Apathy by L.K. Reid

Skylar

My head pounded as I walked to my locker. I ignored the curious stares of students in the hallway. I couldn’t remember how I came home on Saturday, but I could remember Ash.

I could remember his worried eyes, his moving lips, and the way he held me as he took me out of that place. But I couldn’t remember his words. I tried and tried to remember, but nothing ever came to me. I still didn’t see him, and I just hoped that whatever I told him the other night wasn’t something that would send him to an early grave.

Those two Oxys I swallowed as soon as I came to the Infernum obviously did a magnificent job, but the scenes I wanted to forget still clung to my skin. Even after scrubbing myself to the point of pain, I could still feel his hands on me. And he wanted me to remember. He wanted me to suffer like this, because every single other time, he would let me slip into the sweet oblivion, while he continued shattering my body, my mind, and my soul.

There was nothing left of my heart already. As Charles Baudelaire said, “The beasts have eaten it,” so he attacked me where he knew I was the most vulnerable.

My mind.

When all of this started, I didn’t realize what he was doing. I didn’t realize that he was trying to tarnish me, because what girl would ever believe that her father would destroy her like that? I sure didn’t.

At first, it was the trips only the two of us took, then soft touches. Then his lips on my skin, and then the punishments when I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to spy for him.

Ever since he became a senator, he couldn’t observe everything that was going on in our little town, and like a madman that he was, my father craved control above everything. He didn’t look at us like people; he looked at us as subjects placed here to do his bidding. You would think that becoming a senator would satisfy his desire for power, but no. I couldn’t talk about the time before he revealed his true face to me, but I could talk about now, and if I knew one thing, it was that my father wouldn’t stop until he held everything in his hands.

Fucking control freak.

God, it felt as if my skull was pressing on my brain, sending small jolts of pain every few seconds. I could blame it on the drugs, on the rain from last night, on the things that have happened in the old Blackwood Manor, but I knew it was the lack of sleep causing this kind of pain.

Our house on Ashword Street was new, but sometimes it felt as if the walls talked, groaning, screaming, whispering at night, and last night, restlessness took over, blocking my attempts to sleep. The rain and thunder roaring through Winworth kept me up, and my mind kept coming up with scenarios of what could happen.

I tried to forget, tried to push it to the back of my mind, but those cryptic messages I started receiving a week ago haunted me. I couldn’t help but go through them again, trying to understand who was behind them. I was a nobody. This person, whoever they were, wasn’t after me because my father was a senator, or because my family had money. No, they wanted me, and they wanted me to know it.

I felt trapped in my own life, and I knew it came long before that first message appeared on my phone. I lived in a prison, but I refused to accept the harsh reality and what was going on around me. It was so much easier pretending, so much easier slipping into the dark oblivion drugs and alcohol could provide, forgetting the pain and terror shivering through my veins.

When I thought about my future, there was never a place for freedom. I knew that the moment I ran away from this place, I would have to keep running, because my father wouldn’t want me to talk. I was useful to him now, but what would happen to me when I became a liability instead of an asset? I would become a walking target with a bullseye right across my chest. Thinking about it sent shivers all over my body.

Would I ever be free?

Even the walls of this school, this place that once served as an escape for me, seemed to close in on me, with their eyes watching me, their poisonous lips whispering about me, about the state I was in. Thinking that the once happy girl must have lost her mind, slipping into the darkness because I was nothing more than a spoiled brat. People loved labels. They labeled me on that first day when I stepped in this school because of my last name.

And I wasn’t my brother. I wasn’t charming. I wasn’t smiling all the time. I wasn’t good with people. Interactions with others my age always felt strenuous, and I knew that the only reason I had more people in my close-knit circle was because we were all messed up in one way or another. Every single one of us had our demons, and we understood each other.

We understood that it was easier hiding from what really bothered us, than facing reality.

I often wondered what life was like for other people our age that didn’t have demons whispering in their ears. I wondered if they smiled because they were truly happy, and what it must have felt to feel free. Did they wake up without the heaviness sitting on their chest, ready to embrace the day, looking forward to everything that life had to give them?

Or maybe I just complained a lot. Almost all our teachers repeated on a daily basis that we were just teenagers who didn’t know how real life could really hurt. But what were we living through if this wasn’t real life? How could it get worse? I knew that maybe one day there would be sun shining in my life, but right now… right now, it felt as if everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

One day, my life was a perfect picture of happiness, and the next, it all shattered down like a house of cards. I cursed that first touch, that first caress that sent my stomach roiling, something clawing at my insides, but I still stood there, stupefied, unable to move to say anything, because the person that was supposed to protect me was the one that hurt me the most.

