5. Peris

“What the fuck are you wearing?”I blurt when I step into the living room, finding Abel clad in the shortest fucking shorts I have ever seen, cozied up on the couch.

His head turns slowly, a cord draped over his chin, his gaze a slow drag away from the T.V. screen. “Shorts,” he deadpans, popping a piece of green candy into his mouth and chewing with his mouth open.

“I can fucking see that,” I snap. Then, I yank on my hair. I thought sweating out all my irritation with Gabe was gonna do the trick, but I should’ve known Abel’s mere presence is more than enough to get the ball rolling again.

He pulls something from his ear. “Then, why did you ask?” he asks, eyes already back on the screen. I can’t even see what’s playing through the haze simmering at the edge of my vision. I round the back of the sofa and snatch up the remote to hit the power button. The only reaction I get out of Abel is a breath that is slightly heavier than normal—not that I would even know the fucking difference.

Jesus Christ, what am I doing?

“Am I not allowed to use the T.V.?” he asks softly, twisting the black cord around his index finger. I watch as his skin loses color, turning white before he unravels it, bringing blood back to the surface.

I shake my head, trying to clear the fog, but now Abel’s in full view. His long, pale, scrawny legs are on full display, marred with bruises.

There’s so many…

An echo. I blink. “What?”

A lock of damp, white hair falls in front of his split eyebrow. “The T.V.” He points to the remote in my hand.

“What about it?”

He lifts that cut brow, forming a near perfect arch. It makes the barbell through his nose lift slightly. “You turned it off,” he says slowly. “Am I supposed to ask for permission? That’s usually the case, but I had a feeling your mom wouldn’t care… Didn’t even think about you, though.”

Didn’t even think?—

My teeth sink into my tongue as I glance down at the remote. I drop it to the sofa, and it rolls toward Abel, drawn near because of the dip in the cushion. My eyes follow its path until it stops against a… I balk as I stare at the bulky, flat disc pressed against Abel’s extended hip.

My eyes catch on the tiny, cracked display screen, watching as a CD spins below the small rectangle in the lid, flashing a bright orange.

“Is that a Discman?” I ask, following the black cord of the earbuds around Abel’s elongated neck. “Where’d you even find one of those?”

He beams at me, two full rows of crooked teeth on full display. A canine, which is more of a snaggletooth, catches on his lip as they stretch wide, mouth lopsided when it twists into something reminiscent of a smile. “Yeah!” he exclaims, all pretenses of neutrality abandoned. “I found it at the thrift store along with a bunch of CDs. Only three bucks. And the CDs were fifty cents apiece, so it really was a steal.”

Abel looks so carefree, I’m momentarily stunned.

His head dips toward the plastic sack on the floor at his feet. “I always—” His smile falls instantly, twisting into something akin to sadness.

My stomach sinks watching his smile bleed out.

Abel picks the Discman up and turns it, causing the CD inside to skip and scrape. His chewed-up thumb presses the off button, then he wraps the black cord around the base before dropping it inside the plastic bag.

After leaning back, face back to his usual crooked guise, he tips a small red bag into his palm and, after picking out the green ones and eating those first, he shoves the rest of the rainbow candies into his mouth. The sound of his chewing echoes loudly in the now-silent room. A slow, pulsing probe.

The muscles in his jaw flutter and bulge under the pressure, his cheeks hollow little dips.

“Always what?” I ask, curling my fingers around the back of the gray, suede couch, eyes pinned to the side of his head. Pin-straight hair hangs around the sides of his face and in front of his eyes, skimming his heavily pierced ears and the large holes in his lobes.

“Nothing,” he says dryly after swallowing and smacking his lips. As if he’s now bored with the conversation.

Something hot and nasty furls in my gut, mutating with his flashes of hot and cold. “That’s what you spent my mom’s money on?”

Abel’s large, crooked nose comes into view as he whirls around, pushing to his feet. His pale face is flushed a bright pink, too-full lips pressed into a tight line.

As he shifts his weight, hands clenching into little fists at his sides, my eyes dart downward, noticing his bare feet. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him without those fucking pink shoes on, and it’s… strange to see that part of him naked.

His toes are long and straight, and the tops of his feet bulge with tendons and veins, which roll beneath the surface as he digs his toes into the carpet.

“Fuck you,” he snaps sharply—defensive. “She said I could buy what I wanted.” His chapped lips quiver, nothing more than a microscopic flutter, but I swallow at the sight of it.

His small body coils with tension, muscles flexing beneath his extra-large t-shirt with a faded band logo. It barely skims the edge of his little pink shorts. I follow the path down his knobby knees, over mottled bruises, to the curved scars beneath blonde leg hair in every shade of pink.

