The Final Female

Chapter Thirteen

I had made it to the roof of the mall only to realise it was too open spaced. I needed somewhere small. My breath shook with each intake. My hands shuddered as I rung them together and my nimble fingers lightly twisted the top of my ear, a nervous impulse I had picked up. Turning around suddenly I began to descend the building. The path was clear but also difficult and jagged. In my haste I slipped and my body went back, my head smacking the ground last. I was falling as my arms went out to grab at the roof. I fell half way down to a ledge and part of me just wanted to stay there. But my breathing was quickening, my head pounding, thoughts whirling. I knew I was having a panic attack. I'd had them before. It was too open here. I needed somewhere small.

In the past I would run to my room and sit in the gap between my dresser and the wall. After the Heat I would run to the forest and find the two closest trees together I could and wedge myself between them. I didn't have a space here, and now my heart felt like it was pulsing. Pushing myself up I ran to the next nearest building, the stables near the farm. I couldn't go into the mall, there were too many people in there. My mind was going at a mile a minute as my feet began hitting soft grass and mulch instead of pavement.

I could feel hands on my waist and spun around to find no one there. Taking a shaky step back as my eyes flitted back and forth I quickly turned back around and found myself inside the makeshift stable. The pigs and cows looked at me with their big black eyes and suddenly all I saw was that gleam again. Every animal I turned to, all I saw was that gleam. The mischief. The knowing look. The wanting. The greed. The need.

Backing up I fell again as my legs hit a pile of barrels and crates pressed up against the wall. Ignoring my muddied legs I crawled to a space between the wall and a barrel. Turning so my back was pressed against the wall with the barrel and wall tight against my sides, I hugged my knees to my chest and placed my head in my hands.

My foot tapped. My finger and thumb played with the bony cartilage at the top of my ear. My breathing was jagged. My heart seemed like it wasn't even there it was going so fast.

I jumped and stilled at one of the pigs running at another. My eyes met one of the larger cows. White and brown splotches littered her skin and her nose was wet from the trough. The gleam was still there. Looking at me. Scanning me. Picking me apart.

I looked down, concentrating on my legs. Suddenly fingertips graced my thigh and I contorted backwards, further into the wall as my fingers went down and scraped up my leg. I would rather feel pain. Red and raw scratched lines with small pricks of bloods protruded from my leg before they began contorting to form a large hand print. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.

His face formed in my vision. The gleam. The grin. The groan. Guttural and low.

Snapping my eyes open again I focussed on the sweat forming on my hands and felt the sweat dancing across my forehead.

I could still feel everything. The warm mulch and grass below me felt like hard, cold concrete. The natural wood markings on the wall twisted into tally marks of days counted and recorded. The stacked crates formed bars and the stable was a cell all over again. I couldn't feel my clothes against my skin. I was naked. I was battered. I was bruised. I was a free for all.

My hands tremor as I place them on either side of me. One on the wall, one on the barrel. Pushing out I grounded myself. My arms were tired but I kept pushing as the pressure built up and the wall pushed back.

It felt like I sat there for a millennium with hands crawling over my skin and pressure against my back.

I need to leave. I can't stay here. I knew the vivo would be bad for me, I knew it would turn out the same again. They were all lying to me. They told me this was a safe place. Nowhere containing that man is a safe place. They were all liars. My eyes zoned in on the droplets falling and hitting the earth below me. They were sinking down into the mulch and creating a small puddle. Squeezing my eyes shut I released my arms and wrapped them back around my knees.

I must have stayed in the same spot for hours. I could tell by the way my back ached and my spine seemed to pop and creak at small movements, but still, I didn't move and I stayed until a soft voice called from the ajar barn door.

"Alex? Are you in here?" Jay... why was it always Jay. I stayed silent but by the way the mulch and hay shifted I knew he had seen the mayhem I had caused finding this spot and his feet where shuffling slowly towards me.

Cautious. He was painfully cautious.

"I'm not going to blow up you know." I whispered.

"I didn't think you were." His voice was so smooth, and yet, I didn't trust it anymore. He said the Vivo was safe. The Vivo was not safe.

Then I started shaking again.

His feet moved quicker as he knelt down in front of me, his hand reaching for my shoulder before I squirmed away and it dropped dejectedly.

"Alex shh. Calm down it's ok. You're safe."

There it was again, that word.

"What happened hey? Do you want to talk about it? We found Zane. He's not hurt. He's safe."

I cringed again.

I hadn't looked up yet. My face was still wedged between me knees as I hugged them to my chest. And I knew that I didn't want to look up any time soon. But somehow, when Jays voice whispered to look up as his fingers gently pushed my chin I let my head tilt till I met his eyes.

And somehow, despite how terribly I wished upon myself for it not to be true, they seemed like the only eyes in the world I would be happy and content with seeing every day for the rest of my life. 

I was safe.