second where you try to swallow down the feelings, because you know that she hasn’t done anything wrong and almost everything you’re feeling right now is just the direct result of these unwelcome abilities. but all logic is drowned out by raw, unadulterated anger. for the first time ever, you really understand what the term blind rage means. you’ve to push it all away, to forget the things that happened to you, all the things you were forced to do last month when you were trapped in that place, you can’t. and that’s on her. she was the one that held you in that cell, who dosed you time and again, who beat you and stabbed you and forced you to hurt your friends. she’s the reason you’re hobbling right now, why you’re favoring your right leg over your left, because the muscle is still healing. and maybe she wasn’t the only one, but she was the worst of them all.
even now, weeks later, that week still haunts you. everything that happened in there. the torture, the drugs, being forced to hurt people you cared about, all of it. it has you always looking over your shoulder, standofffish of people you used to be friends with and it replays in vivid technicolor almost every time you close your eyes.
you want to yell and scream, hit first and ask questions later, but you’re rooted in the same spot and basically vibrating with anger. so you demand to know what the hell she’s doing there. she tells you this is her home, that it’s you whose imposing and there’s a part of you that knows she’s right, but it’s not cutting it. the sound of her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, more and more grating with every snarky word and your hands ball into fists at your sides.
and before you can stop it from happening, you’re changing. every cell in your body is shifting and rearranging. your natural inclination is to panic, because what’s happening shouldn’t be happening. this isn’t part of you and you can’t control it, no matter how hard you try. whatever is happening doesn’t feel right. your body feels tight, uncomfortable, but you quickly realize that this is largely because it’s not actually your body. not really. it’s you, but you’re her.
panic quickly turns to frustration and from there it’s just a quick shot back to anger and you look down at your hands — her hands — shaking in front of your eyes.
she starts talking, trying to reason with you. maybe if you were in your right mind, you might be more inclined to listen, to care. but her words fall on deaf ears as blows begin to land.
"You'll never come back from it,” she says and your blood boils. ”You'll carry it for the rest of your life and every day will be a battle. You wonder what it would've been like if all of these terrible things had never happened to you and you probably wonder why they did in the first place. You'll never feel like a whole person again. Just broken pieces. And let me tell you something about broken people, no one likes them. No one loves them. They sure as hell can't love either. You're all alone, little girl.”
somewhere in the midst of the cursing and the exchange of words and the flurry of fists and kicks, you lose all control you might’ve had at some point. you have no idea what you’re doing, you can taste blood in your mouth and bile building up in your throat.
the sound of metal crunching under her as she lands on the hood of the shiny audi parked in her drive way is enough to make you flinch and stumble back, snapping back to reality. “i…” you stumble over her name and despite what just happened, you move toward her, carefully. a rush of relief comes over you when you find her pulse. at least you know she’s okay, or she will be. but you? you need to get out of there. now.