Something Amiss (Hoodie x Reader)

Forty Four: Confession

You didn't remember fainting, yet the next thing you were aware of, you were waking up to darkness. Save for a pale, artificial light filtering in through a set of dust-caked blinds, stripes of light illuminating dust in the air. For the second time today, you awoke in a strange bed. Though this one felt to actually be a bed, not an oversized baking tray. No duvet, but a mattress and pillows, and an ancient wool blanket that rubbed scratchily against your arms. The jacket of Brian's that you'd been wearing was over the back of a lonely chair by the window, your shoes on the seat. Like shitty modern art, the light through the chair cast deceiving shadows around the room. It was serendipitous that this hellhole had windows at all.

Upon groggily turning to one side, red numbers glared you in the face. A digital alarm clock, 8:16pm. Not that you knew what time you'd fallen prey to shock, but at a guess you'd been asleep for more than two hours. Sleep yearned for you to return, but the image of Lily half-dead in the basement was imprinted on the back of your eyelids. You instead sluggishly kicked the musty cloth off of you, sitting up and taking a moment to feel the inside of your skull be hit with a mallet. If only you had the luxury of tylenol.

You approached the window, pulling the blinds down a little to peer out. Beyond the grimy glass was the road, the same one you'd been down on the way here. Not a car in sight, the light of a single flickering streetlamp not reaching the potholes in the asphalt. The desire for fresh air amongst the muck of the warehouse getting the better of you, you flicked at the cold metal lock. It was a little stiff but gave way all the same, letting you slide one pane down.

Cool breeze fluttered about your hair. You watched the distant trees sway with longing as a smattering of raindrops began to fall at a slant. The ground wasn't far, a drop that would be awkward but would most likely leave your bones unscathed. You could picture yourself making the jump, running into the night. You'd follow the road, try to stop cars and plead for a ride into town. Live homeless, in constant fear, but free.

It was a foolish way to think and you knew it. Even if you made it into the city, you'd still be hunted down by 'proxies'. By Brian, heaven forbid. He'd find you in a matter of days, no doubt. Drag you back, kicking and screaming. You didn't know if you could do that to him. To yourself, more pointedly. He was the only person you had left.

As you forced yourself to turn from the temptation of the tree line, your eyes fell on the end table by the bed. By some remaining instinct, you pattered towards it, the cold of the concrete chilling your feet down to their bones. You pried open the top drawer, finding only a dead cockroach.

In the second drawer, however, was a hunting knife encased in worn leather, and a wad of cash. Emergency items, probably Brian's since he appeared to have been the one who put you in here; though where he was now, you had no hope of knowing. You pocketed both on impulse. Either might come in handy, and right now you'd wager that you were in more need of a knife than he was.

The door creaked open right as you closed the drawer. Shoddy hallway light outlined Brian's tall build from behind, before he slid inside the room and shut the door softly, mask already turned in your direction from the other side of the queen size mattress. To your relief, he almost immediately reached up and pulled the cursed thing off his head. He let the hood fall off his head and reveal his messy hair to you, for the first time since the cereal aisle. Just a few hours since you'd seen his face, but it felt a whole world away.

Brian regarded you with tired eyes, before striding half way across the room and tossing his mask gingerly onto the chair. "How did you sleep?"

He'd just watched you witness yet another bout of trauma-inducing events, and that was his conversation starter. Little urgency in his tone, apathetic and closed-off. You were a little lost, but fair enough.