♥ drollicpixie wrote Ashes to Ashes 1/2 for venomwithlove
Title:
Ashes to Ashes 1/2
Author: drollicpixie
Pairing: Zoe/Kyle
Summary: She’s falling. Her heart is sick. Her bones are dust. The yawning maw of the pit waits below. His arms are raised up to catch her. Coven AU.
Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: Rated (Strong) M. This story has elements of self-harm, dub-con, violence, and violent thoughts towards women.
Author Notes: As my prompt mentioned both Violet/Tate and Zoe/Kyle, I thought I would take some elements of the Murder House pair and superimpose them onto the Coven pair.
Original Characters: Leonard Parris is played by David Tennant, Nicola by Lucy Hale.
Ashes to Ashes
7 years earlier
Kyle Spencer was so cute. His shaggy dark blond hair falling in his face as he goofed around with the boys seated in front of them. He had never paid her any special attention, nothing out of the ordinary: complaining how lame gym was, talking, laughing with a group of people at her locker, passing her a note from Leah who sat on the other side of him in French. But she was hyperaware of him. His every move, smile, word, catalogued and stored in her memory banks, her heart.
She was standing in the theater, still bright and noisy, crowded with people, as they waited for the previews, the end of the revolving ads and trivia. Their section was largely empty as no one else had the desire to join a bunch of seventh graders. Most people were down a level, closer to the screen, or up in the balcony. Leah had just rushed off to the bathroom, tears streaming down her face, as Steve Randall watched. He had ended their two week relationship. In front of everyone. And Zoe was considering running after her friend but Leah was a real bitch when she wanted to be alone.
She was probably smoking, hidden in some corner stall, blubbering and blowing her nose into toilet paper. If Zoe got caught smelling like cigarettes when she went home there would be hell to pay. She would be grounded for a week, a month! So she was stuck teetering on the edge of movement, torn between her sense of loyalty and her sense of self-preservation.
"Hey, Zoe," her eyes shot up right into the dark, friendly gaze of Kyle, and her breath caught.
"Oh, hi," she returned, palms already sweating. Was it hot in the theater all of a sudden?
"Where'd Leah go?" Oh, of course, she sighed. Kyle liked Leah. All the guys did. Leah's mom let her wear pink lipstick and black eyeliner. And Leah had tits. While Zoe was only allowed cherry chapstick and was still woefully undeveloped: training bra, boyish body, long skinny limbs and feet she was always tripping over.
Tucking a strand of her waist-length straight hair behind her ear she wet her gloss-less lips and stared up at him. He stood almost six inches taller than her. Not that it was hard, Zoe was one of the smallest in their class. "She had to," she glanced at the door.
Kyle smiled and her heart thumped against her chest. "I thought you all did that together?" She shrugged, flushing, she could not talk to Kyle Spencer about the bathroom!
"Well, I better keep you company 'til she comes back." His mouth spread impossibly wider as he climbed over the back of his seat and crashed into her row. The boy beside him, Jeremy, rolled his eyes, shoved Kyle's leg when it nearly collided with his face. "Come on," he patted the seat next to him, lifted the armrest so that it was one large space, and she dropped down hesitantly, inching back slowly, watching him the entire time.
They talked about school, the movie they were seeing, Steve dumping Leah. He was two rows down chatting up a girl from the catholic school and Zoe shook her head. Boys could be so cute, but they were the worst.
And before she could think much about it: how fun Kyle was, how easy he was to talk to, how adorable the freckle on the end of his nose was, he was kissing her. It was sudden, out of the blue, and took her by complete stuttering surprise.
Zoe had never been kissed before. Not by a boy. Kissing Leah at a sleepover didn't count. And it was a dare anyway.
Her eyes were open in shock though his were closed. Kyle's mouth tasted like buttered popcorn. After a moment he pulled back, gazing at her shyly. When her tongue poked out to wet her lips he grinned and did it again.
That time she let her lids flutter downward, let him guide her, opening to him, her tongue tentatively touching the inside of his mouth as Leah had shown her. Kyle's fingers were on her waist, grip loose, as her hands pressed down into the seat cushion between, unsure if she should move them to his neck, his hair. She had always wanted to touch his hair, see if it was as soft as she imagined.
With a whoosh of air and a slight sizzling sound behind them, the two were wrenched apart. "Zoe Benson!" A man's voice rang out with scandalized disappointment.
Her wide eyes shot first to Kyle, utterly embarrassed, then behind her, startled, contrite, nervous.
"Grandpa Leonard?" she breathed. And there he stood, black fedora, black suit, red carnation pinned to his jacket, just as he always looked.
It had been awhile since Zoe had seen her grandfather. He was dead. At least he was in her timeline.
Leonard Parris was a warlock of the highest class, a former council member, and he could travel through time and space with the blink of an eye and a snap of his fingers.
"What on earth?" he demanded, hauling Kyle up by his shoulder, his upper arm. The boy stared down at her terrified. "Does your mother know you're here," her grandfather paused, gaze narrowing meaningfully, "with this," he studied Kyle, taking in his sweatshirt and jeans, his red chuck taylors, and sighed, "young man?"
"Um," Zoe tried, biting her lip, "she knows I'm at the movies..."
"I see."
"She didn't come with me," Kyle coughed, "sir. We just know each other from school."
The older man peered at the boy before him as he would some interesting and before unseen species; something to be understood but still possibly feared, as it was unknown to him.
Finally, having had enough embarrassment for a lifetime and seeing Leah coming back through the door, Zoe huffed, "Grandpa, let him go!"
For someone's grandfather, Leonard looked remarkably young and fit, which he probably was, appearing to be no more than forty in his own timeline. But he knew his family: the kids, the grandkids, hell, even a couple of great grandkids, and he liked to visit with them when he could. And Zoe was special, always had been. She had the witch in her. He could feel, smell, the power and knew that one day she would do the family proud.
And no stupid little boy was going to spoil that for her. Kissing! At her age! But how old was she? He never could be sure with the younger generations. Still, he released the boy but not without some further chastisement, "And you just go around putting your lips on young women in movie houses do you, boy?"
"Kyle, sir," he stammered, inching back, away. There was no magic in that one. Not even a drop. He wasn't good enough for a Parris. His granddaughter was the offspring of two of the best connected, most powerful, old Salem families. And the boy thought he had it in him to touch her, covet her. Because he did, of that Leonard was sure, it was all over his face. He desired to have her, own her, keep her.
"Grandpa!" Zoe huffed in annoyance, sounding more like her mother, her grandmother, than anyone should be allowed to, and it made his heart ache for his girls. "Stop," she said when he looked at her, lip protruding, and he almost expected her to stamp her little foot. "I like him." Her tone was pleading as her large hazel eyes shot wide, realizing what she had said out loud.
"What?" the older man thundered.
"You do?" the boy asked in wonder, breaking out in a grin even as he continued to watch Leonard with trepidation, a hint of fear. The non-magical often feared what they did not understand, sensed the otherness in their bones.
But before Zoe could respond to either of them there was a commotion outside, the sound of an explosion, like thunder but closer. Leonard's face whipped around, glaring up at the projection room. "Get her out of here! Now!" he hollered at Kyle as people began pouring from the theater, rushing and pushing.
"Grandpa?" Zoe gasped even as Kyle took her by the arm and began tugging.
"I'll be alright, sweetheart," he told her with a grin. "Go on." And they were off as he turned, sprinting for the stairs to the balcony, dashing into the melee, toward danger, as he always did. Leonard knew his granddaughter would be alright because he knew he would see her again, further on down the road. Or he already had, depending on how you saw things. Time wasn't linear; actually it was just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. And he simply travelled through it.
"Zoe!" Kyle gripped her hand in his, trying to keep her close to him in the crush of bodies hurrying toward the emergency exits. Sirens were blaring, the lights gone black so only eerie caution strips and bright strobes lit their way.
"I'm here," she replied, squeezing his fingers and hoping their friends were alright. Until she tripped, falling to the sticky floor, nearly trampled by the worried mob.
Kyle hurried back to help her to her feet, hands under her arms, hauling her up along his body, buffering the masses until she was standing again. It was the wrong time and maybe completely inappropriate, but Zoe couldn't help the shiver that ran through her at the feel of his arms around her, his chest pressed to her back. And then they were moving again, Kyle pushing her along in front of him.
A second blast tore through the building, a wave hurtling down the corridor they were in, tossing them like ragdolls as a ball of flame licked at the air, fluttering after them.
Zoe and Kyle were almost at the door, eyes wide, as they were blown through it and tossed effortlessly to the pavement beyond.
When she woke up, sore and aching all over, Zoe couldn't hear a thing, only a high-pitched ringing and it hurt to open her eyes. She felt so bone-tired, all she could think about was going to sleep but she couldn't find Kyle. Slowly, painfully, putting her arms underneath her and getting to her knees she crawled forward, searching frantically.
Zoe’s hands were wet. Someone must have spilled their soda she thought, carelessly wiping the liquid off on her white sweater, and watching it turn red. With a thick unsure swallow Zoe lifted her head even as her neck screamed out in pain and tried to take in the sight around her. People, or pieces of people, blood, hunks of meat, and torn clothing. It smelled like burning leaves and barbecue.
She was soaked in blood. It ran down her bare legs, over her eyes, matting her hair down on one side.
"Kyle!" her voice pierced the silence in her own head and suddenly sound came rushing back in. Sirens and screams, people calling for help, others moaning. A helicopter above.
He wasn't actually hard to find, only a few people over, closer to the building. His face was a mass of black and brilliant red on one side, the color traveling down his neck and into his scorched waves of hair. His eyes were closed but she could see his chest moving, rising, and she scuttled toward him on bruised knees and torn palms.
"Oh my god," she exhaled, "Kyle," placing her hand on the unmarred side of his face. He was still, sleeping or unconscious. She looked around them before screaming, "Help!" Her voice breaking, "Help us!"
Footsteps pounded the pavement, a police officer, a medic, and then a second, charging over. The officer pulled her back, let the two EMTs do their work on Kyle.
"What happened?" he asked, "Did you see anything?"
