The Goth and His Psycho.

The Goth and His Psycho: [Chapter Twenty Eight]

  Alex stared at her for a long moment, choking on a hysterical laugh that bubbled in his throat. 

  "That's not funny" he murmured, gawking at her in horror. 

  "When have I ever been funny?" she smiled gently, leaning heavily against the bark of the tree, cast in shadows of blue, grey and black. The only colour Alex could detect around him was the green of her eyes, set alight by the sliver of a moon above them. Her face was a deathly pale, her hair black as an abyss, even the blood which coated her hands and forearms and a brush of it against her left cheek was a shade of grey rather than scarlet. 

  "Then stop joking" he snapped, and stumbled forward to take her waist again, she shoved him back so hard he tripped and tumbled onto his ass, squashing rotten leaves beneath him. 

  "Listen to me" she snarled, she stood above him like some kind of conquering hero "They are going to find us. They are going to kill me. They are going to arrest you. That is the situation we are faced with, Alex Brady. If you kill me, right now, I will be free" 

  "No, you'll be dead" he whispered, tears rose pathetically in his eyes. 

  "And if I live?" she screamed, and her eyes were wild and she was shaking, her face contorted into a monstrous mask and Alex was breathing heavily at the prospect of his Bree disappearing and this villain replacing her. "If they catch me and don't kill me I'll go back to Crickly! Do you want that? Do you want me to rot in a padded cell?" she hissed viciously, fury twisted her features "Well?!" she bellowed. 

  "Of course not!" he whimpered, angling away from her with a grimace "But I can't kill you, Bree. I can't. We can run away together." 

  "And go where?" she turned and lashed out at the tree. Alex's heart lurched at the crunch of bone and Bree hardly made a noise of pain. He realised how far she had gone; she'd sunk into her own insanity and she wasn't even human now - she could not even feel pain, and that was all Bree usually felt. "I will always be like this, we will never be safe, never be content or comfortable. Always looking over our shoulder because I will always leave bodies in my wake" 

  She turned back to him and her rage was gone. When she saw his face she turned away, no doubt hating what she saw displayed there; sadness, hurt, regret, fear. Instead she looked down at her hand, at the swelling and torn knuckles, she wiped a finger through the blood trailing down the back of her hand and wiggled her fingers. The noise her shattered knuckles made had Alex's stomach turning sickeningly; it was as if a child was crunching a piece of paper in its fist. She winced, but Alex knew that the injury warranted a larger reaction than that. 

  "I can't, Bree" he whispered and shook his head.

  "It has to be you" she looked up at him and she was intense, completely convinced of her own knowledge "They have to believe you were not helping me. They have to believe that you had nothing to do with me, the only thing that will convince them is if you are the one to kill me. You tell them something, anything. You tell them that I have been living in the woods this whole time, you tell them you were partying with those boys and I attacked you, and you wanted revenge for me killing your friends. You tell them you followed me and that you shot me. You won't be convicted, you'll be a hero. They'll believe you and you'll be fine" 

   "You think I could do that?" Alex gasped, his hazel eyes stricken "You think I could take credit for your murder as if it was something to be rewarded for?" 

  "You don't have to believe what you're telling people!" she growled "You just have to tell the story. They have to believe. I can't die knowing that you won't be okay."