Air whistles heavily through my nostrils as I take a step closer, drawn to his heat. “Yeah. Meaning clothes. Because you don’t fucking have any.” I can’t keep the venom out of my words, the need to strike him back. To prod and poke where it hurts.

The cesspit is filling rapidly, licking at the tips of my fingers.

“Well, I’m certainly wearing new ones, am I not?” he sasses.

My eyes snap to his before dropping of their own volition. “I’m pretty sure she meant appropriate clothes.”

“Oh?” He raises a brow, full lips pursed slightly, budding with amusement. I can’t hold back my sigh as I dig my thumbnail into my left eyebrow.

Here we fucking go.

Look what you’ve gone and stirred up, dumbass.

“You don’t think these are appropriate?” He tugs on the barely visible hem of his shorts. Clearly,he’s not even wearing underwear beneath them. There’s no way they wouldn’t show if he was—that’s how short they are.

Why do I even care? My stomach cramps. I went and did it again. I dove headfirst into his lure.

It just tastes so good.

Abel always gets me where he wants me, leaving me scrambling for purchase—anywhere I can find it—but the only opening he ever leaves is yet another place he shoves me into.

Abel’s knobby fingers curl around the frayed hem of his white shirt. The organ in my chest throbs painfully. Don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it. His muscles contract. The fabric rises. Something comparable to internal sweat licks across my forehead and down my neck, burning a path straight through me.

Nausea eddies, paralyzing me. A sliver of his smooth, pale skin is exposed, just near his right hip. He drags his palm across with an audible scrape of his callouses. His fingers trickle through the air, and then the left side of his shirt inches higher. A line of thick, dark blonde hair is exposed directly in the center of his abdomen. It disappears beneath the elastic waistband of his shorts.

I don’t know why the sight of body hair on him draws a surprised inhale from me. He’s just so… gangly and, well, ugly. But fuck.

He’s so pretty, too.

With one hand, Abel keeps the shirt lifted, scarred fist against his chest. With the other, he drags his palm down his bare stomach, blemished in various shades of injury. Large, dark patches stretch across his torso. Skin inflamed and swollen, blurred with shades of blue and green with a deep, reddish-purple center.

He was hit—and hit hard. I don’t know who or why, but someone wanted him to hurt. I can relate to that.

I nearly swallow my tongue when Abel drags a finger around the border of a particularly nasty bruise, but he never comments on them. Just acknowledges they exist as he says, “I thought you’d like them.” He fingers the cotton. “I got them with you in mind.”

It takes me ten seconds too long to register the fact that he spoke as I get a whiff of my own body wash emitting from his skin. “Got what?” I blurt. “Did you use my soap?”

His eyes raise to meet mine through his lashes, so long they graze the hairs of his brows. “The shorts, of course.” He enunciates his statement by pressing into the pool of broken blood vessels at his hip, sucking in a sharp breath as his finger burrows into the skin. “And I like the smell of yours. I’ve never used such an expensive soap. Apparently, it’s oak and… bergamot? Whatever the fuck that is.”

My lungs contract with every chugging beat of my heart, so strong I feel its thump in my ears. There’s an entire sofa between us, and yet, it feels like there’s nothing at all. Abel’s gunmetal gaze is penetrative. Omniscient and vile. And while I wish the fucking bastard was only that at a surface level, through sheer will and presentation, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Abel Silver invaded my fucking mind, and now, he’s invaded my home, my life. Filling every minute vacancy with his wraith. The deepest, deadest parts of himself have now infected me, and I can feel the slow crawl of his apparition beneath my skin—a hollow, lonely thing filled with life’s worst agonies. A product of his own making, summoned from the pits of hell to take me with him.

I shove away from the couch, blunt nails slicing through the calloused skin at my palms. My feet are heavy as I rush down the hallway, nearly slamming into the wall as I veer left, beelining for my bedroom.

The one fucking room in this house not tainted by him.

I slam the door behind me, but I barely register the vibrating ricochet over the sound of my own breathing. Harsh and labored. Pathetic and weak.

My bleeding palms finds rest over my sternum, both heels pressing deep into my covered muscles as my eyes scrunch shut as tight as possible in an attempt to block it all out. Every fucking moment I’ve had to endure with him. Memories. Smells that won’t vacate. The stinging leer of his gaze.

What he fucking knows… What he’s taking from me.

I can feel Abel inside me, exactly where he’s wanted to be.

“Is Mom coming?” I ask, looking out at the trees surrounding us. We’re at some conservation park a couple of hours away. I didn’t want to come, but I never have a choice.

He shakes his head, dark hair flopping over his forehead as he hammers a stake into the hard, dusty dirt. “It’s just us, buddy. Our little vacation.”

I swallow against the rush of bile. My stomach contorts, and I stumble over into a tree, fingers clutching against the thick, sharp bark like it could actually keep me pinned exactly where I am.

