Apathy by L.K. Reid

Skylar

“Where are we going?” I asked Ash as we drove over the old bridge leading into the East Side of Winworth, where I’ve been to only once as a kid. Regardless of the way he behaved and the vibes I kept getting from him, for the first time in a very long time, I felt safe. For some unknown reason, I felt like I could trust him.

I wanted to laugh because I sounded like every single one of those girls in the books where they trusted the wrong guy. But weren’t we all wrong in one way or another? It was so easy plastering labels to people, calling them villains, when we didn’t know the whole story. Besides, there was one sentence that haunted me to this day, and the older I got, the more I could see myself in it.

“We are all villains in someone else’s story.”

And we were. Even the best of us could end up with that label, just because they somehow hurt somebody, even if they didn’t want to. I guess that in a way, Ash was my villain and maybe I was his, but neither one of us were just black or white.

People in general weren’t black and white. If we labeled ourselves in only those two colors, none of us would be able to stay within the confinements and our role in society would automatically be changed. People, for me, were always more gray than simply black or white.

You know the type of gray, like the sky during the summer, just before the lighting cracks through the clouds, illuminating the entire dome. The kind of gray you could see early in the morning in Winworth, only slightly broken by the rare sight of white clouds or pale blue skies. Heroes and villains, it was such a silly concept, because neither one of these sides was always good or always bad.

Heroes made mistakes. Terrible mistakes that got people killed, that pushed their loved ones away from them. Mistakes that kept them awake at night, choking them, rendering them speechless.

And villains… Villains were people who couldn’t fit into the hero’s suit. The people who made too many mistakes that those good deeds get forgotten. And how were the villains made? I always asked myself that question. Maybe some people were born evil, and the first time they tasted the sweet scent of fear, destruction, and blood, they became addicted, revealing who they were meant to be. Or maybe their life made them the way they are right now. Maybe they were good people who didn’t have any other choice but to become something darker, something vile, because our society didn’t want them how they were before.

If I was being honest, our society could fuck itself. We praised fake, white men, sitting in their pretty little chairs, issuing laws that only benefited themselves, while small people suffered. There were people all around the world whose skin wasn’t porcelain white, and instead of putting all of us in the same basket, regardless of the color of our skin, our nationality, or our religion, our society somehow decided that they weren’t worthy.

And who the fuck had the right to make those kind of decisions? How could we say that a mother and a father running from the war zone, trying to save their children, seeking shelter, were villains? Why? Because they were different? Because their youngest daughter didn’t bear a Western name, or didn’t have blonde hair? They were villains because they wanted a job, a new place, a better life, while men like my father sat in their comfy office chairs, getting richer and richer, stealing from the people that needed help.

True evil often hid behind the clothes made for heroes, and our society blindly followed them, believing in lies rolling off their tongues. So, no, I didn’t believe in black and white, because I’ve met people who were supposed to be villains, and they were anything but. I’ve also met people who were supposed to be heroes, and they were the diseases destroying our world.

I sneaked a glance at Ash, wondering what he was thinking about. He hadn’t uttered another word after he ushered me from the school, and I knew he was pissed. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. Since that first day, I realized I studied him more often than not, and the tick that kept reappearing in his cheek told me everything I needed to know.

“Are you not going to talk to me?” I tried again. I had no idea what had him so worked up, and when he remained silent even after we passed all the houses, driving up into the mountain, I knew all my efforts would be futile. He didn’t want to talk? Fine. He could keep with the whole broody bullshit because today wasn’t the day where I would even attempt to figure him out.

His dark hair fell over his forehead, and my hands itched from needing to touch him, to drag my finger over his cheekbones, to make him look at me. He called me Moonshine in school and it wasn’t the first time he uttered that word. So what was happening now? I knew I didn’t do anything to piss him off. In the grand scheme of things, Ash and I were nothing to each other. He was just a guy I fucked once and apparently a guy I couldn’t stop thinking about.

I wanted to dive inside his mind just to try and get something from him. Usually, I was the quiet one. The one that observed everybody else. Lauren called it my “creepy people watching”, but I found out that you could learn a lot about people by just observing them. By keeping quiet. By watching their body language, their smiles, the way they lifted their eyebrows, how the set of their mouths tightened when someone came to them, when someone they didn’t like talked to them, and I didn’t do it because I wanted to gather information I could use at a later stage.

I loved doing it because in a way, it was easier thinking about whatever was bothering other people than what was bothering me. In reality, it was just another form of me running away. But I didn’t want to run anymore.

Yes, I still wanted to get the fuck away from this cursed town, but I didn’t want to run from things keeping me up at night. I knew that there was going to be a point in my life when I couldn’t run anymore.