That searing pain between my legs when he entered me for the first time… I would never be able to forget that. All the bruises, whispers, entrapment, it haunted me daily. Even when I didn’t want to think about this nightmare, it still had a tendency to sneak in when I least expected it. It would hide in the corners of this building, on the wings of the crows soaring through the sky, in the cold cocoon of the wind blasting through Winworth. It would always find me.

I wished I had a metal heart. I wished that there was a way to lobotomize these terrors from my head, so that I wouldn’t have to live with memories I didn’t want to have. Maybe without memories, I would be able to live my life fully once I ran away from here.

Shaking ominous and impossible thoughts from my head, I unlocked my locker, holding my bag in my left hand, as something fell to the floor. A white envelope laid at my feet, daring me to pick it up. I dropped my bag to the floor and crouched down to pick the envelope up. I noticed my name scribbled in neat handwriting. No last name, no address, and no clues as to what it could be, but my name still stood there, the black ink a stark contrast on white paper.

Just like my name on Megan’s body. The involuntary thought raced through my mind, momentarily freezing me. My hands shook, unable to take the envelope from the floor, terrified of what could be inside.

Was it him? Was it the deranged stalker I had? Or was it a plain, harmless letter somebody left for me?

When did I become so jaded that everywhere I went, everything I did, I could only see sinister intentions? When did my mind go so much off the rails that I couldn’t see normal things?

Well, fuck that shit.

I picked up the envelope and straightened up, staring at the six letters of my name, caressing the paper. Just like everything else, my name tarnished even the purest things in this world. This paper, Zane, my friends… Was that why I was so attracted to Ash? Why my body hummed even when I only thought about him? Because he felt like danger. Because he tasted like violence, like the pouring rain in the middle of the summer, ruining those sunny days. Because I knew I couldn’t tarnish him.

Whoever wrote my name almost danced with the pen, letting the ink flow over the paper like blood flew in our veins. It would’ve looked tender if it wasn’t for an indent on the paper from where the ink touched it. I knew that whoever wrote it, didn’t write it out of love.

This wasn’t a love letter, and I didn’t need my fucked-up head telling me that. No, this was something else, and I dreaded opening it. I both wanted to know what was inside and throw it away. But my curiosity won over, and instead of overthinking it like I usually would, I turned it over, ripping the delicate envelope, and pulled out the green-colored, folded paper hidden inside. I placed the envelope in my locker, my eyes locked on the viridian paper in my hands with trepidation coursing through my body.

I was a visual person. I connected memories with smells, sounds, words and places. I memorized people in colors, and I hid them in the lyrics of songs I listened to. I had a song for every person I’ve lost. I had a color for every person that stayed. There were those people like Lauren who reminded me of sunshine and perfect summer days on the lake, like when we were kids, and her parents would take us to Emercroft Lake. She reminded me of chocolate chip ice-cream, of lemonade, and of fresh breeze.

But others… Others like Kane, like Beatrice, Rowan, they reminded me of other things, other colors, and unknowingly, I started assigning songs to them, as if they already weren’t here anymore.

But one person I never expected reminded me of more than just colors. He sneaked in somehow and hid under the surface of my skin. I cloaked him in viridian because he reminded me of Winworth. Dark and moody, quiet and observing, he was now in every song I had on my phone. And I loved that only we knew what happened that night. I loved that no one else saw how he looked when he came undone, when he held me, when his hands bruised my hips, when he looked at me with something more than indifference.

I loved that he tasted like sin and moved with punishing strokes. I loved that his eyes held a promise of violence, because that meant he wouldn’t be destroyed by what I carried in me. I even fucking loved the way he looked at me when nobody else was looking at him—his imposing presence, his domineering words, and the devil-may-care attitude. But most of all, I loved that he made me forget.

He was better than drugs, better than alcohol, better than running away.

My demons were calling his name. They were whispering, urging me to go to him, to take him, recognizing him as ours. Ours to hold, ours to hide, because hiding was the only way for me to have him. He was the forest green, and I was the thunderous skies. We both carried secrets in our pockets, locked from the rest of the world. People like him, people like me, you could see it in our eyes. There was a promise of destruction there, of rebellion, of oblivion, and I loved that somebody else carried it just like I did.

Maybe the war he was brewing was different from mine, but it was still the same hell.

