The darkest night

Hi, there. Brief trigger warning, talk of r*pe. Thanks for reading guys I promise it gets brighter.

I often wondered when one became strange. How did a peculiar child become the odd one out and diverge? When did those small characteristics become the largest most noticeable part of their existence and define the person as a whole? And most of all how did I stop being...me? There were brief moments of sanity when I thought I could briefly glance at normalcy. Like today when I had been invited to Prom by Caledon Page. Well above normalcy. Caledon Page was not the most popular boy in East Deluca High. He wasn’t the most handsome either. Caledon was somewhere in the purgatory of most things. He had popular friends but he was the funny skinny one who hid behind them. He was much of a looker too but he was smart. When told him about a new book I had read there was no chance he hadn’t already memorized enough lines to leave me needing to study over each word again. He made me want to be smarter and prettier. And when he looked at me with that dark glint I wanted to be the girl he saw. I didn’t mind that he had taken he arrived three hours late. Or that he didn’t say anything about the three hundred dollars dressed I had dipped into my meager coffee shop college savings for. “I’m sorry my dad isn’t home.” It was a lie. Ricky was never home, a blessing. My foster father was a piece of shit who liked looking up my dress when I came down the stairs and forced me to sit beside him during Sunday night football so he could grope me to the backdrop of a Pepsi ad. Then again I had never met my real dad so maybe this was the usual. I had made sure to close the door quickly and lock his pill-popping wife Elizabeth inside. She had a habit of wandering in her stupor’s and without me, there was no one to chase her down.

“Excuse me did you say something,” Caledon called from over his shoulder absently. I hurried my footsteps along trying not to spend too much time looking down at my refurbished flats.

“I just said...oh it’s okay.” I smiled tightly widely even if he couldn’t see it, only for my eyes to widen.

“Is that ours?” Parked on my cracked curb was a long white limousine she could swear drove straight out of an eighties teen rom-com. It was then that he looked up and regarded me.

“Sure yea. Get in quickly we’re late.” He slipped inside his long frame guiding in effortlessly. When we were inside the long limousine he began fidgeting. Caledon was naturally spindly in a cute way but now he kept glancing at his phone and after the second turn out of my neighborhood, just past Mr. Deronte’s house, he looked at me. I blushed shyly under the flutter of dark lashes. A small smile falling in place when he put a hand on my thigh. The fabric rose slightly under his shaking palm. I couldn’t tell if it was purposeful or his nerves but I placed a hand on his in comfort. It was then that Caledon pounced. She barely caught sight of him move before the blunt force of his teeth knocked against mine in a harsh kiss. My head rang with sheer force if nothing else and out took me a moment to recover my equilibrium enough to push back. At the first signs of resistance, his hand separated from my own and pushed me to the seat with resounding force. It was then that I heard a mechanical noise. Opening my eyes I felt panic shoot like a lance through my body. His face was red, veins bursting from the skin of his forehead as he began pushing me down. My body was a fighter.

Everything in me forcing me to fight against him as I thrashed and screamed. A hand covered my mouth. Please don’t let it be this please not this. Hands gripped up my skirt but the limo came to an abrupt halt.

“I’m gonna slit your fucking throat if you don’t stop squirming.” They nearly fell off the seat but the slight shift allowed me to scramble away. The door swung open and the heads of Amelie Park and her boyfriend Tony De’Luga popped into thee car. I cried out hands shoving down my risen skirts.

“You said you had this handled Page. It looks like a fucking rape fetish.” What? Tony laughed like a hyena then pushed Amelie aside.

“We had a deal. You said you could do it Page. I thought she liked you.” He gave me a long spine chilling look stopping at the point where her dress stopped.

“I can step in if you’re not up to the task.”

“What the fuck?” Amelie shouted from somewhere.

“You’re going to fuck that whore. We agreed it would just be a video, what did I flirt with this loser for.”

“Hey.”

“Shut up.”

“No. You promised me, you said you wanted me. Why do I have a folder of fucking nudes in my phone from your girlfriend.”

“It’s nothing baby. I got them off some porn website. The idiot thought I would send him pictures of my tits.”

“Please let me go.” Caledon looked at me for the first time all night then. He looked down at me and frowned.

“She doesn’t want it. And I’m done with this bullshit.” I whimpered as he forced the other door open and stomped off into the night with his phone in hand. My eyes fell to the content of my bag spilled across the floor. My phone was next to Tony’s hand.

Without thinking I lunged for it. Tony was a lacrosse player, small by no feat but he moved quickly. His hand gripped my hair as he slammed my head into the side of the car. My ears run again this time with a dull pain accompanying them. I couldn’t hear anything. My vision swam and when I found something to gather my focus it was the sight of something appearing behind Tony in the night. Briefly screams echoed, won’t be dragged into the night and I had the mind to scream.

The night filled with shouts and then nothing. I still felt my voice work. My throat numb from the verbosity of my fear. I scrambled backward blindly and suddenly felt something beneath my palm. Looking down I saw a small camcorder the size of my palm crushed beneath my weight. The light beside the camera was flashing. For a brief moment, I was distracted enough to turn away and didn’t notice the thing entering the limos with me.

It was by the time that a large body crawled before me and plopped down on his stomach tgat I realized what had happened. I couldn’t find a scream this time as I silently stared at the face several inches from mine. Resting his head on his palms face dripping in rivulets of blood. I wished that was the first time I had seen that face. That satisfied smile. Or the first time a night had ended with me covered in blood. What terrified me was the dried blood on the cuffs of his pristine white shirt and staining his color.

“What did you do?” I whispered “I took care of the problem on Decker Road.”

He looked down. “Why are you in a dress, make caeli? Don’t tell me it was for that boy I found waiting for his Uber was it?” He opened his mouth wide with a shocked expression and a hand flying to his chest. He rolled onto his side and smiled widely, a droplet of blood dripping onto the beige carpet.

“Please no.”

“Well, gotta get an Uber somehow. Don’t tell me you expected me to hoof it all the way here princess.” It was three blocks but that was beside the point

“Did you kill him?” Why was I mourning a man who had tried to rape me?

“When the devil needs a ride somebodies gotta die.” He said melodically. After a moment he began humming it under his breath as he sat up and rooted through the contents of the mini ride beside her.

“Lighten up princess.”

“I’m going to have to go back to foster care,” I murmured to myself but of course, he heard.

“No, you’ll go to wherever you want. I can bankroll it now that I have a few millennia worth of generational wealth.” He cackled at his joke.

“Please just leave me alone.” He looked at me starkly then studying my tear-streaked face.

“You know that can’t happen.” He looked down at his watch and sighed.

“Okay, you know what time it is.” I shook my head but the grip was still there. He only had to tighten his hold and I was staring deep into his bright gold eyes.

“You need to stop getting in trouble to see me make caelis. You’re gonna go home pack up and go to the ritz okay? Penthouse floor, they have your name on file. When you’re there you’re gonna take the stash of money and use it until you get sent a bank card from the front desk.” He reached out but stopped short of touching me, his eyes on the dried blood on his hands.

“You’re going to remember me starkly. When you think of another dipshit with a name that sounds like overpriced toilet paper you’re going to see my face. You will forget the blood, forget the assholes that did this and wait for me okay?” I nodded reluctantly, tears streaming down my face.