For one flickering moment, I wanted to run away from Ash as well. When he stepped away from me, when he pulled on his pants in that tent, I wanted to run away because for some inexplicable reason, I felt as if he could see me. Not Skylar Blackwood, a daughter that could have everything just because my parents had money. No. I thought he could see the real me.

The terrified me.

The me that only one other person saw when I allowed him to.

But he obviously didn’t want me to see him, and it felt as if somebody sucker-punched me, leaving a gaping hole inside my chest. He came when I called. He saved me from myself today, but all the other days, he pretended as if I didn’t exist. Or, well, he tried.

I still caught him glancing my way when he thought nobody else was looking, and I couldn’t decipher the emotions dancing on his face. Sometimes, I felt like he hated me, like he wanted to rip me apart, and other times, it felt as if he wanted to take me away, save me, hide me and cherish me until the end of the world.

He was a walking contradiction.

The silence in the car was suffocating, only broken by the buzzing of the motor and our breathing, as if both of us were just waiting to explode. I leaned down and turned the radio on, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from him when I came closer. What would he do if I just placed my hand on his knee? Would he push me away or would he let me soothe whatever was troubling him?

But I didn’t do it. Not because I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t handle a rejection from him today. On any other day, I would have a better grip on my emotions, on my mind, but turbulence after turbulence and his rejection would be the thing snapping me in half.

A song came on, one I didn’t know, filling the car, caressing my skin as the singer sang. Finally focusing on the lyrics, I almost laughed out loud at how suitable this song was for this entire situation.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on Shazam, because the song was too good to pass.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed, staring at my screen. The car came to a screeching halt, and before I could stop my body from flying through the fucking windshield, a strong hand pressed against my chest, keeping me plastered to my seat.

My hair fell around my face, my heart beating a thousand miles per hour, while the sorrowful voice of the singer filled the car, singing about enemies with benefits. I gripped my phone tightly before turning to him, anger coiling all over my skin.

“What the fuck, Ash?” I yelled, unable to stop myself. “You couldn’t have, I don’t know, stopped slowly?”

“Are you okay?” he asked instead, completely ignoring my question.

Un-fucking-believable.

Unbelievable.

I searched his eyes for a moment—a moment too long—but I couldn’t get a read on him. I couldn’t see anything on his face. No emotions, no panic, nothing. Absolute emptiness.

“You know what?” I threw my phone in my bag and started opening the door. “Fuck this shit!”

“Skylar!” he yelled after me, but his voice got muffled as I slammed the door of his car and started walking down the gravelly road, taking in the surroundings around me. He drove us all the way up to the mountain where caves were located, infuriating me even more.

Did he really think that I wanted to be in the forest after what happened to Megan?

Motherfucking, stupid, idiotic—

“Skylar!” His voice echoed around us, but I just increased my pace, trying to avoid muddy puddles. “Where the fuck are you going?” He finally caught up with me, taking a hold of my arm and spinning me around.

“Oh, so now you’re ready to talk?” I seethed and pulled my arm from his grip. “I’m going home where I won’t have to deal with you.”

I turned around and managed to take one step, before his arms came around my waist, lifting me up from the ground. I screamed and started thrashing but the idiot wouldn’t budge. He started carrying me back, passing the car and heading into the deep forest.

“Let go of me!” I pinched his arm, earning just a painful grunt, but he didn’t let go. “Ash!”

“No!” he bellowed.

“Excuse me?” Who did he think he was?

“I’m so fucking angry at you. So, so angry, Moonshine.” Oh no, he didn’t.

“Well, the feeling is entirely mutual, buddy, but the difference is that I have a reason to be angry at you, while you abso-fucking-lutely don’t.”

Mr. Broody, as I named him on that first day, just kept walking through the trees, carrying me as if I weighed nothing. My thrashing went unnoticed, so I stopped trying. No matter what I tried, I knew he would be able to catch up with me. Besides, I didn’t want to get lost in these woods. I knew the area down at the riverbank, but this side… This side was completely unfamiliar to me, and seeing the dark skies enveloping Winworth, I was pretty sure we were going to get some rain today.

And trust me, there were worse ways of dying than getting slashed by some deranged maniac.

“Ash,” I tried again after a couple of minutes. “This is getting ridiculous.” Nothing. Not one single word.

He started slowing down, stopping right in front of a large tree stump situated between the tall pine trees casting shadows on the area. The air smelled like rain, both humid and cold, while wind danced across my skin, bringing the scent of pine and mud, intertwining it in what I called the scent of Winworth.

