SOTC: Itch — Nothing but Thieves
• 'Cause I, I just wanna feel something real •
April's skin was patchy and red.
She felt the exhaustion hang from her shoulder blades like heavy metal wings. Sluggish, bleary, her eyes clouded.
She studied her reflectlon. Hair limp at each side of her round, pale face. Forehead riddled with red constellations and pockmarks. Unbecoming bags slung under her faint green eyes. Mauve, like week-old grapes.
April splashed water on her face, downed another gulp of her coffee. Nothing seemed to help.
She stretched, bones aching, throbs hammering down her spine.
She still felt his touch along her back. Like his fingers singed holes through her shirt, like her skin was blistering red in the shapes of his hands.
She didn't have the headspace—or the energy—to think. Just put one hand around her front, touched the place where he touched so long ago.
Her lips twitched into a grimace. Downward, then back into place, as if they had never moved at all.
What bothered her most was the way Carl didn't widen the space between them. As they walked to get breakfast, he kept it at a charged distance, upon the precipice of discomfort.
After all the shit she'd done. To him. To his family. She took him away from his life. And his shoulders were mere inches from hers, and—
To think that he would venture so closely along her event horizon.
He could be simply brave-stupid, or horny-stupid. Probably both, to some measure.
But no, April knew this devil, just like she knew her own.
He shared in her desolation.
Condemned just as she was. Uprooted from childhood and into this ugly hellscape.
Their event horizons, they were crossing. Unchecked, they would slip together, join into one.
Roiling, capsizing, a machine for the gods.
And maybe she was thinking too much. She should take her own advice. Maybe he was just lost in thought, or giving up, or sparking the beginnings of flattery. It worked on her before, didn't it?
This had happened before.
April felt her muscles seize together. That's what it was. This was why she was so... consumed.
So many nightmares, especially last night. Oliver kept returning to her, like a monster to its escaped prey.
She thought it was over when Oliver was gone. When the lies sloughed off their skin. When she was alone.
But maybe when Carl ran his teeth over his lip, or pressed his knuckle to his chin in thought, or that instinctive movement to adjust his absent hat, maybe it was all real. Maybe was fake, but in the pit of her stomach, she damn wanted it to be real.
The paranoia, doubt, double-identity. Biting at her heels. Biting at the inside of her cheek in silent thought, as Carl snuck glances across the table.
♛ ♛ ♛ ♛ ♛
In that moment, Carl acknowledged two parts of his thoughts.
For the first, he was wary. She was deceitful, horrific. And he still felt a chill arc down his spine every time her eyes fell on his.
But also—he couldn't kid himself anymore.
He watched her set her paper plate on the table, then absentmindedly pick at her lunch, like a pigeon over spilled cornmeal. He'd never seen her so absorbed within her mind.
He acknowledged both sides of his thoughts: dislike and concern.
It was some kind of paradox.
"Carl."
His gaze snapped to meet hers. "Yeah?"
"Follow me."
Carl blinked. "On MySpace? Or—"
April cracked a smile. "No, you dumb fuck." She stood from her chair. Strode out of the room, with hands in the pockets of her cargo jacket.
Carl rode in her wake. As the two of them emerged into the sun-stained midmorning air, it became apparent where they were going.
April's jeep, Heidi.
Carl's gut plummeted ten feet. "Where are we—"
"Nowhere." She twirled her keychain on her finger, smug.
Carl's thoughts began to race. She was going to kill him. Twist his arm behind his back and put a bullet in his brain. He was fucked. He was going to never—
He took a breath. No, he was done with this. Done with being led around like a showdog. If he was going to die today, he might as well get it over with.
Carl narrowed his expression into a disgusted sneer. "Okay, Queen Shitstain, Let's get this show on the road."
♛ ♛ ♛ ♛ ♛
It was true, she was driving to nowhere.
As nowhere as she could get. The middle of the forest. April took caution to go in areas unmanned by scouts, as she had looked at the log earlier. It would be an hour until her father's men did a sweep through this area, and that hour was everything.
After a long, bumpy ride accompanied by U2 blasting out the speakers, she came to a stop. Peeked through the windows, observing solid greenery in all directions.
Carl gingerly popped open his door, letting the trees' rich fragrance enter his skin. He felt nerves crawl into his joints, focusing on how April was rummaging around in the Jeep's trunk.
He studied himself in the side mirror. He almost looked scary, in the dark shadows his hat and his hair cast across his cheeks. The sunken quality of his eye socket, smudges of red on skin as he hadn't bothered to clean his wound this morning. But what topped it off was his expression. Rather than the lost, lonely gaze he'd been wearing all week, his frown was solid. Steely. Certain, like the glare of a war memorial statue.
He was ready.
He could feel it coming. An itch, like death, but sweeter.
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QOTD: Why do you think April led Carl out into the woods? Was it a plot to kill or manipulate him, or was there something deeper in the works?
AOTD: Find out next time, my dudes ;)
x x x x x x x x x x
Word Count: 1013
Created 5-28-17
Edited 5-28-17
Edited 6-6-17
Edited 6-28-17
Edited 8-21-17
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DEVILS ♛ C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗
Fanfiction[ c o m p l e t e d ] "She looked like a goddess. The kind that sends cities to their knees in fear. The kind that is never in picture books. The kind that twists people." - - - - - April is a devil. A demon. And above all, she is a...
