The Final Female

Chapter Fourteen

A beautiful whir travelled up my fingers, past my knuckles, across my wrist and clung around my arm like a vine. 

His hand was so smooth. So strong. Why was I scared again? I had been scared right?

I was in a daze as I followed Jay. I hated the fact that I felt like a girl back in the schoolyard, yet I loved it all the same. We were walking past the mall and towards the dining area when suddenly that gleam was back again and my hand was cold. The gleam wasn't in the form of a cow now, but the scar ridden face of a muddled man with the eyes of a spider. Beady, and wanting. Waiting to spin its web. 

I had caused those scars. Part of me was proud. The other part remembered why I had caused them. 

It seemed like I had teleported when I appeared right before the man himself. He sat in my seat. At the table I had become accustomed and welcomed too in my short time here. Jay continued to pull me forward, not an ounce of sense of the matter in mind. No one knew. 

The soft tug on my arm alluded to me that I had stopped my walk at some point. 

"Alex? Let's go sit down. You should eat." 

"No. I'm really not hungry. I'll meet you later yeh?" Our fingers detach as I'm consciously forced away. Further, further, further as I yearn for the hut I had stolen from a boy in more need of it than me. 

Why couldn't I just face him? I had nothing to be ashamed of. He was the pinnacle of  shame in this situation. But I feared him terribly, and no matter how much my stubborn heart told me not to, my mind replayed his image in my head. On top of me. A cell. Wine bottles. Counted days on a wall. Wishing, wanting for something worth fighting for. 

The sole's of the worn down trainers I found in an elderly home back when I was alone slap against the earth as I walk hastily away. Before I make it far however I hear the boyish taunts of a monster disguised as a playboy. 

"She's a good lay isn't she lad?" Silence. Utter silence. And then a sharp crunch followed by an encore of yells. 

I wanted to run. I was facing in the right direction to do just that. But instead the worn soles of my trainers turned me back in the direction of the chaos. Jay was on top of him laying on punch after punch, ruining the artwork of scars I had placed upon his face. Zander was frantically grabbing at Jay's arms trying to pull him off. Countless men jumped upon Jay to rid him of his mission yet no one could get him off. Even Isaac who usually watched from afar and led by example was stepping in and tugging at Jay's arm's.

He had snapped. He was broken. He'd figured it out. 

He was angry.

He was going to kill him if he didn't stop soon. My mind kept my feet planted, urging him on. Kill, kill, kill it chanted. My heart thought of the aftermath and turmoil for Jay however and I was in front of his next punch quicker than the blood was oozing from his victims flesh. 

His eyes were animalistic and frightening before they honed in on my scared face, inches from his own. His fist lowered and his hand came to the back of my head, pulling me into his chest.

I could feel the rapid intake of breath as his chest rose and fell. My body was flush against his. In any other situation I would have struggled away by now, but this all felt so right. One arm wrapped around my torso as if he was shielding me from the beast below and any other primate that would enter our territory. My heart seemed to stop for a second. A moment. A fleeting hour. 

"What the bloody hell was that for!" Isaac broke away the brigade Jay had set up. I stepped away quickly but Jay kept me close by pushing me slightly behind and to the side of him. 

"He had no right to say that." 

"Yeh, we get it, maybe it was a jock boy move on the git's part but I don't think he deserved.... well, that!" Isaac said motioning to the mess of a man on the floor who was slowly regaining consciousness. 

His eyelids began to open and his head rolled from side to side. The reopened scars were beginning to clot and the blood flow was depleting. My palms began to sweat and my knees felt like buckling beneath me. I wanted the stable again. I needed to leave. 

"Look Isaac I'll exp..." Jay looked down at me as I tugged on his arm.

"I need to go." I whispered. Zander was behind me now too. He could sense my distress. 

"Yeh... ok. Let's go." Jay said calmly as he held my shoulders comfortingly and began leading me away.

"No! Jay we aren't done. You can't just do this to people." Isaac yelled. 

It was too late. A bulky man to his left had helped him sit up. He was awake and conscious, and I was still there. 

"Alex. How are ya darlin'? Still causin' trouble I see." He grinned. The gleam in his eye taunted me closer. 

"Benjamin." I stated as strongly as I could, though I knew everyone saw the shake of my limbs. 

"Jay. I really need to leave now please." I don't know why I was pleading for Jay's help. Why not Zander's? I blamed my logic on the oncoming panic attack. 

"Ah! I see how it is. Found yourself a new lad to help speed up the process. Better hurry along now... Jay, was it? I think she's getting dry. Otherwise she'd have a couple pairs of feet running around by now."

I thought it would be Jay to run forward, and he almost did, but Zander had Benjamin back on the ground before he'd even finished his sentence, and this time, no men were pulling him back. 

"Zander," I croaked, "Zander stop. He's not worth it." 

Zander stood up with a foot on Benjamin's chest to keep him down. 

"What the fuck did this prick do to you Lex?" He was seething.

"Not here Zee. Not here." His eyes softened. He already knew. Maybe not the extent of it. But he knew. They all did.

"I'm so sorry I left you. I never should have fucking left you." A single tear was rolling down his cheek before he had the time to stop it. 

"You never could have known."

"How long?"

"Not now Zee."

"How long Alex?" It was Jay now. His arms were around my waist as my back leant against his chest. His voice flew past my ear. I could feel the tightness of his jaw. 

"228 days." I whispered as I remembered the carvings on the wall I had bloodied my hands to make. 

"That's 7 months and 2 weeks." Patrick muttered from the sidelines. Oh God. Why did he have to witness all this madness too? I wanted to cart him away with me. 

"That's it. I'm killing him." Quinn said.

"I'll help." Grumbled Vince.

Jay's chest was heaving and the veins in his arms were constricting like a snake. 

Zander couldn't even look at me. He avoided my eyes as an unneeded shame spiral began.

Isaac stepped forward and pushed Zander's leg off Benjamin's chest. He motioned a couple men to help him and they lifted him up.

"He's out." 

At his words and a quick motion of the fingers, Benjamin was being carted towards the gate that he had entered into not too long ago.

A small part of me couldn't help but feel guilty at ruining his chances at a better life in the Vivo away from the virus and apocalyptic living.

The other part hoped he'd burn.