Kids that were never affected by sinister things lurking in the middle of the night had different energy zapping around them. They didn’t know how it felt to be ripped from the inside out, only to be stitched back with all the vital parts missing. And I was glad for that. I was glad that not a lot of us had to carry these sins.

But Ash… Ash had everything I wanted.

His sins danced all over his skin. The perfect, vehement, desolating tango, and I wanted to learn the steps.

I jerked at the sound of a locker nearby snapping closed, pulling myself from the daydream and focusing back on the paper in my hands. Carefully, almost fearfully, I unfolded it, seeing the unfamiliar crest placed as the header. All our families had their own crests, but I had never seen this one.

An upside-down triangle, ending in upturned ends, with two lines crossing from each of the corners and a V at the bottom. The golden lines almost looked pretty, but when my eyes filtered over the page, stopping on the white ink on the dark green paper, my heart started beating, my palms sweating, and I gripped the paper tighter as the words blurred in front of my eyes.

In the beginning there were five, before the first light arrived.

But in between all the lies, only four survived.

Can you hear their screams, they echo in the night?

The damned have gathered, for the Union is about to start.

Do you want to know the secrets of Winworth, Skylar? Do you want to know where it all started?

I took a step back, my knees shaking uncontrollably, while I kept rereading the contents of the letter.

What the fuck?

On the bottom part, attached to the paper, was a black-and-white picture. A picture I had never seen and one I would never forget. Five hooded figures, with their faces hidden behind white masks, stood huddled together, their hands in front of their bodies and what looked like an altar with the same symbol etched into its front side, situated ahead of them.

Terror, fear, damnation, it all oozed from the photo, and as if burned, I dropped it to the floor, my mind racing a thousand miles per hour. The urge to run rocked my body, and I took a step back, then another one, putting some distance between me and the terrifying picture lying on the floor. But even if I ran to the other side of the world, their soulless eyes would still haunt me.

Pitch-black, sinister, evil, so fucking evil, but I couldn’t leave it on the floor.

No matter how much I wanted to disappear, to pretend that some things didn’t happen, I had to face reality. I had questions.

So many fucking questions I felt like my head was about to explode. But most of all, I was getting angry. Furious at the psychopath stalking me and my friends, furious at this letter, furious at this sick picture lying at my feet. Furious at life and this place I called home. Lauren told me I was too apathetic for my own good, but what I felt right now was on a completely opposite side of apathy.

Anger.

Red, hot, simmering anger whispered through my veins, writing poems of darkness and fury on my skin. It hugged me, welcoming me into its embrace, and for the first time since this endless powerlessness, I felt strong. I felt formidable, ready to end this vicious circle in my life.

Screw them for fucking my life up.

Screw them for not loving me enough.

Screw them for looking at me with their judging eyes.

Screw them for the unspoken words whispered only behind my back.

Screw them for everything because I wasn’t having it anymore.

I crouched down and picked up the picture, staring at it as if it would help me to figure out who these people were. And maybe I couldn’t, not by looking at it, but this letter, this was the key. This emblem, these words… whoever wrote this wanted me to know more. Winworth had more secrets than any other place in the United States and I planned on unraveling at least one of them.

I pretended to be blind when things went wrong, because it was easier feigning disinterest than dealing with monstrosities surrounding us. First Zane, then Megan, and who was next? Who would die because I didn’t want to deal? Which girl was going to be found on the side of the road, or in the forest, or underneath that bridge separating the two sides of Winworth with my name carved on her skin?

One part of me wanted to slam my locker shut, turn around, and leave the school just so I could get high. Just so I could forget. But there was another part of me, an angry part, that wanted to make them suffer. I didn’t just want to disappear anymore, no.

I wanted to make them pay.

My father.

My mother.

Their friends who stood by while they tortured my body and my mind.

They were guilty, all of them. While I destroyed myself, day by day, piece by piece, they stood idly on the side, allowing them to do this to me. And whoever this person was, messaging me, doing this shit to other girls, they had to pay as well.

I just didn’t know how, at least not yet.

Slamming my locker shut, I put the picture in the front pocket of my pants and turned the green paper to the other side, my eyes widening at the text scribbled there.

Winworth Public Library—start there. Answers will come to you.

Un-fucking-believable.

“Look who it is, guys,” an annoying voice echoed behind me, and I gripped the paper tighter in my hand, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to deal with her today. Actually, I didn’t want to see her this year, but fucking karma, destiny, and all the other things I couldn’t control had a different plan.