She couldn't tear her eyes away from the boy before her, his shirt being ripped open, monitors being taped to one side of his chest. The blackened flesh was there too, down his arm, his side, over his shoulder. Zoe thought it looked so painful and she wished that she could help him, that she had that power. And maybe she would, someday, but at that moment all she could do was stare as tears slipped down her cheeks.
"It just exploded," she whispered finally, "everything. Boom."
*
At the hospital Zoe's parents were informed that she was an incredibly lucky young woman. She had faired better than anyone else trapped in the corridor when the fire swept through. In fact, she had escaped with only a minor concussion, a bruised rib, and a cut on her forehead.
"She's covered in blood, most of it her own, we thought," the doctor explained, scratching his head, "but we can barely find a scratch on her. It's a miracle." And her mother just beamed, stroking her head, sharing a look with her father who nodded. Zoe had the gift, just as they had always suspected, and at twelve she had presented her first power, to heal herself.
Not only was it rare to present gifts so early but to begin with such a powerful, useful, one was a triumph for their families.
Zoe herself just wanted to see Kyle, to know if he was okay, where he was. "He saved me," she explained over and over again.
But the doctor said he needed his rest, he was a very injured boy, his mother was with him, and Zoe could come back in a few days to visit if she wanted. She agreed, let her parents lead her away, avoiding the eyes of all the other parents, the families, who were not so lucky.
"Grandpa Leonard was there," she told them on the ride home, quietly from the backseat.
"Ah," her father said with a grim smile, "well that explains it.”
"Trouble follows that man everywhere! Next time I see him I am going to give him a piece of my mind. He should have gotten you out of there the moment he saw you, he had to know what was coming."
"He always knows," her father chuckled. But Zoe stayed silent. Sometimes magic folk could be so callus, only thinking of themselves at times of tragedy. All she could think of was Kyle and the feel of his lips on hers, her small hand grasped in his bigger warmer one.
*
Zoe returned to the hospital midweek requesting to see Kyle Spencer. They informed her that he was in the burn unit, on the sixth floor, turn right down the hall.
"I'll wait here," her mother said, lowering herself into a grubby chair. She looked so out of place; her expensive black pantsuit and Chanel purse, dark sunglasses, black hat and perfectly coiffed hair. She looked like a witch, Zoe thought as she made her way to the bank of elevators. But then again, she was.
They had just come from the memorial service for those who died at the theater. Leah and her friends, they had all made it out, escaping through the front, while Zoe and Kyle had wormed their way to the rear. There was still no solid explanation for the blast. Some people said it was terrorists, most people said it was a faulty gas line.
The burn unit was silent, only the occasional beep, the squeak of a shoe on linoleum.
"I'm looking for Kyle Spencer," Zoe repeated quietly to the woman in scrubs behind a massive desk. She stood up and stared down at the girl, smiling.
"How nice! Kyle will be so happy to see a friend." She shook her head, "I think that poor boy is going stir crazy trapped up in here."
"So, he's okay?" Zoe exhaled in a rush.
The woman stopped, looked at her kindly. "He's got a lot of bandages right now. Your friend was badly burned, but he's still the same boy, okay honey? He can talk to you just fine." Zoe nodded nervously. "I just don't want you to be surprised or scared when you see him, okay? It's still him under all that."
They walked down the hall, past door after door, until finally they stopped. "Here you go!" She smiled again, knocking on the door jam. "Kyle, you have a visitor."
"Tell them to go away," he grumbled from inside, the television on low.
"But it's," the nurse looked to her.
"Zoe. Zoe Benson."
"Zoe is here!"
Being small Zoe managed to sneak a glimpse under the woman's arm and into the room as there was a sharp intake of breath. Kyle was propped up on a bed, hospital gown over his one arm, half his chest, the rest of his torso heavily bandaged. Her eyes trailed up to his face. His hair was slicked back and there were even more bandages, red angry looking flesh around his far eye.
"Go away!" he practically shrieked. "I don't want to see her! She can't come in."
"Kyle," the woman began.
"No! Go away! Go away!"
Zoe thought it sounded like he was crying but she couldn't be sure. "Kyle!" she called out.
"Go away," he said once more, his voice a broken wail.
The nurse sighed, glanced down at the pretty little girl before her. "I'm sorry, honey."
Zoe bit her lip feeling like she was going to cry too. "He saved me," she said to the stranger watching her. But the woman simply nodded again, ushering her back to the desk, the elevators.
*
Zoe never saw him again after that. He wouldn't see her the second or third time she visited either and her mother refused to take her a fourth time, calling Kyle an ungrateful boy.
He didn't come back to school and a month later she heard he and his mother had picked up and moved to Louisiana to be closer to family.
But it wasn't the last time she thought of him; Zoe thought of Kyle every day. When she first woke up, before she fell asleep at night. She thought of him the next time a boy kissed her, anytime a boy kissed her. She thought of him when she let Charlie fuck her and she thought of him when Charlie died, as she sat at his funeral. The only two boys she had ever cared about: one burned and scarred, leaving, never to be seen again, breaking her heart, and the other dying between her thighs.
Mother said that kind of thing happened. Some witches had bad luck and with her healing powers came repercussions. She could heal with her body and she could harm. Charlie had been an accident; too much emotion pouring out of her, fear, anxiety, longing, and she had managed to drain the life from him. A heart attack the doctors said, probably a congenital condition that no one had ever spotted, not her fault. But the day her parents packed her off to Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, the premier boarding school for young witches, in New Orleans, the day after her boyfriend's funeral, she couldn't help but think that perhaps her gift was a curse in disguise. That witchcraft really was the work of the devil.
*
Present day
The other girls didn't understand, saw her scars and stared, eyed her with suspicion. It was hilarious. A bunch of witches treating her with hostility and suspicion. But every group needed a scapegoat.
Zoe had been cutting herself for years, since that night at the movies, since her parents explained that her body was magically impervious to harm. That she had lived, walked away, while others had died, been disfigured, because she was special, she was better than other people. Zoe didn't feel better than anyone. Instead a hatred for herself, her ability, fate and the cruelty of life, welled up inside of her and the only way to set it free was to hack at her flesh, mutilate herself, show the world that she should be damaged too.
In the beginning the wounds had sealed closed, knitted up, and vanished within minutes. But with time and practice and patience, Zoe had come to master the skill of self-harm, gained control over her healing abilities, letting the cuts linger for days, weeks, festering and hot, scarring her arms and legs, the back and sides of her neck, her breasts and stomach. Once she slashed her thigh so deeply, so violently, that she nearly bled out. She thought about it, dying in a pool of blood like the ones she had crawled through that night but was too afraid to see what, if anything, was on the other side, so she let the gash close.
That was her first near suicide. Three more had followed over the years. But she had begun to wonder if she could even die. Would her body take over even after her conscious mind had fled? How strong was her gift of preservation?
Her roommate at Miss Robichaux's, Madison Montgomery, had her own issues. Drug and alcohol abuse, a sex addiction, an attraction to much older, married men. And a penchant for killing anyone, any wife, who got in her way. Madison's telekinetic ability gave her the power to murder fairly at will and a way to never be blamed for it.
Ms. Foxx, the school mistress, was trying to work with the girl, but like with most of the other hopeless cases among her pupils, she was failing miserably. It was probably the reason the two, Zoe and Madison, had been paired up in the first place. Hoping they would find a lifeline in one another, pull each other to the surface. In reality they were the millstone dragging the other down into the depths by the neck.
Madison would watch Zoe with the razor, slinking off into the bathroom, and roll her eyes. But she didn't give a shit. They had a pact: watch the others back and stay the fuck out of the way. It had worked pretty well over the years that they had shared a room.
Zoe never tried to hide her scars. She put them on display, right in people's faces, made them look, see her pain writ clear across her body. She made people uncomfortable. She enjoyed it, watching them squirm.
A fraternity party was the perfect opportunity for that kind of thing. She had almost laughed, a gleeful mood striking her, when her roommate asked if she wanted to go. It wasn't Madison's usual scene, partying with children, preferring instead a mix of the seedier bars in town and the high class clubs that catered to her ilk, her targets of choice. But she was bored and out of coke. Zoe was just restless, her skin feeling too tight, pulled taught around her muscles, her bones, itching to break free.
"Yeah, I wanna go," she said climbing off the bed, tugging her shirt over her head.
"Okay, Sally Scar-tissue," Madison grinned, "you want to borrow a dress?" Adding with a hint of deviousness, "Because I have just the thing to show off all your pretty artwork."
*
Madison's clothes were scandalous at the best of times; for classes, dinner, the tea parties Foxx insisted they attend with their fellow witches. Her party dresses were in a category all of their own.
So, Zoe had squeezed into Madison’s dress: black, glittering, one-shouldered. It rode obscenely high on her thighs, exposing the straps of her black garter belt. The red slashes on the upper portion of her legs stood out boldly against her pale flesh, the stark darkness of her stockings. Her black peep-toed heels were studded on the back with silver spikes. Another acquisition from the girls shared closet.
Madison herself had donned a gold and silver second skin, writhing as she dressed like a snake shedding it’s outer layer. It showed off a slim waist and ample cleavage. She looked like a wet dream with her hair a tousled mass of blond. Between her two companions she was a ray of sunlight in the night.
The third girl was a contrast of white skin and black hair, vibrant ruby lips. Her feathered black collar hung over small shoulders, black dress cut down to her navel, sweeping low enough on her back to show the dimples on either side of her spine. Her black stilettoes added more than four inches to her usual height and made her move with a kind of stilted elegance.
At the last moment they had allowed Nicola Radcliffe to tag along with them. Madison despised the other girl. She was hot and she was a bitch and Madison hated competition in those departments. But it didn't stop her from occasionally putting her tongue down Nicola’s throat, or into her pussy, as Zoe attempted to drown out the sounds they made at night with her earbuds. Nicola still knew how much it fucking annoyed her though; the bitch was a telepath.
*
Zoe had tried it off with her roommate once but she just couldn't get into it. Girls weren't her thing. And Madison would fuck just about anything with a pulse. It didn’t make you feel very special. So that had been the end of the experiment. The other girl had moved on to the next in line and Zoe had gone in search of cock.