I’d happily stay here until the week is through. I’d even go without food. Probably even water. I think I could make it.

“Get over here and help me, Peris. It’s going to be dark soon.” I glance up at the sky. The clouds overhead are thick and fluffy, the sun shining brightly through the gaps. It would feel warm against my skin if I could feel anything at all.

Lately, all I feel is numb. Like every move I make is two seconds delayed and all washed in a dense, gray fog.

I like the fog. It makes it… bearable.

“Sorry,” I mumble because I know that’s what he wants to hear. I want to ask him so many questions. Why… How… What I did wrong.

But answers won’t get me anywhere. I don’t even think they’d make it hurt any less.

Maybe not knowing is better.

The tent is pitched, and before I know it, darkness has fallen around us. Bugs buzz and hum within the depth of the green trees; wings flap and flutter. Almost like my heart, tepid and panicked.

I follow the noises, ears strained desperately as I stare through the unzipped, screened window to my left.

Moist breath smelling faintly of spearmint wafts across my face. The smell has become one of… odd reckoning.

The scent marks the start.

And his hushed whisper signals the end.

All I have to do is make it through.

He never talks much, which I’ve come to appreciate. It lets me immerse myself in everything else around me. And now, it’s nature.

Bugs buzzing, rodents scurrying, leaves rustling. The hushed whisper of the breeze as it slides over the polyester shelter. Some of it cascades in through the netted screen, and the prick of it in my eyes forces me to squeeze them shut so they don’t water.

In the beginning, I couldn’t shut up. Always begging, asking questions. Pleading.

I quickly learned that it didn’t get me anywhere except deeper in my own pits of despair.

Now, it’s more mechanical. I lie here and wait, finding anything to pass the time inside my own mind. Wishing I could be like the other kids my age, worried about the newest games and how high school is just over a year away.

My vision blanks, neck arching back with a silent scream as he rips me open. I’m not even fully healed since last time, but he doesn’t care.

He’s got me alone, right where he wants me. For the next week.

The thought makes me want to give up. To escape into these woods until I find a ravine I can throw myself over. Feel the solid earth beneath my feet disappear. Nothing below me as I sail through the air, green flashing by so fast I’d blink and miss it.

But I won’t give him the satisfaction. And I refuse to hurt my mom. She just… she doesn’t know.

I don’t realize I’m panting until the sensation of dizziness engulfs me. My palms are slick against my ribs where I keep my arms crossed, pinned.

The more between us, the better.

The scratch of nylon against polyester makes me wince, the sound like nails on a chalkboard in my ear canals, scraping at my eardrums.

My hips cramp and throb, locking into the position he holds me in—pinned to the hard, covered ground. Lumps of dirt and grass press into me, making the ache worse.

I center everything on that—on the sounds of animals, of the elements.

I suck in a forceful breath.

Fucking spearmint.

I gag.

There’s a grunt, followed by a deep groan.

My stomach convulses, the bile sluicing its way up, singeing every muscle.

Just say it. Fucking say it and be done.

Let me be.

I don’t realize I’m sobbing, hyperventilating silently, dryly, until he croons right in my ear, “Shh, buddy. You know Daddy loves you. This is okay. It’s okay. Here.” The weight is gone, but then, I’m being hauled into his arms. Arms I once thought were meant to drive the nightmares away—not dredge me in them.

I wake with a scream in my throat and vomit spewing from between my lips, staining my sweat-slicked body. As the stench wafts into my nose and the liquid seeps into the blankets below, I lie back, bathing in the disgust as my sweat cools against the sheets.

The room is dark apart from the blurred, neon-red glow of the numbers on my alarm clock. I watch as they switch into the next, over and over, until everything’s cold, and I’m shaking.

When I push to my feet, I nearly lose it all over again but manage to stay upright as I shuck my bedding and throw it in the wash before stepping into the shower.

Icy water sluices down my back as my head droops between my knees, neck stretched taut, throbbing under the strain. Water drips across my forehead, trickling across my nose and over my mouth. I draw a little in with every rapid inhale, choking and spluttering, just to do it all over again.

A soft thud resounds through the room, followed by the distinct click of the latch being released. The shuffle of bare feet. A small shadow illuminated. “Peris?” An even softer voice.

And it fucking shatters.

“Get the fuck out,” I say quietly, curling my fingers around my shins. I can’tcan’tcan’t—not now. Not. Now.

“Are you?—”

“GET OUT!” My voice cracks on a scream, leaving my ears ringing. His throat clears, and I coil for confrontation, but then the door clicks shut, and I’m left in a vacancy I should want.

“Fuck,” I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut against the onslaught. “What the fuck is happening to me?”