I turned around, coming face-to-face with Lilly Balland, the resident bitch of Winworth High. A self-proclaimed queen bee, social media influencer even though I didn’t think that she actually knew what that was, and the biggest pain in my ass. Her dark brown hair was pulled in a high ponytail, and the nails I felt on my face once before, were colored red, tapping against her upper arm.

A year ago, when things looked a little bit brighter, while Zane was still alive and our lives didn’t seem like a clusterfuck, Lilly hung out with us, pretending to be Kane’s girlfriend. Unfortunately for her, Kane didn’t have girlfriends. He had fuck buddies, girls that would throw themselves at him just because he was the captain of our football team and a St. Clare. For a moment, I felt bad for her.

It sucked liking somebody so much that you would stoop so low to do anything they wanted, while they never gave a fuck. I was there when Kane made her suck his dick in the living room of his home while all of us watched. I was there when she got so drunk that she didn’t know it was Zane she started clinging to, while Kane had his tongue down another girl’s throat. I was there when he told her to get lost, after the rumors of the two of them being a couple started surfacing and he found out she was the one spreading them.

And I was there when she posted that nasty video of all of us drunk and high, snorting coke from the glass table in Danny’s bedroom.

The favorite sons and daughters of Winworth, she named it. That night, my father busted my lip for snorting coke he didn’t provide. That night, he made me swallow ibuprofen like it was chocolate, allowing only a bottle of vodka with it.

The video was taken down, but my scars lasted longer than one day. And when Zane died, she connected the dots and realized that Kane would never be hers because he started fixating on me. That was when her claws quite literally came out to play, when she attacked me in front of the school, rewarding me with three slashes across my cheek because I couldn’t be bothered to defend myself.

But today… Today wasn’t the same day. Today, I was too angry to give a fuck about her broken heart and whatever fantasy she concocted in her head. Today, I wanted to see blood, and if it was hers, I wouldn’t mind.

“What do you want, Lilly?” I asked and picked up my bag, putting it on my shoulder.

The three girls always following her around like lost puppies looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here, but we all knew what rumors could do to people. Even if they wanted nothing to do with whatever this was, they had no choice. Lilly probably knew more about them than they wanted her to, and that fucking sucked.

Your friends weren’t supposed to be the ones you should be careful around. Your friends were your people, your tribe, and if you couldn’t trust them… Well, that wasn’t friendship then.

“I heard a rumor.” She chuckled, and I immediately wanted to drown out the annoying sound. People started gathering around, because we all knew that whenever she and I ended up in the same place, it couldn’t end well.

I lifted an eyebrow and smiled at her. “Are you sure you weren’t the one that started spreading it?”

Her face paled and she dropped her hands, taking a step closer to me. Looks were everything to her but looks could be deceiving. I knew that underneath this mask she wore, laid a scared little girl who wanted to fit in with the founding families. I knew her parents worked at City Hall, and that no matter how much she tried, she could never turn people to love her. She thought the video would ruin us, that it would show people who we really were, but even fucked up, high, and drunk, we were still more loved than she ever was.

“Megan.” She said her name as a threat, and I knew. I just fucking knew. Her lips pulled into a smile, and without warning, my heart started beating faster. We managed to keep the fact that Megan had my name on her body a secret. No one knew, not even our friends.

Only the police officers, Lauren, Dylan, and whoever else usually gets involved with murder investigations knew about that shit. And now she did too.

“I know, Skylar,” she taunted, her eyes sparkling with viciousness. “I know what they found in the woods.”

“You mean what I found?” I spat out, taking a step closer to her. Bright, defiant, brown eyes stared up at me, and she took a step backward, her resolution visibly wavering on her face. “Don’t fuck with me today, Lilly.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’m going to break that pretty little nose of yours.” I grinned. “And I know that Mommy and Daddy don’t exactly have money for another plastic surgery.”

The crowd around us gasped, shocked, because I never did this. I never fought back because what was the use? I realized a long time ago that no matter how hard you fought, or how much what people threw your way wasn’t correct, masses would still believe lies over the truth, because they loved reveling in someone else’s misery, rather than thinking about their own.

“You are such a—”

“Bitch?” I finished for her, enjoying the red spreading over her face. “You’re not very creative today, are you? Usually you call me a whore because I fucked Kane.” Another gasp, and the murmurs became louder. “You couldn’t get more than a couple of minutes on your knees, because even your mouth wasn’t appealing to him.”