My feet hit the ground when Ash finally let go of me and took a couple of steps away. The adrenaline fueled with the anger I felt earlier started dissipating, leaving behind the sore muscles and disbelief at what I almost did in school. I could’ve harmed her. I could’ve done something I wouldn’t have been able to come back from, and if it wasn’t for Ash, I would’ve. I could feel his eyes on my neck. I could almost feel his hands on my body, and I knew that once with him would never be enough.

Whatever this pull was, I wanted to feel it, to bask and bathe in it, to feel it on my lips, to taste it on my tongue. I wanted to go crazy with him, to scream his name, to cry out, to forget. Just to fucking forget.

“What is this place?” I mumbled as I placed my hand on top of the tree stump, feeling the rough surface beneath my fingers. I traced my finger along one of the circles on the stump, and I felt him standing right behind me. I didn’t hear when he approached, moving like a cat, without a sound, but I felt him.

Just how I felt his hands as they circled around my waist, pulling me up into his chest. My entire body trembled from anticipation, waiting to see his next step. Waiting to see if that night in the tent was only a one-time thing or if he actually felt what I felt—crazy desire, need, molten lava in my veins when he was around.

He was in my bloodstream, in my head, and at that moment, I didn’t care if he was just another distraction or something that was meant to be mine.

He inhaled sharply, burying his nose in the crook of my neck. I should’ve felt scared, unsafe, standing here with a person I met just a few weeks ago, but I didn’t. I felt safe, protected, and no matter how much his body radiated with anger, his eyes betrayed him. His dark, dark eyes, following my every move, reading me like an open book. They told me everything I needed to know.

He wanted this as much as I did.

“What are you doing to me?” he murmured almost painfully, as if speaking those words cost him more than he cared to admit. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Like what?” I asked, afraid my voice was going to sound shaky and weak. And it did. It trembled just like the rest of me, but I couldn’t give a fuck about pretenses right now. I wanted him to see me, the real me.

“All-consuming,” he answered. “Crazy.” He paused and took another inhale. “You make me feel fucking crazy and I don’t know why.”

“Ash—”

“I think about you all the time, Moonshine. You consume my days. You consume my dreams, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to exorcise you from my veins.”

Holy shit.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he whispered, like he didn’t want me to hear him. “You weren’t supposed to be like this.”

What? “Ash, what are you—”

But I couldn’t finish my question because in the next second, he turned me around, and like a man starved, pressed his lips against mine, inhaling me, savoring me, licking against the seam of my bottom lip, urging me to open up for him.

I opened my eyes, coming face-to-face with the storm brewing in his. I wondered if sailors felt like I did when faced with the storm on the sea. Terrified but calm. Accepting the fate rolled out for them. I knew that he was going to be my ruin. And for better or for worse, I didn’t give a fuck if he destroyed the last sane piece of my mind, as long as he kept all the other monsters at bay.

He calmed the demons in my head. This stranger, this storm threatening to destroy me, and I wanted more, so much more.

His hand snaked to the nape of my neck, threading his fingers through my hair, pulling my head back for easier access. Warm lips descended on my neck, trailing kisses toward my collarbone, then back to my waiting lips. A moan escaped from me, involuntarily, ripped from my chest, and the second one followed when he lifted me up, placing me on the tree stump.

I opened my legs, welcoming him in, and wrapped them around his hips, locking him in with me.

“You’re going to be the end of me,” he growled as he looked into my eyes. “And I won’t be able to stop you.”

“I-I,” I stuttered. “Please,” I begged. I didn’t know for what. Release, salvation, oblivion, I begged for everything because I knew he could do it. He could give me everything I wanted, everything I needed.

He made me feel alive when I thought I was already dead. He made me feel like I could survive this year if I had him by my side. There was a war brewing in him, and whether it was selfish or not, I didn’t want to know. Not now, because I feared that whatever it was would push him further away from me.

And I needed him.

I needed him to help me get through this mess. I just hoped I would be strong enough to let him go when the time came, because even though I was allowing myself this, I knew I couldn’t keep him. I couldn’t drag him into my world, and he could never know about the monstrosities hiding in the darkest corners of Winworth.

“You’re driving me crazy, Moonshine.” He bit on my collarbone. “And I’m so fucking angry at you right now. God.” He dropped his forehead to my shoulder. “I want to spank you and hug you at the same time.”

I voted for the second option, but…

“Why are you angry at me?” I asked before I pressed a kiss to his ear. “I mean, people are angry at me for one reason or another, but I can’t remember doing anything to piss you off.”

“She would have hurt you,” he mumbled before lifting his head. He squeezed my neck, and I could feel the battle in every part of his body. “That girl in the hallway,” he continued. “You were alone there, and she would have hurt you.”

“I’m pretty sure that I was hurting her, and not the other way around.” I grinned, loving that he was actually worried about me. I couldn’t remember what happened the night before in the amusement park, and I feared I did something that would push him further away.