She'd gotten wasted at Madison's urging, drowning themselves in Hurricanes on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. They never paid for a drink. The guy, some college kid from up north, just down for the week, had done the job. And he hadn't had a heart attack. Zoe on the other hand had nearly passed out on the street, barely out of the alley he had left her in, and couldn't look at a bottle of hard liquor for nearly a month without tasting bile.
The third guy she was with, he had fucking died. An aneurism that time; blood oozing from tear ducts, his nose, his ears. Zoe had finished even after his body had gone limp. His dick was still hard. All that blood, it had reminded her of that night, and she thought of Kyle, wherever, whoever he was, when she came. And she had walked away, another anonymous face at a sorority house. She could have been anyone. They found the body in the morning, crashed out on a lawn chair. It was on the news. No one remembered anything out of the ordinary and Zoe never mentioned it to another soul. Though she had an idea that both Nicola and Nan knew; their gifts were to get inside your head, know your darkest secrets and Zoe had too many under lock and key to worry about hiding such an insignificant blip.
*
Kyle fucking hated parties. Girls eyeing him from across the room, smiling, whispering to their friends. It always ended the same way: they would flock over like a group of twittering birds, say or slur a hello, and within moments be gawking, staring openly at his scars, before drifting away, still whispering about him but in a much less desirable way. Sure, his fraternity brothers, his friends, never mentioned them, hardly noticed them anymore but he knew they were there. Saw them reflected in other people's eyes, in their expressions.
The doctors had done what they could for him at the hospital in Virginia and then later in New Orleans after their move south. Surgeries and skin grafts, creams and ointments, but his hair never grew back on that part of his scalp, his ear was still a twisted useless mass of scarred flesh. His face looked decent, heavily mottled with raised flesh but only about a third of it, and the color was mostly right, a touch dark, purple in places. You couldn’t necessarily see it at first glance, especially not in dim light. His chest, shoulder, and arm were more heavily scarred but those places he could cover. That was why, even with the warm muggy air that night, he was wearing a long sleeved thermal under his polo, his collar popped, to hide the most skin from view.
He sighed, taking another sip of his beer. Kyle knew he should have just stayed in. Gotten drunk in his room, beat off, gone to bed. The night was a bust and he felt like complete shit. But that was when he saw her. Fuck, she was beautiful.
*
"Zoe," Nicola began, blood red nails dragging along her bare forearm, dancing down and along the cross-hatching of scars there. "There's a boy watching you."
Madison glowered, rolled her eyes, "Cut the fortune teller act, bitch."
"Where?" Zoe asked, eyes flickering to the side.
But Nicola was frowning, glancing around warily. Shaking her wild mane she said, "Don't look for him. The things I see, what he sees, what he wants to do to you..."
"He hot?" Madison winked. Zoe smirked.
"He doesn't see himself. Only you." Her gaze snapped up, locking Zoe in place with its intensity, "Violating you. Inside you. His hands on your throat. He wants," but she shook her head again. "Get out, no, stop, I don't want to see!"
Madison cackled, arm draping around Nicola's shoulders, feathers ruffling, reaching to brush her tit. It was Zoe's turn to roll her eyes. "You're only making her want him more, you know. You're, like, hitting all her kink buttons. Zoe loves the rapey vibe," she purred. "Murderers turn her on and shit." Her friend leered.
"Bitch," Zoe laughed. "Let's get some fucking drinks before I find my dream guy, huh? I am way too sober to let anyone fuck me right now."
"If they want to live," Madison stage whispered, Nicola swallowing. Zoe glared. "Oh, I'm kidding, Black Widow." She had a million nicknames for her roommate. Zoe only two for Madison: Bitch and Cunt. Both were fitting.
“Fuck you.”
"One more," Madison pleaded, eyes wide, knees bent as she bounced lightly. Then with out waiting for permission, approval, whatever it was that Zoe had no intention of granting, "My girl gives new meaning to the phrase hate fuck!”
“Really?” she smiled, shaking her head, as a few boring, everyday college girls in cotton dresses walked by eyeing them speculatively. The three witches in the hallway stood out from the rest of the pack; people automatically treated them with distrust. That was just the way it was for magic folk. Zoe was glad they stayed away. She didn't like them either. Those skanks would probably burn them at the stake if given half a chance. That kind of shit didn't change, it just went out of fashion.
*
She saw his scars first, his messy bleached blond curls second, and both made her want to see more. He was slipping around a corner, disappearing into the heaving mass of bodies in the main room. Zoe grabbed her cup and the fresh beer out of Nicola's hand. The girl huffed, tried to argue, but Madison laughed, latching onto her lips, as Zoe walked away from her friends.
She wobbled on her heels, drunk and unused to balancing in anything more than a pair of Docs. His hair was like a beacon; flashing pink, purple, blue, green in the light of the strobes. The music thrummed loudly, dancing through her veins, mingling with the vodka, the line of coke she had done.
He was alone, skirting the edge of the dance floor, turning down a dark corridor just beyond. Zoe bit her lip, smiled, wondered if he meant it as the invitation she took it as.
Everything about the moment was familiar. Like a dream you had once and almost forgot but it was happening when you were awake. The rush of fear, the crowd, the warm exhilaration deep in the pit of her stomach. Her hand in his, that was the only part that was missing.
*
Nicola had told her, after being plied with a few drinks, he was a killer. He'd done it before, wanted to do it again, and Zoe had felt her panties grow damp, her thighs slick. That kind of shit really did turn her on.
"Looks like you've found your soulmate, whore." Madison cocked her brow, "Why are you still hanging around with us?" Maybe she had been joking. Probably she hadn't been. Four years had been enough time for the two girls to get to know one another, really understand how the other worked.
Madison's step-daddy had raped her when she was a kid. Her mom ignored it, just spent the asshole’s money, blew her problems and his fortune up her nose. Her daughter had killed them both, Carrie-style. It was her first kill. She was eleven.
Zoe had been sixteen. They were all fucking murderers. Why didn't he deserve the chance that they had been given? Some people were just built to kill. It was in their breath, their blood, their bones. Some people became killers due to circumstance. Zoe, Madison, their experiences had twisted them, their abilities just made it, killing, hurting, easier. Witchcraft allowed them to feel divine, above earthly matters, above consequences and punishments and guilt. Witches took, they did not give. And that was just the way it was.
*
"What are you doing down here?" the voice of a boy asked her from the darkest deepest point of hall.
"I thought you looked thirsty," Zoe replied.
"Yeah?" he chuckled menacingly, "that your superpower?"
"One of them," she smirked, leaning back into the wall, staying a few feet from him. That blond hair was just visible, as was the outline of his face, all pale hard features, chiseled from marble.
He didn't move and she didn't know what game he was playing, but she liked it. Biting her lip, Zoe smiled again, and held out the red cup of beer in his direction.
*
She had followed him, just trailed him down the blackest corridor in the fucking place and offered him a drink. Like life was simple like that. Like he hadn't spent the past hour imaging her blue lips and cold skin, his hands clamped around her neck, his cock pounding into her, as her limp thighs fell to the side.
But she was so fucking gorgeous. That dress, her tight little body, silken hair going on for miles, just like her legs. Fuck, and the stockings, the straps. A girl like her was put on earth to torture a guy like him. Because girls like her didn't just give it to guys like him. Maybe she'd smile but then she would see them and her eyes would give her away. Pity or disgust, he didn't fucking want either. He wanted to get his dick wet. He wanted something aside from his spit-slicked palm and something brutal playing on his laptop.
But even more, Kyle wanted to be a normal fucking guy. One who had stayed home that night rather than chasing after the specter of Zoe Benson, a girl he had convinced himself was the most breathtaking creature on the planet. He wanted to hear about the movie theater explosion on television the next morning, stunned into silence like the rest of the town. He wanted to ask Zoe how she was the next time he saw her, show her compassion, let her cry on his shoulder, kiss away her tears, and take her to the mall the following weekend to eat pizza and play arcade games.
He wanted a normal fucking face. Not one people shied away from or gawked at, slowly turning him from an outgoing kid into a studious introvert. He wanted to go to homecoming, prom, leave for college and reinvent himself. It was hard to become someone else when a third of your face was still scarred and people just couldn't help but wonder what the hell happened to you. Then thanked god or whatever that it hadn't happened to them.
He wanted girls to flirt with him. To see him, not just his good side, as his mother called it. He wanted to be more than a good friend, a guy they could really talk to. He wanted to be wanted. But most of all Kyle was desperate to have normal urges. He didn't want to think about blood and bullet holes, bile and shit and piss, filth. He wanted to lay a girl down on his bed and worship her with his mouth, slowly peel away her clothes, make her blush and giggle as he slid into her, told her she was precious or beautiful or some shit. He wanted that to do it for him, make him hard. It didn't. It make his dick limp, made him feel like heaving.
Give him a girl, bound and gagged, tears on her face, panties hanging off one foot, and he could drill a hole right through her. Hard as titanium. Give him a chance to work her over, observe his creation, and he could fucking fall in love. But in the taking he lost the chance of the giving. No hearts were gifted to him and his lady loves ended their time with him sinking into the black swamp near his uncle's lonely bayou cabin, fodder for the gators.
*
"Are you shy, or something?" she asked him with a grin. He shrugged one shoulder, biting his lower lip. Zoe melted a tiny bit, knees weak. She took a step forward, toward him, "I like the shy thing."
He finally reached for the proffered cup, their fingers brushing, sending a shiver up Zoe's spine.
Taking a deep swallow of her own drink she continued to study him. The beauty of his mottled flesh, the physical representation of pain, of sorrow. She wanted to touch him, it, stroke the pads of her fingers along the raised lumpy skin, skim his ravaged ear, skip along his bare scalp. Her thighs squeezed together at the mere thought of it, the crotch of her panties soaked through.
He was keeping a distance from her and as she slowly stepped toward him. Each step she took caused him to back further into the corner, disappearing deeper into the shadows. "Don't you like girls?" she asked. And he froze. She smiled, sipped her drink, stalking her prey, playing the game by her own rules. "Don't you like me?"