The three girls standing behind her took a step back and looked at each other, and I knew that whatever story she told them didn’t have the information I had. And while I usually hated confrontation, hated raised voices and unnecessary drama, I was done with people walking all over me. Maybe it was because of the letter I still held in my hand, or maybe things just kept piling up, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I folded the letter in half and pushed it into the pocket of my jeans. “Just leave me alone, Lilly. This thing you’ve been doing is completely pointless.”

I turned around and started walking toward the crowd, thinking she had enough, but I was wrong. Oh, I was so fucking wrong.

“At least my name wasn’t carved in Megan’s body, Skylar.” She laughed, freezing me in place. “Maybe she got high with you guys, and you decided to cut her up and leave one final mark of the great Blackwood legacy.”

Megan’s lifeless eyes flashed in front of mine. The memory of her from last year was next—her smiling face, her blue eyes, hair the same color as mine. The memory of the tear-stained faces of students when I came to school the next day. The whispers in the wind, and the sight of my name on her skin. Her blood on my hands, underneath my nails, and I started rubbing my hands against my pants as if it was still there.

Red, red, red, dark crimson, and it was everywhere—in the periphery of my vision, in my dreams, on my body, on every surface I touched. I couldn’t wash it away. I couldn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t do anything about it. Everything started rushing to the surface.

The fists slamming into me from side to side as my father released his anger on me.

The dismissive tone my mother used every time I talked to her.

Zane dying.

Finding Megan.

A psychopath messaging me.

It all came together like an avalanche, and I let it go. I released it with a roar as I turned around and rushed after her. Lilly’s shocked face was the last thing I saw before I slammed her into the lockers on the other side, holding her by the throat.

“You are a piece of shit, Lilly!” I yelled. “An empty, useless, piece of shit, and if you disappeared, no one would care.”

“L-Let me go,” she choked out, but I tightened my grip.

“Yes, my name was on her body, and yes, I found her. If I could, I would swap our places in a blink of an eye, but I can’t. And then you…” I laughed. “You come in here, running your fucking mouth, just like you usually do, wearing that chip on your shoulder. Look around you, Lilly.” I stopped. “Is anybody coming to help you, huh? Where are your so-called friends? Where are your people?” It was my time to laugh. “You’re completely alone because you’re a shitty human being. I’m not perfect, never claimed to be, but at least I’m not trying to ruin other people’s lives because I’m not happy with my own.”

“Skylar!” That fucking voice. It felt like fire over my skin, igniting the blood in me, and I pressed against her again. “Fuck!”

In the next moment, instead of the flowery perfume Lilly wore, the scent of pine and cigarettes enveloped me. He lightly gripped the back of my neck, sending rivulets of pleasure through my body.

“Moonshine,” he whispered close to my ear. “Let go of her.”

But I didn’t want to let go. Didn’t he get it? So many people did bad things, and they never faced any consequences. Lilly was just another bully who always got away with everything she did, and somebody had to stop her.

“But that somebody doesn’t have to be you,” he murmured, and I realized that I spoke those words aloud. “This isn’t you, Moonshine.”

“Maybe it is,” I gritted out. “You don’t know me well enough to know what kind of a person I am.”

“Maybe,” he agreed and pressed his lips to my temple. “But I know what I saw, and this isn’t you.”

But wasn’t it? Wasn’t I a creation of my parents? Neither one of them were good people. Maybe the same sickness in them was going to catch up with me as well, and one day I would be unrecognizable to people. I would be somebody they used to know. Somebody who could’ve been good but chose not to be.

“Oh God.” I inhaled sharply, seeing the blue on Lilly’s lips. I didn’t know what terrified me more—the fact that she could pass out if I didn’t let go, or the fact that my body hummed with satisfaction at the mere thought of her being hurt.

With heavy steps, I moved away from her, held by Ash who didn’t move an inch away from me. My hands shook as adrenaline slowly dissipated from my body. As Lilly’s friends crowded around her on the floor while she coughed, tears streaming down her face, I realized what I could’ve done if it wasn’t for Ash.

I wouldn’t have stopped and none of these people gathered around us would’ve intervened. And no matter what, I would’ve hated myself if I hurt her, because that wasn’t me. I didn’t go around fighting with people, but today was a fucked-up day. No, this entire year was fucked up, but today took the cake.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ash muttered, leading me through the throng of students blocking the hallway. “You’re going to be okay.”

Was I? Was I really going to be okay?