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VeiledLonging
Bloodrose
ASDAValueMilk
”Monsters are real, and ghosts are too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.” –Stephen King
Chessa lay slumped across the sofa, tangled up in her duvet. A nearby window was pushed wide open, and a nourishing cold drifted into the room. It was raining heavily, and she could hear the not so distant pitter-patter of raindrops on the streets below.
“Chessa?” a hushed voice called out to her from the far side of the room. Kyle stood in the doorway, a dark silhouette illuminated by the gentle spikes of golden light that drifted in from the hallway.
“I’m up.” She replied, rubbing the haziness from her eyes. He flicked on the lights and she dived beneath the covers to get away from the ensuing brightness.
When she re-emerged a few seconds later he was standing by the sofa, wearing the same nervous smile he always wore of late.
She had tried to open up to her brother, to show him the side of her that no one else had seen, to guide him through the darkness that festered in her brain, but he hadn’t liked what he’d seen, and had retreated back behind a guise of false courtesy’s and pretend concerns. Perhaps it was for the best. Some dark places are darker than others.
He sat down next to her on the sofa, slowly sinking into the cushions.
“Sleep well?”
“Eh.”
Some time passed before he spoke again. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” He asked, a look of thinly disguised worry crossing his features.
“I’ve been ready for a lot longer than you’d like to admit.” She said icily, knocking a strand of dark hair out of one eye.
It upset him but she didn’t care. She was beyond caring.
Chessa clambered out of “bed” and went to go get dressed, eyeing herself up in the apartment’s single full body mirror.
She was a short and stocky girl, with more softness to her than she’d like-not that boys ever seemed to mind-. She had long tresses of black hair that were spruced up with purple highlights, and flowed elegantly down her shoulders like water. Her teeth had a yellowish tinge to them, and in recent weeks an unwelcome amount of acne had started to creep across her face.
She washed and dressed, and then the pair of them headed off to the meeting point, walking briskly and trying their hardest to keep out of the rain. Kyle was nervous and jittery, casting suspicious glances at every passer-by and slightly-out-of-place looking lamppost. The pale light of the early morning sun broke tentatively through the thick blanket of grey clouds that loomed above, flittering down onto the grimy streets.
By the time they reached the café they were practically soaked through with rain, and Kyle made a fuss about getting inside as quickly as they could. Chessa strode in leisurely, dark hair plastered to her face by the rain, in order to annoy him.
There were only a few patrons in the café at this hour, and it was easy enough to locate the men they were looking for.
Ben, Jack, and Edd sat around a table on the top floor, seated by a window the overlooked the narrow streets below.
Ben was halfway through spinning a tall tale to the rest of the group, in-between messy bites of a pastry. “So, I woke up the next morning with a fuckin’ men’ol hangova’, in bed with dis peng blonde with –MASSIVE- tits, you get me? I snuck outta there prompto, and was like ‘eadin’ back down tha’ canal, when some lil’ prick comes at me with a knife an’ is all like ‘Gimmie you shit, dickhead’, so I was all like ‘say nothin’ blud’, an I fuckin’ pushed ‘im inta’ tha’ canal. He gets all pissy and cryin’ an’ shit. Funniest thing I eva’ saw. “
A good ninety-nine percent of what Ben said was completely horse shit, but it never failed to make Chessa laugh. She couldn’t quite decide if she was laughing with him or at him, but either way he was fun to be around.
Jack started laughing but Edd did little more than half-smirk, apparently unamused.
Ben and Jack were of roughly the same stock, but Edd conducted himself far more elegantly. He dressed smartly, spoke properly, and held himself in higher regard than the rest of them. Despite his masquerade of sophistication, Chessa knew him for what he truly was: an up-jumped thug.
Chessa and Kyle pulled up a chair each, joining the rest of the group at the table.
“Ah, if it isn’t the Tegan’s. So nice of you to join us.” said Edd.
“You A’ight mate?” said Ben.
Jack slapped Kyle on the back, shooting Chessa a quick glance of recognition. He never spoke much.
“How was the party?” Kyle asked, addressing the group. There was a nervous quality in his voice, a slight-not quite faint enough-tic. Something about Edd intimidated him. Chessa couldn’t for the life of her imagine why.
“Yeah, it was alrigh’.” Ben’s voice was easy and relaxed, a stark contrast Kyle’s. “Although, this benda’ kept tryin’ to cock-block me.” He stuck a finger accusingly at Edd, wiping the last few pastry crumbs off of his mouth.
“All’s fair in love and war.” He responded coolly, gazing out of the large glass window in front of them.
“Smackin’ some bird on the arse, and grabbin’ her until she screams ain’t love, mate.” Jack declared, smirking to himself. Edd shot him a look and he went back to being silent.
Edd turned away from the window, locking eyes with Chessa.
“How have you been, little one?” Little one. Edd needed to demean her in order to assert his own dominance. It was sad really.
“Good, thanks.” She responded nonchalantly.
“How’s that dark haired boy I saw you with?”