Thick black lashes fluttered against her porcelain cheeks as she coquettishly breathed, "You've been thinking about me." His eyes darted side to side, back and forth, searching. Did he want to escape? Or knock her flat, drag her out by her hair and bury himself balls deep inside her sopping cunt?
"I know you have." Zoe was immediately in front of him then. Barely separated by six inches from the object of her lusting. "And I like it," she sighed, picturing the beautiful, grotesque imaginings of his mind, making Nicola's words come to life in her fantasy.
*
Kyle wanted to say nothing; remain mute and stoic, hard. If he gave into her words, her voice, started to believe, he would be bitterly disappointed. Again. But how did she know? She couldn't, he reminded himself. She was just flirting, acting coy. His heart however beat out a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Taking a deep swallow of beer, a second, and a third, he glared at her. Fucking self-centered, gorgeous, perfect bitch. If she only knew. He was fucking dangerous. He was the devil himself. He was a hunter, twisted and gnarled, mind ravaged. And she just continued to walk into his trap. Kyle wished she would just fucking leave him alone.
Every step back he took, she took two forward, until he was up against the wall, locked in a corner. And suddenly he wondered if he was the only one of the two of them on the prowl, his breath escaping in a stuttering exhale as he stared into her shining hazel orbs, she licked her lips. He was entranced.
The fingers of her hand, the one devoid of a party cup, came to rest lightly on his chest. Kyle’s wide eyes flicked down, taking in the picture of her slender digits, dark nails, on him and swallowed. Her touch danced along his ribs, came to the collar of his polo, tripped up to his chin, and finally rested on his bottom lip, tugging ever so slightly, exposing the moist pink inside.
That gaze of hers was on him again, a flash of small white teeth and a mean little smirk. For the first time in years he felt like prey instead of predator. And then in a sudden flurry of movement her mouth was on his, needy, insistent, hot and wet. His brain shut down as his back slammed against the wall, her body aligned, molded, to his front.
*
He all but dragged her through the exit at the end of the hall, lips sliding, tongues tangling, his hand up her dress, stroking that wet seam through her panties, fingers already slick with her want. He pulled back, considering her as she gripped his belt loops, bringing his pelvis, his straining cock, into contact with the warm place between her thighs, bucking against him with a lazy roll of her hips.
When he didn’t move, because he couldn’t, frozen in a haze of lust and incredulity, she smiled again. "You know, I didn't follow you out here because I thought you wanted to play patty-cake so," she licked her lips, put a hand behind his neck and drew him in again.
Kyle almost couldn't believe it. That she wanted him. Hot mouth and hot cunt begging for it. So he assumed she hadn't seen it, them, the scars, yet. And he wanted her to, wanted to feel her tense, shy away, so he could remind himself that she was not special, that she was just like every other bitch out there.
He rocked forward, thrusting, and she sighed as his mouth fell away from her own with a wet pop, her head knocking back into the wall with a soft thud. Kyle reached into his pocket with his free hand, the one not pressed up against her dripping pussy, and fished out his cell phone, glancing down at it. The screen illuminated his face in a blue-white glow. In combination with the dim lighting on the side of the house she finally caught a good look at his face. His beautiful face. The scars raised but smooth, covering a significant portion of his right side. Her head tilted, considering him from her position against the rough brick. And his eyes bore into her, mouth a firm line, the fingers against her snatch twitching.
"Wait," Zoe’s throat closed, realization dawning on her. Why it had all been so very familiar. Why Nicola had tuned into him, that one particular boy in a crowded house, so easily, so quickly. How, why, they were connected. Why she had been so immediately drawn to him, so eager to have him. But she couldn’t speak, shock writ clear across her face.
"No," he shook his head. "You see, we're past that now." She had confirmed his worst suspicion. She was just like every other soulless cunt in the world. She saw them. Next she'd ask what happened, frown, say how sorry she was, and suggest they return to the party. But things had gone too far, his need at a fever pitch. There was only one way to satiate it.
He brought out a little orange prescription bottle from his pocket, popped the top and dumped two pills out onto his hand. Zoe eyed him, head cocked, silken hair cascading down her left side. He grumbled, “Sorry,” mouth around the rim of his almost empty cup, "it's time for my pills". She nodded, continuing to gaze at him in something akin to disbelief, awe. Had she never seen someone with fucking burn scars before? What the fuck was wrong with her? He hated her fucking stare, her gorgeous fucking eyes. She was so open and sweet like that, her mouth forming the shape of a little ‘o’. So unlike the normal looks he was on the receiving end of but just as painful because it reminded him of what she saw, what was there. Why someone as exquisite as her, with her leaking cunt and tiny tits, the perfect girl, would never go for him.
And before she could say anything, just fucking ask the question she was terrified to ask, afraid the answer would be no, or that he would reject her again if it was yes, his mouth was on her neck, tongue dragging up toward her ear, tracing her jaw. He expected her to go rigid but instead her breathing faltered, a small needy sound slipping from her. His lips sought hers, aggressive, desperate and maybe just a little bit broken, as she sighed, melting into him. He was so good, coaxing her to open for him, fingers slipping down the wet insides of her thighs, trailing away from the place she was burning for his touch.
The capsules in her mouth came as a surprise as they glided smoothly from him to her. She struggled, trying to pull back, shake him off, ask what the fuck he thought he was doing. But when his lips left hers, his hand took their place. He smiled, a devil’s grin, blond hair in his eyes, as he pinched her nose, stopping her ability to draw air.
"Swallow them and I'll let go," he told her, their foreheads brushing. She shook her head no. "Do it," he growled, other hand tearing her panties aside, brutally pinching her clit and making her gasp as his body crowded her into the wall, scraping her back. Her eyes were wide as she did what he asked.
Kyle removed his palm, allowed her to inhale a much needed breath, before his fingers left her pussy. One arm pinned her, forearm across her chest, holding her in place, as his sopping digits nudged past lips. She moaned at the taste of herself and he smirked. His fingers swept under her tongue, between her gums and her cheek, before pulling back out slathered in her saliva. "Good girl," he hummed, kissing her lightly.
"What did you give me?" She panted.
"Nothing serious, a couple muscle relaxants. It will make this all," he paused, thoughtful but excited, "easier. You're going to feel so good soon. Free, like a bird." And he kissed her again, stroking her sides. "I like birds," he whispered against her mouth.
"Why do you like them?" Why was she asking? She should have been thinking but she didn't want to think. She wanted Kyle. And every moment more she spent with him the more certain she was that the boy before was, in fact, Kyle Spencer. His dark eyes were studying her and all she could see was that boy at the movies, the one who kissed her, who held her hand, who saved her, and she wondered if he saw her too.
He shrugged, "They can fly away when things get too crazy, I guess. And they're so fragile. Small, thin bones, delicate wings, so graceful," his mouth slide across hers as Zoe’s body grew pliant in his arms, soft and yielding, as he put a hand around her waist, keeping her on her feet. "Like you," he added, stepping away from the fraternity house, propping her up as her feet fumbled, legs wobbling. "So small," his mouth on her ear, "so precious."
And they looked like any other couple as they emerged from the darkness; girl drunk and leaning on her boyfriend as he smiled and made conversation, helping her home.
Zoe could still speak though her speech was somewhat slurred. "Where are you taking me?"
"My room," he replied amicably. "I’m the president of Kappa Lambda Gamma. We’re not the coolest guys on campus but we’re no Tri-Lambs.” She breathed a chuckle, tossing him a smile and he returned it, adding, “I live at the house. It's not far."
"I can't believe you're in a frat," Zoe snorted, the drugs making her fell even drunker than she already did. "I think frats are full of fascists."
She willed her body to process the muscle relaxants, expel them like a cancer. She could usually will off the effects of a night out, healing herself, but had never had to try it with prescription pills let alone at full potency.
"You know," he slowed, turning her in his arms and kissed her hard, her hands clutching fistfuls of his polo. Kyle left her gasping before continuing, "I don't mind being reduced to a stereotype but," he hummed along her neck, sucking a fresh, blooming bruise into the skin there, as her head fell back, small hands dropping to hook into his waistband, "I’m here on a scholarship. There’s more to me than just that."
“I know,” Zoe replied on a sigh, leaning into him as he stilled. It hit him, how like a regular date it was, that moment. Being with a girl, laughing, smiling, kissing and touching. His heart pounded, thumped, slammed against his chest. And he hated her a little bit more for making him feel that way, accepted, wanted. Because he had filled her up with pills and she was supposed to be frightened, fighting, not enjoying herself, giggling and babbling at him.
But Kyle grinned, couldn’t stop himself. “Yeah?” He played along, cursing himself, his weakness, his fingers itching to be inside her again, feel her slick, spongy walls grasping him, welcoming him.
“You like dogs. And your favorite color is red. You were a boy scout. And your dad walked out when you were little. You stopped those guys you hung out with from beating up Ryan Nichols just because people thought he was gay.” Her voice was wistful, eyes growing heavy. Every time she blinked it was harder to open them again. Zoe felt like she was having an out of body experience, warning herself to stop talking. “Shut up,” she said out loud instead of in her head.
“What?” He gripped her upper arm hard enough to bruise.
“He doesn’t know you,” she continued.
Kyle was at a loss. The drugs made you feel drunk and his girl had been drunk when she swallowed them, but she was talking crazy. They stopped in the middle of the road, standing still in one another’s arms. Her hands trailed up his chest, his neck, fingertips ghosting along his scars without fear or trepidation. Her face was utterly free of repulsion, in fact there was something shiny in her eyes as she sighed, body falling against his, sagging with a sort of relief.
“You kissed me that night,” she whispered finally, against his mouth. “I had wanted to kiss you for so long and you did it. But then,” her tongue ran along his lower lip, “boom. And you never wanted to see me again.” Her voice broke and she knew she had lost her grip, that the drugs were coursing through her veins, utterly overpowering her defenses. “But why, Kyle?” And was she fucking crying? She hadn’t cried since she was twelve years old. Not when Charlie died, not when her parents sent her away. Not since Kyle Spencer refused her final visit at the hospital, since he moved away without a word, leaving her in tatters, in pieces, never to be whole again. “What did I do?”
