STRANGER, jesper fahey

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"It was real."

He saved your life, he saved your life, he saved your life, the thoughts kept repeating long after Gwen had finally stumbled her way home, had grown louder, more haunting with every step she took into her kitchen, sinful hands shaking and greedy as she clutched onto the counter as if it were a raft in the drowning seas. Saints, he'd actually saved her life, done so like it hadn't even meant a damn thing, had saved her when she'd broke him, when she'd crushed his heart in her cruel fingers because she hadn't expected she'd be around long enough to see the aftermath and yet there she stood.

The rumbling thunder outside did little to distract her, nor did the quick flashes of lightning that had followed her like a lost pet, in fact, all it did was made her head hurt and force her whole body to roll with uncontrollable tremors, her legs shaking beneath her as if warning her of her own exhaustion that would only get worse if she continued to let the burdens of her awaiting emotions get the better of her. Sometimes, she truly did miss the horror of the Stranger...because at least then, she had something to hide behind instead of this hollow shell.

"Fuck." Such a word was practically punched from Gwen's bruised lips as she heaved a sigh with her head bent low, bones straining with the weight of everything that she was forced to hold up, mind reeling still from fates's cruel punishment as she wiped a hand down her face tiredly, as if trying to scrub the nightmares of the day away...only to almost rench when she felt the slick dampness of perspiration in her palm, looking down in horror to the smudge of dirt upon her arm, the specks of blood on her elbow, something she had stupidly ignored in her own disastrous turmoil until it was too late.

You're going to get sick, you're going to die, you're going to rot, you're going to burn in damnation for your sins-

And the Rietveld girl barely even lasted another moment before she was throwing up her lunch into one of the buckets she kept under her sink as flashes of the past came rushing up to greet her like a mocking ghost that only wanted her ruin, cursing and sobbing as her throat became bloodied and raw, the agony lacing through her every breath until she could test copper mortality on her tongue which only made things so much worse as she heaved and heaved and heaved into the quiet of the night with only the still raining skies to bare witness to the pathetic omen of death made human.

She thought she was over this, thought with the so called resurrection of Kaz that she'd lose such weakness that had tormented her, because the cause of it all was fucking alive, perhaps not as she remembered him, perhaps as a phantom with his face and still beating heart, but it wasn't like she was the same girl she was either, it wasn't like she, herself had killed the most softest parts of herself for survival too...but as Gwen stood up to scrub her trembling hands raw in the basin to the side of her, she realised that she would never be let go from the clawed talons of her trauma, of her grief, that they would always simply be apart of her.

Perhaps, because she was so busy being torn apart by her own thoughts, that was why she didn't hear the call of her name as she stood there and kept scrubbing, didn't hear the limping footsteps, didn't hear the sharp inhale right by her ear until it was too late...until gloved hands wrapped around her wrist and roughly yanked her away from the basin with a snarl, snapping her right back to attention as the wind howled in warning, ripping herself away from Kaz's grip and wondering what his problem was...only to feel the sudden ache of her palms, and finally glancing down to see them dripping red.

"Oh."

And a few minutes later had her sitting upon her counter with a roll of fresh bandages being wrapped around the raw flesh that stung something awful, occasional hisses slipping through her mouth when she caught the sensitive skin, pretending she couldn't see the dark look in Kaz's eyes as he watched her from her table with his leather bound hands clenched tightly over his cane...but eventually, even she wasn't immune to the scorching glare that felt like it was actually burning her as it drilled holes into the side of her head. "I didn't do it on purpose, I just got distracted, stop looking at me like that."