“Still, I didn’t like it.” He brushed his thumb across my cheek, burning the trail on my skin. “I don’t like you being in danger.”

“I wasn’t in danger,” I murmured. “She already attacked me once before, and this time I knew what to expect.”

“She attacked you before?” Was his eye twitching? “When?”

“Relax.” I smiled. “It was at the end of the last school year. There were certain… things, and well, she didn’t handle it as well as she should’ve.”

It felt like an eternity before he spoke again, and I couldn’t read his face. He just kept staring at me. When the dam broke, he was suddenly everywhere. His hands were lifting my shirt, leaving me only in the black bra I put on this morning.

I wanted to touch him everywhere, burn my claim on his skin like he was burning his on mine. All the other ones before him faded away. My sick father, Kane, Zane, he pushed them all away from me.

“You’re mine, Skylar,” he growled after he claimed my lips again. “Do you understand that?” He held me in an ironclad grip, blocking my movements.

“Y-Yes,” I croaked out. “I’m all yours.”

Something flashed across his face—something feral, vicious, dangerous, something like sin—before he dove and bit on my lower lip. His other hand snaked beneath my pants, playing with the edge of my panties. I spread my legs further, urging him to come closer, to show me how much he wanted me.

To show me that I wasn’t alone in this insanity. That the need coursing through me wasn’t one-sided.

“I’m gonna make you scream, Sky.” He grinned. “So fucking loud that the entire town is gonna hear you when you call out my name.”

“Please,” I moaned.

I placed my hands beneath his shirt, feeling the hard muscles on his stomach and the happy trail leading to his pants. He pulled his hand out of my pants and started fumbling with the button, his breathing labored, the dark hair falling over his forehead. I never wanted anyone as much as I wanted him at this moment.

The sound of the zipper being pulled down seemed louder than it usually was. I wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the fact that he was about to fuck me in the middle of the forest where anyone could stumble, but my heart thumped against my ribs like crazy, sending me into a high I have never felt before.

He was my new favorite drug. My new favorite tool to forget.

I lifted my butt to help him take my pants down, and I could see the evidence of his own arousal, straining against his pants. With every brush of his hands against my skin, I was getting higher and higher, and I knew I was going to tumble down like Icarus when he was falling to the ground.

“What’s this?” Ash’s voice tore me back to reality, and when I opened my eyes, I saw him holding a piece of green paper.

A piece of green paper that was completely unfolded, with his eyes going over the words written on it.

Shit.

“Give it back, Ash.” I jumped from the stump and started pulling my pants up, hating the way his eyebrows scrunched together at the words written on it. I took a step closer to him, as he took another one backward, finally giving me his eyes.

All the warmth from before was replaced by what could only be fear.

“Where did you get this?”

“None of your business.” I stepped forward and snatched the paper away from him. The lust I felt just a minute ago started dissipating at the mere sight of his face now. He wasn’t here anymore. No, he was a thousand miles away, and whatever it was, I had a feeling he wouldn’t want to share it with me.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked carefully, folding the paper again and placing it in the pocket of my pants. “Ash?” I urged again when he didn’t answer.

As if waking up, he shook his head before he looked back at me. “No. I’ve no idea.” His lips were pulled into a thin line, and a teeny-tiny voice inside my head told me that he knew more than he was sharing.

“Ash, if you—”

A familiar ringtone started blaring, echoing around the forest, and I almost jumped at the suddenness of it. I turned around and walked to my bag when it wouldn’t stop even though I wanted to ignore it.

I wanted him to talk to me, to tell me more than just the surface-level bullshit he was willing to share so far.

Lauren’s name glared at me from my phone, and with a huff I clicked the green button, and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Lauren, now’s not the—”

“Oh my God, Sky,” she sobbed, and the alarm went off in my head.

“Lauren?” I sat down on the tree stump and buttoned my pants. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Oh God,” she sobbed again, freezing the blood in my veins. “I thought it was you.”

“What was me, Lauren?”

Ash slowly approached me and picked up the shirt that was haphazardly laying on the ground, extending it to me. He was observing me, just how I was observing him before, but I couldn’t think about him right now.

“They found another body, Sky,” she whispered. “They found another girl at the riverbank.”

And just like that, I knew. I knew she was going to have the same markings as Megan.

“I just spoke with my dad, and he asked about you. She, uh…” Lauren cleared her throat. “She has your name carved into her skin as well.”

All the warm and fuzzy feelings from earlier disappeared, replaced by sheer terror and knowledge that this girl was connected to the psychopath stalking me and messaging me. My blood ran cold and my hands started shaking. Disconnecting the call, I turned to Ash and uttered the words I didn’t really mean.

“We need to go back.”