( Ashes to Ashes 2/2 )
Author: drollicpixie
Pairing: Zoe/Kyle
Summary: She’s falling. Her heart is sick. Her bones are dust. The yawning maw of the pit waits below. His arms are raised up to catch her. Coven AU.
Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: Rated (Strong) M. This story has elements of self-harm, dub-con, violence, and violent thoughts towards women.
Author Notes: As my prompt mentioned both Violet/Tate and Zoe/Kyle, I thought I would take some elements of the Murder House pair and superimpose them onto the Coven pair.
Original Characters: Leonard Parris is played by David Tennant, Nicola by Lucy Hale.
Ashes to Ashes
7 years earlier
Kyle Spencer was so cute. His shaggy dark blond hair falling in his face as he goofed around with the boys seated in front of them. He had never paid her any special attention, nothing out of the ordinary: complaining how lame gym was, talking, laughing with a group of people at her locker, passing her a note from Leah who sat on the other side of him in French. But she was hyperaware of him. His every move, smile, word, catalogued and stored in her memory banks, her heart.
She was standing in the theater, still bright and noisy, crowded with people, as they waited for the previews, the end of the revolving ads and trivia. Their section was largely empty as no one else had the desire to join a bunch of seventh graders. Most people were down a level, closer to the screen, or up in the balcony. Leah had just rushed off to the bathroom, tears streaming down her face, as Steve Randall watched. He had ended their two week relationship. In front of everyone. And Zoe was considering running after her friend but Leah was a real bitch when she wanted to be alone.
She was probably smoking, hidden in some corner stall, blubbering and blowing her nose into toilet paper. If Zoe got caught smelling like cigarettes when she went home there would be hell to pay. She would be grounded for a week, a month! So she was stuck teetering on the edge of movement, torn between her sense of loyalty and her sense of self-preservation.
"Hey, Zoe," her eyes shot up right into the dark, friendly gaze of Kyle, and her breath caught.
"Oh, hi," she returned, palms already sweating. Was it hot in the theater all of a sudden?
"Where'd Leah go?" Oh, of course, she sighed. Kyle liked Leah. All the guys did. Leah's mom let her wear pink lipstick and black eyeliner. And Leah had tits. While Zoe was only allowed cherry chapstick and was still woefully undeveloped: training bra, boyish body, long skinny limbs and feet she was always tripping over.
Tucking a strand of her waist-length straight hair behind her ear she wet her gloss-less lips and stared up at him. He stood almost six inches taller than her. Not that it was hard, Zoe was one of the smallest in their class. "She had to," she glanced at the door.
Kyle smiled and her heart thumped against her chest. "I thought you all did that together?" She shrugged, flushing, she could not talk to Kyle Spencer about the bathroom!
"Well, I better keep you company 'til she comes back." His mouth spread impossibly wider as he climbed over the back of his seat and crashed into her row. The boy beside him, Jeremy, rolled his eyes, shoved Kyle's leg when it nearly collided with his face. "Come on," he patted the seat next to him, lifted the armrest so that it was one large space, and she dropped down hesitantly, inching back slowly, watching him the entire time.
They talked about school, the movie they were seeing, Steve dumping Leah. He was two rows down chatting up a girl from the catholic school and Zoe shook her head. Boys could be so cute, but they were the worst.
And before she could think much about it: how fun Kyle was, how easy he was to talk to, how adorable the freckle on the end of his nose was, he was kissing her. It was sudden, out of the blue, and took her by complete stuttering surprise.
Zoe had never been kissed before. Not by a boy. Kissing Leah at a sleepover didn't count. And it was a dare anyway.
Her eyes were open in shock though his were closed. Kyle's mouth tasted like buttered popcorn. After a moment he pulled back, gazing at her shyly. When her tongue poked out to wet her lips he grinned and did it again.
That time she let her lids flutter downward, let him guide her, opening to him, her tongue tentatively touching the inside of his mouth as Leah had shown her. Kyle's fingers were on her waist, grip loose, as her hands pressed down into the seat cushion between, unsure if she should move them to his neck, his hair. She had always wanted to touch his hair, see if it was as soft as she imagined.
With a whoosh of air and a slight sizzling sound behind them, the two were wrenched apart. "Zoe Benson!" A man's voice rang out with scandalized disappointment.
Her wide eyes shot first to Kyle, utterly embarrassed, then behind her, startled, contrite, nervous.
"Grandpa Leonard?" she breathed. And there he stood, black fedora, black suit, red carnation pinned to his jacket, just as he always looked.
It had been awhile since Zoe had seen her grandfather. He was dead. At least he was in her timeline.
Leonard Parris was a warlock of the highest class, a former council member, and he could travel through time and space with the blink of an eye and a snap of his fingers.
"What on earth?" he demanded, hauling Kyle up by his shoulder, his upper arm. The boy stared down at her terrified. "Does your mother know you're here," her grandfather paused, gaze narrowing meaningfully, "with this," he studied Kyle, taking in his sweatshirt and jeans, his red chuck taylors, and sighed, "young man?"
"Um," Zoe tried, biting her lip, "she knows I'm at the movies..."
"I see."
"She didn't come with me," Kyle coughed, "sir. We just know each other from school."
The older man peered at the boy before him as he would some interesting and before unseen species; something to be understood but still possibly feared, as it was unknown to him.
Finally, having had enough embarrassment for a lifetime and seeing Leah coming back through the door, Zoe huffed, "Grandpa, let him go!"
For someone's grandfather, Leonard looked remarkably young and fit, which he probably was, appearing to be no more than forty in his own timeline. But he knew his family: the kids, the grandkids, hell, even a couple of great grandkids, and he liked to visit with them when he could. And Zoe was special, always had been. She had the witch in her. He could feel, smell, the power and knew that one day she would do the family proud.
And no stupid little boy was going to spoil that for her. Kissing! At her age! But how old was she? He never could be sure with the younger generations. Still, he released the boy but not without some further chastisement, "And you just go around putting your lips on young women in movie houses do you, boy?"
"Kyle, sir," he stammered, inching back, away. There was no magic in that one. Not even a drop. He wasn't good enough for a Parris. His granddaughter was the offspring of two of the best connected, most powerful, old Salem families. And the boy thought he had it in him to touch her, covet her. Because he did, of that Leonard was sure, it was all over his face. He desired to have her, own her, keep her.
"Grandpa!" Zoe huffed in annoyance, sounding more like her mother, her grandmother, than anyone should be allowed to, and it made his heart ache for his girls. "Stop," she said when he looked at her, lip protruding, and he almost expected her to stamp her little foot. "I like him." Her tone was pleading as her large hazel eyes shot wide, realizing what she had said out loud.
"What?" the older man thundered.
"You do?" the boy asked in wonder, breaking out in a grin even as he continued to watch Leonard with trepidation, a hint of fear. The non-magical often feared what they did not understand, sensed the otherness in their bones.
But before Zoe could respond to either of them there was a commotion outside, the sound of an explosion, like thunder but closer. Leonard's face whipped around, glaring up at the projection room. "Get her out of here! Now!" he hollered at Kyle as people began pouring from the theater, rushing and pushing.
"Grandpa?" Zoe gasped even as Kyle took her by the arm and began tugging.
"I'll be alright, sweetheart," he told her with a grin. "Go on." And they were off as he turned, sprinting for the stairs to the balcony, dashing into the melee, toward danger, as he always did. Leonard knew his granddaughter would be alright because he knew he would see her again, further on down the road. Or he already had, depending on how you saw things. Time wasn't linear; actually it was just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. And he simply travelled through it.
"Zoe!" Kyle gripped her hand in his, trying to keep her close to him in the crush of bodies hurrying toward the emergency exits. Sirens were blaring, the lights gone black so only eerie caution strips and bright strobes lit their way.
"I'm here," she replied, squeezing his fingers and hoping their friends were alright. Until she tripped, falling to the sticky floor, nearly trampled by the worried mob.
Kyle hurried back to help her to her feet, hands under her arms, hauling her up along his body, buffering the masses until she was standing again. It was the wrong time and maybe completely inappropriate, but Zoe couldn't help the shiver that ran through her at the feel of his arms around her, his chest pressed to her back. And then they were moving again, Kyle pushing her along in front of him.
A second blast tore through the building, a wave hurtling down the corridor they were in, tossing them like ragdolls as a ball of flame licked at the air, fluttering after them.
Zoe and Kyle were almost at the door, eyes wide, as they were blown through it and tossed effortlessly to the pavement beyond.
When she woke up, sore and aching all over, Zoe couldn't hear a thing, only a high-pitched ringing and it hurt to open her eyes. She felt so bone-tired, all she could think about was going to sleep but she couldn't find Kyle. Slowly, painfully, putting her arms underneath her and getting to her knees she crawled forward, searching frantically.
Zoe’s hands were wet. Someone must have spilled their soda she thought, carelessly wiping the liquid off on her white sweater, and watching it turn red. With a thick unsure swallow Zoe lifted her head even as her neck screamed out in pain and tried to take in the sight around her. People, or pieces of people, blood, hunks of meat, and torn clothing. It smelled like burning leaves and barbecue.
She was soaked in blood. It ran down her bare legs, over her eyes, matting her hair down on one side.
"Kyle!" her voice pierced the silence in her own head and suddenly sound came rushing back in. Sirens and screams, people calling for help, others moaning. A helicopter above.
He wasn't actually hard to find, only a few people over, closer to the building. His face was a mass of black and brilliant red on one side, the color traveling down his neck and into his scorched waves of hair. His eyes were closed but she could see his chest moving, rising, and she scuttled toward him on bruised knees and torn palms.
"Oh my god," she exhaled, "Kyle," placing her hand on the unmarred side of his face. He was still, sleeping or unconscious. She looked around them before screaming, "Help!" Her voice breaking, "Help us!"
Footsteps pounded the pavement, a police officer, a medic, and then a second, charging over. The officer pulled her back, let the two EMTs do their work on Kyle.
"What happened?" he asked, "Did you see anything?"
