Paranoia

Chapter sixteen

Maddi’s point of view

            Dade’s face paled and he started to gag. He ran to the small bathroom and proceeded to throw up—although he had nothing left in his stomach.

“So guys,” Bellie started in, breaking the silence that flowed calmly through the hospital room. “I think we should go back to the house.” She smiled softly at Violet and I.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I laughed out.

“No, why?”

“Every time we go there someone dies! Are you stupid!?” Violet rolled her eyes at Bellie.

“Well not anymore.” She said simply.

“Why not?” Violet and I asked at the same time.

“Because Rylie was clearly the one doing everything. It’s a good thing she died, or she would have killed us all. Getting rid of her just gave us one less thing to worry about.” Bellie shrugged, leaning against the wall behind her.

            I looked at Violet, but could barely see her expression considering my own anger fogged my view. My mouth hung open and my eyes were wide. The only sound at that point was my loud heartbeat. My fingers trembled before tightening into a strong fist. I lifted my arm up, and in one swift movement, I struck her jaw with my knuckle.

            There was a loud crackling noise, and I wasn’t sure if it had come from her jaw or my own hand. Dade stumbled out of the bathroom soon after my fist made contact with her face.

“What the hell happened?” His voice was scratchy and deep.

“You…you bitch!” Bellie yelled as tears filled her eyes and poured out. “Dade! Dade, Maddi hit me!” She removed her hand from her jaw. It was already bruising.

“Why would you do that?” Dade snapped at me. Of course he would stick up for her…the most untrustworthy person in the group.

“She said it was better for all of us that Rylie died!” I yelled.

His head snapped to hers and he started walking towards her slowly.

“Whoa, chill.” Violet said, stepping between the two. “We don’t need you to kill another person.” Violet winced at her own remark.

            We had all expected Dade to snap and start screaming and yelling, but to our surprise, he just sat down on the bed calmly.

“I didn’t mean to guys.” His voice was quiet, barely heard. “I-I’m not even sure why I did it…I guess…I guess I just got so angry. I…” He trailed off into incomprehensible mumbles.

            While Dade continued to mumble and cry to all of us, my eyes trailed off to Bellie. Her arms were crossed across her chest tightly; she was shivering. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold fall air, or from intense emotion—maybe both. Her jaw was slowly changing colors…slowly turning purple. Even with a big flaw like that on her face, she was still the prettiest in the group. She would always be the prettiest out of all of us.

            Her pale skin made the freckles that were sprinkled across her smooth face pop. Her eyes were a deep brown that a person wouldn’t be able to capture in a photograph. Her long brown hair fell loosely to the middle of her back. She had straightened it—I personally liked it better when she kept it wavy.

“Would you stop staring at me?” Her eyes darted to me—she felt threatened.

“Guys, shh.” Violet hushed us as she sat next to Dade. “Dade’s talking.”

Since when did Violet care about others? Especially Dade…

“I wanna go back.” Dade whispered.

“Go back where, Dade…?” I asked carefully—although I knew what he was talking about.

“I want to go back to the house.”

            When we arrived at the house, we all stayed clustered together. None of us dared to make a sound. Dade was the first to break the crowd of us. He walked where Rylie’s body was when he killed her. His fingers trailed over the jagged wood lightly. His breath came out shaky.

“I miss her, guys.” The regret in his voice killed us all.

“We know, bud.” Violet neared Dade and she rested a hand on his back.

            Bellie and I shot each other a look. Violet seemed unusually caring for Dade.

“Probably because she walked in on him unconscious on the floor.” Bellie whispered to me knowing what I was thinking. At this point her jaw was swollen, but the throbbing probably stopped considering she no longer needed the icepack the hospital gave her.

“Melodramatic bitch.”, Violet had muttered under her breath when she asked the nurse for one.

I nodded, agreeing with Bellie’s accusation.

“I hate being here at night.” Bellie said after an awkward pause between the two of us.

“Me too.” I agreed.

“Well at least we have the candle light.” Violet jumped in. I didn’t know we were speaking that loud.

And just as Violet finished her sentence, the candle blew out. Leaving us all in the dark.

(A.N.- They have such good luck, right? [;
Thanks for reading! We love you all!<3
~Cassi   )