he said he said where we're going i'm dead

[colla_voce]

But it still startles her; she spins around and her head swims, she spins and can't stop, tilting on her axis like the sun dying, crashing, whirling out of control --

- he left cause'a you -

"Please," Eden opens her mouth and Sarah's quavery stupid little voice comes out, hands flashing bloody over the walls, layered over the prints already there,

Comments

[colla_voce]

Red and blue lights flicker like an erratic heartbeat behind her and Eden McCain rolls her eyes drops her hands and lets the black convertible drift like a drunk staggering over to the side of the bridge. Honestly, officer, I'm fine. It takes a lot more than this teeny little bottle these days. Hey, how's your evidence locker looking?

Oh god, it's just too much effort. Eden is 19 years old and terminally jaded, anything that doesn't fuck her up annoys her to the point of apoplexy. $300 sunglasses slip down her nose and she pushes them back up with a sigh, waits calmly for whatever fat dumb schlub has pulled her over this time. The routine is the same every time, because you know Eden? Well, she really can't help the way she drives, checking her lipstick, one hand wrapped loosely around the long glass neck of a bottle of something or other (it's Jack Daniels tonight, hey Jacky baby, come and play with me, come on darlin' let's burn something down)

Officer Well-Meaning wants to see her eyes. It's charming, really. The way people think eyes are so useful, that they'll tell you what a person is thinking, what they might do next, what they really think. Well, Officer Whatever, Eden will tell you what you really think, as it happens.

As it happens, you're boring her already.

"I think you really wanna go eat some doughnuts."

Of course he does. They always do, just try saying no to Eden McCain. He looks at her and she looks back and will you just get in the car, useless jerk, she's got places to be.

Places she's not going to be going, as it happens. Not tonight. The man in front of the car is there out of nowhere, he's got skin like the ebony keys on a piano, slanted eyes that look right through her.

I see you, Sarah.

Maybe she's wrong about eyes after all.

[colla_voce]

You wake up and everything you've ever seen in your nightmares is true. Your hands are bound and there's tape on your mouth and there's a man you've never seen before staring at you. He looks like anyone, like someone's uncle, someone's dad, innocuous, even sweet with his little smile and his dorky glasses.

You wake up and the bruise on your head is like a gash in rotting fruit, like if you could just cut out the bad you could walk away and be all right. You wake up and you can't move, you're powerless and while there's tape over your mouth they could do anything, make you do anything. It's like drinking, like the coke you wish for right now, for that little bit of liquid fire in your veins to push you just right, just more, if you just had that you could tear yourself out of this chair - but you don't and what you're realizing now is that your voice, your pretty little mouth, that thrumming power under it, all your suppressed desire, all a little girl's dreams come to life, that's like a drug too.

You wake up and you're in withdrawal without even being sober.

But then he pulls the tape off of your mouth - is he crazy? Stupid? you don't know, you don't care, fuck it - and spit as hard as you can, fuck you, no one does this to me, not anymore.

"Let me go. Now," and you're putting more power behind that little word than you ever have, even without your power it would sting, cut, his eyes should melt and slither down his cheeks like wet clay under slick hands. Nobody does this to me, I'm not Sarah anymore, I made myself and you can't take that --

It does nothing - nothing at all. He barely even blinks, just takes out a hankerchief, which you didn't realize anyone even carried anymore, just old men who smell like cheap cigars and loneliness, the kind who smile at her in bus stations, sometimes sweet, sometimes like sharks. The cloth is clean and new and it wipes away all your anger, all your power like the words themselves are being sucked into nothingness, and the man in the doorway nods just once.

Just once is all it takes to make you Sarah again.

The screen flashes off with a snap, but not so loud that it covers the click of the door swinging open. Eden pulls back from the bank of monitors, touching her face, surprised to feel wetness there. Maybe she's bleeding again. Maybe...maybe nothing. She doesn't know. She's tired and her head hurts and god she wants a drink. Something. Anything.

When she opens the door it's in such a stupor she barely registers the way the sound of her feet (which was click-clack on the tiles just a minute ago) is muffled, muted, and then gone.