She couldn't tear her eyes away from the boy before her, his shirt being ripped open, monitors being taped to one side of his chest. The blackened flesh was there too, down his arm, his side, over his shoulder. Zoe thought it looked so painful and she wished that she could help him, that she had that power. And maybe she would, someday, but at that moment all she could do was stare as tears slipped down her cheeks.
"It just exploded," she whispered finally, "everything. Boom."
*
At the hospital Zoe's parents were informed that she was an incredibly lucky young woman. She had faired better than anyone else trapped in the corridor when the fire swept through. In fact, she had escaped with only a minor concussion, a bruised rib, and a cut on her forehead.
"She's covered in blood, most of it her own, we thought," the doctor explained, scratching his head, "but we can barely find a scratch on her. It's a miracle." And her mother just beamed, stroking her head, sharing a look with her father who nodded. Zoe had the gift, just as they had always suspected, and at twelve she had presented her first power, to heal herself.
Not only was it rare to present gifts so early but to begin with such a powerful, useful, one was a triumph for their families.
Zoe herself just wanted to see Kyle, to know if he was okay, where he was. "He saved me," she explained over and over again.
But the doctor said he needed his rest, he was a very injured boy, his mother was with him, and Zoe could come back in a few days to visit if she wanted. She agreed, let her parents lead her away, avoiding the eyes of all the other parents, the families, who were not so lucky.
"Grandpa Leonard was there," she told them on the ride home, quietly from the backseat.
"Ah," her father said with a grim smile, "well that explains it.”
"Trouble follows that man everywhere! Next time I see him I am going to give him a piece of my mind. He should have gotten you out of there the moment he saw you, he had to know what was coming."
"He always knows," her father chuckled. But Zoe stayed silent. Sometimes magic folk could be so callus, only thinking of themselves at times of tragedy. All she could think of was Kyle and the feel of his lips on hers, her small hand grasped in his bigger warmer one.
*
Zoe returned to the hospital midweek requesting to see Kyle Spencer. They informed her that he was in the burn unit, on the sixth floor, turn right down the hall.
"I'll wait here," her mother said, lowering herself into a grubby chair. She looked so out of place; her expensive black pantsuit and Chanel purse, dark sunglasses, black hat and perfectly coiffed hair. She looked like a witch, Zoe thought as she made her way to the bank of elevators. But then again, she was.
They had just come from the memorial service for those who died at the theater. Leah and her friends, they had all made it out, escaping through the front, while Zoe and Kyle had wormed their way to the rear. There was still no solid explanation for the blast. Some people said it was terrorists, most people said it was a faulty gas line.
The burn unit was silent, only the occasional beep, the squeak of a shoe on linoleum.
"I'm looking for Kyle Spencer," Zoe repeated quietly to the woman in scrubs behind a massive desk. She stood up and stared down at the girl, smiling.
"How nice! Kyle will be so happy to see a friend." She shook her head, "I think that poor boy is going stir crazy trapped up in here."
"So, he's okay?" Zoe exhaled in a rush.
The woman stopped, looked at her kindly. "He's got a lot of bandages right now. Your friend was badly burned, but he's still the same boy, okay honey? He can talk to you just fine." Zoe nodded nervously. "I just don't want you to be surprised or scared when you see him, okay? It's still him under all that."
They walked down the hall, past door after door, until finally they stopped. "Here you go!" She smiled again, knocking on the door jam. "Kyle, you have a visitor."
"Tell them to go away," he grumbled from inside, the television on low.
"But it's," the nurse looked to her.
"Zoe. Zoe Benson."
"Zoe is here!"
Being small Zoe managed to sneak a glimpse under the woman's arm and into the room as there was a sharp intake of breath. Kyle was propped up on a bed, hospital gown over his one arm, half his chest, the rest of his torso heavily bandaged. Her eyes trailed up to his face. His hair was slicked back and there were even more bandages, red angry looking flesh around his far eye.
"Go away!" he practically shrieked. "I don't want to see her! She can't come in."
"Kyle," the woman began.
"No! Go away! Go away!"
Zoe thought it sounded like he was crying but she couldn't be sure. "Kyle!" she called out.
"Go away," he said once more, his voice a broken wail.
The nurse sighed, glanced down at the pretty little girl before her. "I'm sorry, honey."
Zoe bit her lip feeling like she was going to cry too. "He saved me," she said to the stranger watching her. But the woman simply nodded again, ushering her back to the desk, the elevators.
*
Zoe never saw him again after that. He wouldn't see her the second or third time she visited either and her mother refused to take her a fourth time, calling Kyle an ungrateful boy.
He didn't come back to school and a month later she heard he and his mother had picked up and moved to Louisiana to be closer to family.
But it wasn't the last time she thought of him; Zoe thought of Kyle every day. When she first woke up, before she fell asleep at night. She thought of him the next time a boy kissed her, anytime a boy kissed her. She thought of him when she let Charlie fuck her and she thought of him when Charlie died, as she sat at his funeral. The only two boys she had ever cared about: one burned and scarred, leaving, never to be seen again, breaking her heart, and the other dying between her thighs.
Mother said that kind of thing happened. Some witches had bad luck and with her healing powers came repercussions. She could heal with her body and she could harm. Charlie had been an accident; too much emotion pouring out of her, fear, anxiety, longing, and she had managed to drain the life from him. A heart attack the doctors said, probably a congenital condition that no one had ever spotted, not her fault. But the day her parents packed her off to Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, the premier boarding school for young witches, in New Orleans, the day after her boyfriend's funeral, she couldn't help but think that perhaps her gift was a curse in disguise. That witchcraft really was the work of the devil.
*
Present day
The other girls didn't understand, saw her scars and stared, eyed her with suspicion. It was hilarious. A bunch of witches treating her with hostility and suspicion. But every group needed a scapegoat.
Zoe had been cutting herself for years, since that night at the movies, since her parents explained that her body was magically impervious to harm. That she had lived, walked away, while others had died, been disfigured, because she was special, she was better than other people. Zoe didn't feel better than anyone. Instead a hatred for herself, her ability, fate and the cruelty of life, welled up inside of her and the only way to set it free was to hack at her flesh, mutilate herself, show the world that she should be damaged too.
In the beginning the wounds had sealed closed, knitted up, and vanished within minutes. But with time and practice and patience, Zoe had come to master the skill of self-harm, gained control over her healing abilities, letting the cuts linger for days, weeks, festering and hot, scarring her arms and legs, the back and sides of her neck, her breasts and stomach. Once she slashed her thigh so deeply, so violently, that she nearly bled out. She thought about it, dying in a pool of blood like the ones she had crawled through that night but was too afraid to see what, if anything, was on the other side, so she let the gash close.
That was her first near suicide. Three more had followed over the years. But she had begun to wonder if she could even die. Would her body take over even after her conscious mind had fled? How strong was her gift of preservation?
Her roommate at Miss Robichaux's, Madison Montgomery, had her own issues. Drug and alcohol abuse, a sex addiction, an attraction to much older, married men. And a penchant for killing anyone, any wife, who got in her way. Madison's telekinetic ability gave her the power to murder fairly at will and a way to never be blamed for it.
Ms. Foxx, the school mistress, was trying to work with the girl, but like with most of the other hopeless cases among her pupils, she was failing miserably. It was probably the reason the two, Zoe and Madison, had been paired up in the first place. Hoping they would find a lifeline in one another, pull each other to the surface. In reality they were the millstone dragging the other down into the depths by the neck.
Madison would watch Zoe with the razor, slinking off into the bathroom, and roll her eyes. But she didn't give a shit. They had a pact: watch the others back and stay the fuck out of the way. It had worked pretty well over the years that they had shared a room.
Zoe never tried to hide her scars. She put them on display, right in people's faces, made them look, see her pain writ clear across her body. She made people uncomfortable. She enjoyed it, watching them squirm.
A fraternity party was the perfect opportunity for that kind of thing. She had almost laughed, a gleeful mood striking her, when her roommate asked if she wanted to go. It wasn't Madison's usual scene, partying with children, preferring instead a mix of the seedier bars in town and the high class clubs that catered to her ilk, her targets of choice. But she was bored and out of coke. Zoe was just restless, her skin feeling too tight, pulled taught around her muscles, her bones, itching to break free.
"Yeah, I wanna go," she said climbing off the bed, tugging her shirt over her head.
"Okay, Sally Scar-tissue," Madison grinned, "you want to borrow a dress?" Adding with a hint of deviousness, "Because I have just the thing to show off all your pretty artwork."
*
Madison's clothes were scandalous at the best of times; for classes, dinner, the tea parties Foxx insisted they attend with their fellow witches. Her party dresses were in a category all of their own.
So, Zoe had squeezed into Madison’s dress: black, glittering, one-shouldered. It rode obscenely high on her thighs, exposing the straps of her black garter belt. The red slashes on the upper portion of her legs stood out boldly against her pale flesh, the stark darkness of her stockings. Her black peep-toed heels were studded on the back with silver spikes. Another acquisition from the girls shared closet.
Madison herself had donned a gold and silver second skin, writhing as she dressed like a snake shedding it’s outer layer. It showed off a slim waist and ample cleavage. She looked like a wet dream with her hair a tousled mass of blond. Between her two companions she was a ray of sunlight in the night.
The third girl was a contrast of white skin and black hair, vibrant ruby lips. Her feathered black collar hung over small shoulders, black dress cut down to her navel, sweeping low enough on her back to show the dimples on either side of her spine. Her black stilettoes added more than four inches to her usual height and made her move with a kind of stilted elegance.
At the last moment they had allowed Nicola Radcliffe to tag along with them. Madison despised the other girl. She was hot and she was a bitch and Madison hated competition in those departments. But it didn't stop her from occasionally putting her tongue down Nicola’s throat, or into her pussy, as Zoe attempted to drown out the sounds they made at night with her earbuds. Nicola still knew how much it fucking annoyed her though; the bitch was a telepath.
*
Zoe had tried it off with her roommate once but she just couldn't get into it. Girls weren't her thing. And Madison would fuck just about anything with a pulse. It didn’t make you feel very special. So that had been the end of the experiment. The other girl had moved on to the next in line and Zoe had gone in search of cock.
