WDICSM Book 2

We

(Amber's POV)

I returned from my visit to Stockholm to find Dave staring in horror at the blood trickling down his wrist, pressed against the wall in the corner. With no words I sealed the wound and sat down next to him. Neither of us spoke. I was the first to break the silence.
"Can I just ask why?" I murmured. "That's all I want to know."
"I don't do it on purpose." He sighed. "It's just a reflex. Whenever I think about the incident nowadays..."
I didn't say anything more. We both made our way down to testing in silence. The next hour is just a blank spot in my memory. I don't even remember what the test was that day. I just remember getting into another argument with Karen over my extra meds. I remember getting very close to hurting her. I remember Dave and Tasha separating us. I remember still being mad on the way back to the hotel. I remember going way too far the moment we were alone to calm myself down. He didn't stop me, but he didn't really go along with it either. He just let me do it and sort of mirrored me in a way. Eventually, I think he forgot what was going on, because he started actively participating instead of just laying there and halfheartedly kissing me back. Of course, it wasn't long before he went for my throat. Finally, after so long, I could actually hide my reactions. I'm not sure why, but I didn't even bother to. I also didn't stop him when he pinned my wrists down, which would normally make me panic. We paused for a moment, breathing heavily, then I slipped my hands out from his grip and put them on either side of his chest, and he seemed to snap out of it and keep going. His weight shifted to one hand as his other summoned the weighted blanket back over my chest, leaving me incapable of controlling any aspect of anything I did. This meant that I started whisper-whining stuff — mostly swear words — and softly gasping for air. I now immensely regretted ever starting this. At the same time I wasn't gonna stop it. I didn't feel anything coming, so I didn't really see a need to stop him. When it actually did come, it was out of nowhere, I didn't shake, and I didn't mind it as much as usual. I'm not even sure he noticed since the only physical sign was a small spasm. Eventually he paused again, breathing against my neck. I let this happen for about a minute, then pulled him up and kissed him.
"This is gonna happen a lot once we start the attacks again." I breathed, wrapping my legs around his waist.
"I'm okay with that." He chuckled deliriously.
This was the first time since we'd gotten here that one of these sessions hadn't occurred while on meds, yet it was also the one that felt the most drunken and stupid. We weren't being gross this time, though. He had all of his weight on me now, making it hard to keep my eyes open. Eventually he pushed my wrists out again, taking a little weight off of me. It took a few more minutes for our heads to clear enough for us to break apart and move on. He rolled onto his back and laid down next to me as I took the blanket off my chest. We both drank some water and laid pressed against each other watching Reddit videos on YouTube.
"When the study's over I'm doing a sleep catchup." I mumbled.
At this, Nova chimed in. "A full sleep catchup will put you to sleep for approximately two years. Are you sure?"
"I'll do a basic catchup. It'll take three days." I muttered.
She didn't say anything more. I slightly tightened my grip on Dave's hand and sighed.
"Do you think it hurts him?" I murmured. "You and me? The way we are?"
"Who, Dylan?" He asked. "It's probably not something he'd want, but the fact that he hasn't really spoken about it too much tells me it doesn't bug him that much."
"I don't think he knows how deep it goes." I mumbled. "I don't think he knows what we do when we're alone. I don't think he wants to. I just feel bad. Like, we both have things to do, and you're my apprentice, so you're always with me, which means I do everything with you and you're the first person I see when I'm stressed out and—"
I cut myself off. "Never mind..."
By the time the study was over, I was having a full mental breakdown because of Karen. But I hid it all behind a mask and didn't let anyone see. A few days after coming back, I was alone in the middle of the night. I soon found myself walking aimlessly around LA. I was just sitting in an alleyway, leaned against the wall, absently spinning a small blade with my fingers, when Illy spotted me and came to sit with me.
"Hey." I stuttered, quickly putting the sheath back on the blade and stuffing it into my backpack. "What're you doing here?"
"I could say the same about you." She chuckled. "Aren't you supposed to be in, oh, I don't know, England?"
"Sweden." I corrected. "England isn't safe for me anymore."
I explained the situation with Karen, my voice breaking occasionally at the memories. Before she could say anything, I finished with, "So how about you? Why're you here?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "Something just told me to be here today."
We eventually ended up back in our cult circle around a fake fire, each singing our song of depression to the same melody. It was kind of creepy, actually. Then again, it was a cult circle. James was singing "Life Is Fun," Jaiden was singing "Empty," Adam was singing "Help," Illy was singing "Beautiful?," and I was singing "Black Roses." Because it was all to the same melody, it just sounded like a haunting chorus of depression.
"I like that all the YouTubers write songs about, like, mental health, meanwhile all pop artists ever are all like, 'this piece of crap broke up with me and now I'm gonna publicly humiliate them.'" Jaiden remarked once we were done.
"Then again, YouTubers have 7/10 love lives and 2/10 mental health, whereas pop artists intentionally exaggerate breakups to make themselves seem like they have 0/10 love lives, but in reality they have, like, 6-8/10 and 4-6/10 mental health." Adam pointed out.
"You guys are getting 7/10 love lives?" Illy joked. "No fair!"