She'd gotten wasted at Madison's urging, drowning themselves in Hurricanes on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. They never paid for a drink. The guy, some college kid from up north, just down for the week, had done the job. And he hadn't had a heart attack. Zoe on the other hand had nearly passed out on the street, barely out of the alley he had left her in, and couldn't look at a bottle of hard liquor for nearly a month without tasting bile.
The third guy she was with, he had fucking died. An aneurism that time; blood oozing from tear ducts, his nose, his ears. Zoe had finished even after his body had gone limp. His dick was still hard. All that blood, it had reminded her of that night, and she thought of Kyle, wherever, whoever he was, when she came. And she had walked away, another anonymous face at a sorority house. She could have been anyone. They found the body in the morning, crashed out on a lawn chair. It was on the news. No one remembered anything out of the ordinary and Zoe never mentioned it to another soul. Though she had an idea that both Nicola and Nan knew; their gifts were to get inside your head, know your darkest secrets and Zoe had too many under lock and key to worry about hiding such an insignificant blip.
*
Kyle fucking hated parties. Girls eyeing him from across the room, smiling, whispering to their friends. It always ended the same way: they would flock over like a group of twittering birds, say or slur a hello, and within moments be gawking, staring openly at his scars, before drifting away, still whispering about him but in a much less desirable way. Sure, his fraternity brothers, his friends, never mentioned them, hardly noticed them anymore but he knew they were there. Saw them reflected in other people's eyes, in their expressions.
The doctors had done what they could for him at the hospital in Virginia and then later in New Orleans after their move south. Surgeries and skin grafts, creams and ointments, but his hair never grew back on that part of his scalp, his ear was still a twisted useless mass of scarred flesh. His face looked decent, heavily mottled with raised flesh but only about a third of it, and the color was mostly right, a touch dark, purple in places. You couldn’t necessarily see it at first glance, especially not in dim light. His chest, shoulder, and arm were more heavily scarred but those places he could cover. That was why, even with the warm muggy air that night, he was wearing a long sleeved thermal under his polo, his collar popped, to hide the most skin from view.
He sighed, taking another sip of his beer. Kyle knew he should have just stayed in. Gotten drunk in his room, beat off, gone to bed. The night was a bust and he felt like complete shit. But that was when he saw her. Fuck, she was beautiful.
*
"Zoe," Nicola began, blood red nails dragging along her bare forearm, dancing down and along the cross-hatching of scars there. "There's a boy watching you."
Madison glowered, rolled her eyes, "Cut the fortune teller act, bitch."
"Where?" Zoe asked, eyes flickering to the side.
But Nicola was frowning, glancing around warily. Shaking her wild mane she said, "Don't look for him. The things I see, what he sees, what he wants to do to you..."
"He hot?" Madison winked. Zoe smirked.
"He doesn't see himself. Only you." Her gaze snapped up, locking Zoe in place with its intensity, "Violating you. Inside you. His hands on your throat. He wants," but she shook her head again. "Get out, no, stop, I don't want to see!"
Madison cackled, arm draping around Nicola's shoulders, feathers ruffling, reaching to brush her tit. It was Zoe's turn to roll her eyes. "You're only making her want him more, you know. You're, like, hitting all her kink buttons. Zoe loves the rapey vibe," she purred. "Murderers turn her on and shit." Her friend leered.
"Bitch," Zoe laughed. "Let's get some fucking drinks before I find my dream guy, huh? I am way too sober to let anyone fuck me right now."
"If they want to live," Madison stage whispered, Nicola swallowing. Zoe glared. "Oh, I'm kidding, Black Widow." She had a million nicknames for her roommate. Zoe only two for Madison: Bitch and Cunt. Both were fitting.
“Fuck you.”
"One more," Madison pleaded, eyes wide, knees bent as she bounced lightly. Then with out waiting for permission, approval, whatever it was that Zoe had no intention of granting, "My girl gives new meaning to the phrase hate fuck!”
“Really?” she smiled, shaking her head, as a few boring, everyday college girls in cotton dresses walked by eyeing them speculatively. The three witches in the hallway stood out from the rest of the pack; people automatically treated them with distrust. That was just the way it was for magic folk. Zoe was glad they stayed away. She didn't like them either. Those skanks would probably burn them at the stake if given half a chance. That kind of shit didn't change, it just went out of fashion.
*
She saw his scars first, his messy bleached blond curls second, and both made her want to see more. He was slipping around a corner, disappearing into the heaving mass of bodies in the main room. Zoe grabbed her cup and the fresh beer out of Nicola's hand. The girl huffed, tried to argue, but Madison laughed, latching onto her lips, as Zoe walked away from her friends.
She wobbled on her heels, drunk and unused to balancing in anything more than a pair of Docs. His hair was like a beacon; flashing pink, purple, blue, green in the light of the strobes. The music thrummed loudly, dancing through her veins, mingling with the vodka, the line of coke she had done.
He was alone, skirting the edge of the dance floor, turning down a dark corridor just beyond. Zoe bit her lip, smiled, wondered if he meant it as the invitation she took it as.
Everything about the moment was familiar. Like a dream you had once and almost forgot but it was happening when you were awake. The rush of fear, the crowd, the warm exhilaration deep in the pit of her stomach. Her hand in his, that was the only part that was missing.
*
Nicola had told her, after being plied with a few drinks, he was a killer. He'd done it before, wanted to do it again, and Zoe had felt her panties grow damp, her thighs slick. That kind of shit really did turn her on.
"Looks like you've found your soulmate, whore." Madison cocked her brow, "Why are you still hanging around with us?" Maybe she had been joking. Probably she hadn't been. Four years had been enough time for the two girls to get to know one another, really understand how the other worked.
Madison's step-daddy had raped her when she was a kid. Her mom ignored it, just spent the asshole’s money, blew her problems and his fortune up her nose. Her daughter had killed them both, Carrie-style. It was her first kill. She was eleven.
Zoe had been sixteen. They were all fucking murderers. Why didn't he deserve the chance that they had been given? Some people were just built to kill. It was in their breath, their blood, their bones. Some people became killers due to circumstance. Zoe, Madison, their experiences had twisted them, their abilities just made it, killing, hurting, easier. Witchcraft allowed them to feel divine, above earthly matters, above consequences and punishments and guilt. Witches took, they did not give. And that was just the way it was.
*
"What are you doing down here?" the voice of a boy asked her from the darkest deepest point of hall.
"I thought you looked thirsty," Zoe replied.
"Yeah?" he chuckled menacingly, "that your superpower?"
"One of them," she smirked, leaning back into the wall, staying a few feet from him. That blond hair was just visible, as was the outline of his face, all pale hard features, chiseled from marble.
He didn't move and she didn't know what game he was playing, but she liked it. Biting her lip, Zoe smiled again, and held out the red cup of beer in his direction.
*
She had followed him, just trailed him down the blackest corridor in the fucking place and offered him a drink. Like life was simple like that. Like he hadn't spent the past hour imaging her blue lips and cold skin, his hands clamped around her neck, his cock pounding into her, as her limp thighs fell to the side.
But she was so fucking gorgeous. That dress, her tight little body, silken hair going on for miles, just like her legs. Fuck, and the stockings, the straps. A girl like her was put on earth to torture a guy like him. Because girls like her didn't just give it to guys like him. Maybe she'd smile but then she would see them and her eyes would give her away. Pity or disgust, he didn't fucking want either. He wanted to get his dick wet. He wanted something aside from his spit-slicked palm and something brutal playing on his laptop.
But even more, Kyle wanted to be a normal fucking guy. One who had stayed home that night rather than chasing after the specter of Zoe Benson, a girl he had convinced himself was the most breathtaking creature on the planet. He wanted to hear about the movie theater explosion on television the next morning, stunned into silence like the rest of the town. He wanted to ask Zoe how she was the next time he saw her, show her compassion, let her cry on his shoulder, kiss away her tears, and take her to the mall the following weekend to eat pizza and play arcade games.
He wanted a normal fucking face. Not one people shied away from or gawked at, slowly turning him from an outgoing kid into a studious introvert. He wanted to go to homecoming, prom, leave for college and reinvent himself. It was hard to become someone else when a third of your face was still scarred and people just couldn't help but wonder what the hell happened to you. Then thanked god or whatever that it hadn't happened to them.
He wanted girls to flirt with him. To see him, not just his good side, as his mother called it. He wanted to be more than a good friend, a guy they could really talk to. He wanted to be wanted. But most of all Kyle was desperate to have normal urges. He didn't want to think about blood and bullet holes, bile and shit and piss, filth. He wanted to lay a girl down on his bed and worship her with his mouth, slowly peel away her clothes, make her blush and giggle as he slid into her, told her she was precious or beautiful or some shit. He wanted that to do it for him, make him hard. It didn't. It make his dick limp, made him feel like heaving.
Give him a girl, bound and gagged, tears on her face, panties hanging off one foot, and he could drill a hole right through her. Hard as titanium. Give him a chance to work her over, observe his creation, and he could fucking fall in love. But in the taking he lost the chance of the giving. No hearts were gifted to him and his lady loves ended their time with him sinking into the black swamp near his uncle's lonely bayou cabin, fodder for the gators.
*
"Are you shy, or something?" she asked him with a grin. He shrugged one shoulder, biting his lower lip. Zoe melted a tiny bit, knees weak. She took a step forward, toward him, "I like the shy thing."
He finally reached for the proffered cup, their fingers brushing, sending a shiver up Zoe's spine.
Taking a deep swallow of her own drink she continued to study him. The beauty of his mottled flesh, the physical representation of pain, of sorrow. She wanted to touch him, it, stroke the pads of her fingers along the raised lumpy skin, skim his ravaged ear, skip along his bare scalp. Her thighs squeezed together at the mere thought of it, the crotch of her panties soaked through.
He was keeping a distance from her and as she slowly stepped toward him. Each step she took caused him to back further into the corner, disappearing deeper into the shadows. "Don't you like girls?" she asked. And he froze. She smiled, sipped her drink, stalking her prey, playing the game by her own rules. "Don't you like me?"
Thick black lashes fluttered against her porcelain cheeks as she coquettishly breathed, "You've been thinking about me." His eyes darted side to side, back and forth, searching. Did he want to escape? Or knock her flat, drag her out by her hair and bury himself balls deep inside her sopping cunt?
"I know you have." Zoe was immediately in front of him then. Barely separated by six inches from the object of her lusting. "And I like it," she sighed, picturing the beautiful, grotesque imaginings of his mind, making Nicola's words come to life in her fantasy.
*
Kyle wanted to say nothing; remain mute and stoic, hard. If he gave into her words, her voice, started to believe, he would be bitterly disappointed. Again. But how did she know? She couldn't, he reminded himself. She was just flirting, acting coy. His heart however beat out a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Taking a deep swallow of beer, a second, and a third, he glared at her. Fucking self-centered, gorgeous, perfect bitch. If she only knew. He was fucking dangerous. He was the devil himself. He was a hunter, twisted and gnarled, mind ravaged. And she just continued to walk into his trap. Kyle wished she would just fucking leave him alone.
Every step back he took, she took two forward, until he was up against the wall, locked in a corner. And suddenly he wondered if he was the only one of the two of them on the prowl, his breath escaping in a stuttering exhale as he stared into her shining hazel orbs, she licked her lips. He was entranced.
The fingers of her hand, the one devoid of a party cup, came to rest lightly on his chest. Kyle’s wide eyes flicked down, taking in the picture of her slender digits, dark nails, on him and swallowed. Her touch danced along his ribs, came to the collar of his polo, tripped up to his chin, and finally rested on his bottom lip, tugging ever so slightly, exposing the moist pink inside.
That gaze of hers was on him again, a flash of small white teeth and a mean little smirk. For the first time in years he felt like prey instead of predator. And then in a sudden flurry of movement her mouth was on his, needy, insistent, hot and wet. His brain shut down as his back slammed against the wall, her body aligned, molded, to his front.
*
He all but dragged her through the exit at the end of the hall, lips sliding, tongues tangling, his hand up her dress, stroking that wet seam through her panties, fingers already slick with her want. He pulled back, considering her as she gripped his belt loops, bringing his pelvis, his straining cock, into contact with the warm place between her thighs, bucking against him with a lazy roll of her hips.
When he didn’t move, because he couldn’t, frozen in a haze of lust and incredulity, she smiled again. "You know, I didn't follow you out here because I thought you wanted to play patty-cake so," she licked her lips, put a hand behind his neck and drew him in again.
Kyle almost couldn't believe it. That she wanted him. Hot mouth and hot cunt begging for it. So he assumed she hadn't seen it, them, the scars, yet. And he wanted her to, wanted to feel her tense, shy away, so he could remind himself that she was not special, that she was just like every other bitch out there.
He rocked forward, thrusting, and she sighed as his mouth fell away from her own with a wet pop, her head knocking back into the wall with a soft thud. Kyle reached into his pocket with his free hand, the one not pressed up against her dripping pussy, and fished out his cell phone, glancing down at it. The screen illuminated his face in a blue-white glow. In combination with the dim lighting on the side of the house she finally caught a good look at his face. His beautiful face. The scars raised but smooth, covering a significant portion of his right side. Her head tilted, considering him from her position against the rough brick. And his eyes bore into her, mouth a firm line, the fingers against her snatch twitching.
"Wait," Zoe’s throat closed, realization dawning on her. Why it had all been so very familiar. Why Nicola had tuned into him, that one particular boy in a crowded house, so easily, so quickly. How, why, they were connected. Why she had been so immediately drawn to him, so eager to have him. But she couldn’t speak, shock writ clear across her face.
"No," he shook his head. "You see, we're past that now." She had confirmed his worst suspicion. She was just like every other soulless cunt in the world. She saw them. Next she'd ask what happened, frown, say how sorry she was, and suggest they return to the party. But things had gone too far, his need at a fever pitch. There was only one way to satiate it.
He brought out a little orange prescription bottle from his pocket, popped the top and dumped two pills out onto his hand. Zoe eyed him, head cocked, silken hair cascading down her left side. He grumbled, “Sorry,” mouth around the rim of his almost empty cup, "it's time for my pills". She nodded, continuing to gaze at him in something akin to disbelief, awe. Had she never seen someone with fucking burn scars before? What the fuck was wrong with her? He hated her fucking stare, her gorgeous fucking eyes. She was so open and sweet like that, her mouth forming the shape of a little ‘o’. So unlike the normal looks he was on the receiving end of but just as painful because it reminded him of what she saw, what was there. Why someone as exquisite as her, with her leaking cunt and tiny tits, the perfect girl, would never go for him.
And before she could say anything, just fucking ask the question she was terrified to ask, afraid the answer would be no, or that he would reject her again if it was yes, his mouth was on her neck, tongue dragging up toward her ear, tracing her jaw. He expected her to go rigid but instead her breathing faltered, a small needy sound slipping from her. His lips sought hers, aggressive, desperate and maybe just a little bit broken, as she sighed, melting into him. He was so good, coaxing her to open for him, fingers slipping down the wet insides of her thighs, trailing away from the place she was burning for his touch.
The capsules in her mouth came as a surprise as they glided smoothly from him to her. She struggled, trying to pull back, shake him off, ask what the fuck he thought he was doing. But when his lips left hers, his hand took their place. He smiled, a devil’s grin, blond hair in his eyes, as he pinched her nose, stopping her ability to draw air.
"Swallow them and I'll let go," he told her, their foreheads brushing. She shook her head no. "Do it," he growled, other hand tearing her panties aside, brutally pinching her clit and making her gasp as his body crowded her into the wall, scraping her back. Her eyes were wide as she did what he asked.
Kyle removed his palm, allowed her to inhale a much needed breath, before his fingers left her pussy. One arm pinned her, forearm across her chest, holding her in place, as his sopping digits nudged past lips. She moaned at the taste of herself and he smirked. His fingers swept under her tongue, between her gums and her cheek, before pulling back out slathered in her saliva. "Good girl," he hummed, kissing her lightly.
"What did you give me?" She panted.
"Nothing serious, a couple muscle relaxants. It will make this all," he paused, thoughtful but excited, "easier. You're going to feel so good soon. Free, like a bird." And he kissed her again, stroking her sides. "I like birds," he whispered against her mouth.
"Why do you like them?" Why was she asking? She should have been thinking but she didn't want to think. She wanted Kyle. And every moment more she spent with him the more certain she was that the boy before was, in fact, Kyle Spencer. His dark eyes were studying her and all she could see was that boy at the movies, the one who kissed her, who held her hand, who saved her, and she wondered if he saw her too.
He shrugged, "They can fly away when things get too crazy, I guess. And they're so fragile. Small, thin bones, delicate wings, so graceful," his mouth slide across hers as Zoe’s body grew pliant in his arms, soft and yielding, as he put a hand around her waist, keeping her on her feet. "Like you," he added, stepping away from the fraternity house, propping her up as her feet fumbled, legs wobbling. "So small," his mouth on her ear, "so precious."
And they looked like any other couple as they emerged from the darkness; girl drunk and leaning on her boyfriend as he smiled and made conversation, helping her home.
Zoe could still speak though her speech was somewhat slurred. "Where are you taking me?"
"My room," he replied amicably. "I’m the president of Kappa Lambda Gamma. We’re not the coolest guys on campus but we’re no Tri-Lambs.” She breathed a chuckle, tossing him a smile and he returned it, adding, “I live at the house. It's not far."
"I can't believe you're in a frat," Zoe snorted, the drugs making her fell even drunker than she already did. "I think frats are full of fascists."
She willed her body to process the muscle relaxants, expel them like a cancer. She could usually will off the effects of a night out, healing herself, but had never had to try it with prescription pills let alone at full potency.
"You know," he slowed, turning her in his arms and kissed her hard, her hands clutching fistfuls of his polo. Kyle left her gasping before continuing, "I don't mind being reduced to a stereotype but," he hummed along her neck, sucking a fresh, blooming bruise into the skin there, as her head fell back, small hands dropping to hook into his waistband, "I’m here on a scholarship. There’s more to me than just that."
“I know,” Zoe replied on a sigh, leaning into him as he stilled. It hit him, how like a regular date it was, that moment. Being with a girl, laughing, smiling, kissing and touching. His heart pounded, thumped, slammed against his chest. And he hated her a little bit more for making him feel that way, accepted, wanted. Because he had filled her up with pills and she was supposed to be frightened, fighting, not enjoying herself, giggling and babbling at him.
But Kyle grinned, couldn’t stop himself. “Yeah?” He played along, cursing himself, his weakness, his fingers itching to be inside her again, feel her slick, spongy walls grasping him, welcoming him.
“You like dogs. And your favorite color is red. You were a boy scout. And your dad walked out when you were little. You stopped those guys you hung out with from beating up Ryan Nichols just because people thought he was gay.” Her voice was wistful, eyes growing heavy. Every time she blinked it was harder to open them again. Zoe felt like she was having an out of body experience, warning herself to stop talking. “Shut up,” she said out loud instead of in her head.
“What?” He gripped her upper arm hard enough to bruise.
“He doesn’t know you,” she continued.
Kyle was at a loss. The drugs made you feel drunk and his girl had been drunk when she swallowed them, but she was talking crazy. They stopped in the middle of the road, standing still in one another’s arms. Her hands trailed up his chest, his neck, fingertips ghosting along his scars without fear or trepidation. Her face was utterly free of repulsion, in fact there was something shiny in her eyes as she sighed, body falling against his, sagging with a sort of relief.
“You kissed me that night,” she whispered finally, against his mouth. “I had wanted to kiss you for so long and you did it. But then,” her tongue ran along his lower lip, “boom. And you never wanted to see me again.” Her voice broke and she knew she had lost her grip, that the drugs were coursing through her veins, utterly overpowering her defenses. “But why, Kyle?” And was she fucking crying? She hadn’t cried since she was twelve years old. Not when Charlie died, not when her parents sent her away. Not since Kyle Spencer refused her final visit at the hospital, since he moved away without a word, leaving her in tatters, in pieces, never to be whole again. “What did I do?”
( Ashes to Ashes 2/2 )