“I’m sorry..?”
“On Friday. I saw you with a dark haired boy.” He arched one eyebrow, and something mischievous flashed across his features.
“What was his name?” He asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“That’s what I said.”
“My, my, my. You seemed to be getting awfully intimate with him for someone you didn’t know.” He said with a poorly disguised sneer.
Kyle screwed up his face, as though he’d been physically hurt, but he didn’t say anything.
Chessa felt her fists clench beneath the table, blood pumping violently in her ears.
eAt hiS hEarT Whispered a voice in her head. She ignored it.
“We can’t all be as virtuous as you.” She replied, forcing a smile.
“Evidently. Although, I suppose you aren’t entirely to blame.” He turned to face Kyle “I would never allow any sister of mine to let every Tom, Dick, and Harry shove their tongue down her neck. “ He turned back to face Chessa “That said, if it was just your neck that they were putting their tongues down, then there wouldn’t be an issue.”
She started seeing red. Maybe eating his heart wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
Before she had time to react, Ben stepped in.
“How’s about we get down ta’ business, innit?”
“Yes, lets.” Chessa replied, through gritted teeth. Edd shot her a quick wink, before addressing the group as a whole.
“Pete wants to take care of some business with the Halin brothers,” He begun, rising out of his seat. “I’ll explain on the way.”
The gang had given Chessa a new outlook on life. Now, every house she passed was a wonderful new opportunity-ready to be broken into, every passer-by a fantastic new prospect-ready to be exploited-. The rows and rows of semi-detached houses that they passed, coupled with the sheer number of bystanders, made Chessa giddy with excitement. She managed to control her urges, and stuck with the group.
They walked side by side down the street, Ben and Jack on the right, Chessa and Kyle on the left, and Edd in the middle. Kyle had neglected to speak to Chessa since Edd’s little speech at café, so they moved in silence.
They’d stopped off at Ben’s flat on the way over, and stocked up on gear, which they concealed discreetly beneath their clothes. When Ben had handed Chessa a switchblade, it had taken every fibre of her being to stop her from sticking it in Edd’s throat, much to the self-proclaimed leader’s obvious amusement.
She could hear the switchblade calling to her from her jacket pocket, begging to be let out. cUt hiS sCraWNy neCk, AnD wAtCH hIm blEEd. bEAutIFul, swEET, GORGeous blOOD.
She stuffed her hands miserably into her pockets, and tried her best to ignore it.
After a short while, they reached the Halin brother’s place of residence, an ugly mound of brownish-grey brick that sat at the edge of a street corner.
“Can you smell that?” Edd asked, motioning for them all to stop.
“You what?” Asked Ben, Edd’s eccentricities lost on him
“Opportunity, Ben. Ripe for the taking!” He exclaimed with a flourish, his dark eyes sweeping over the building.
Jack sniffed the air “Just smells like diesel to me.” He proclaimed. Chessa laughed at that.
“My intellect is wasted on the lot of you.” Edd declared, striding up to the buildings front door, the group following suit.
He rapped his hand ferociously against the door.
“Derek! Bill! Open up!” He called out to them.
No answer.
He tried a second and a third time, and when they didn’t answer Jack-being the biggest of them all-kicked the door down.
The room they entered into was small and dark, so much so that they could barely see a few feet in front of them. Chessa just about made out a tacky looking chair, and an old mattress that was dumped in one corner, stained and worn-out.
There was a loud bang, and a bullet went whizzing through the air and burst out of Jack’s neck. He coughed up thick bloody red bubbles, gurgling something incoherent, before collapsing to the floor, his muscular body crashing to the ground with a loud ‘THUD!’.
“Holy Fucking Shit!” Edd exclaimed, lacking his previous elegance, before diving out of the body’s way, vanishing into the darkness.
There was another bang, and a second bullet shot past Chessa’s ear, prompting her, Ben, and Kyle to follow Edd’s example.
“Fuck off and go back ‘ome, ya pricks!” Bellowed an unseen figure.
Someone pulled open a door, and the room was flooded with light, temporally blinding Chessa. Some more gunshots went off, and something big and heavy knocked her to the floor.
When Chessa’s vision cleared, she found Ben slumped across her, the left side of his head a mess of dark red chunks, his dead eyes starting lifelessly down at her. She forced his body off of her, grunting with the effort.
She heard shouting and more gunshots coming from wherever the opened door led to, and went to go investigate.
She ended up in an extremely narrow hallway, and found Edd lying in a corner, blood dripping slowly from his shoulder, his face contorted in pain. swEEt, seXy paIn.
“Fucking cocksuckers got me.” He wheezed, letting out a sharp cry.
“You don’t say.” She said distantly, transfixed by the stream of red that was pouring out of him, and his vulnerability.
“Your brothers gone after them. He’s a fucking dead man.” He scoffed, letting out something that was halfway between a cackle and a whimper.
“That remains to be seen.” She placed her hands delicately on either side of his head, savouring the moment.
“The fuck are y-“She twisted with all her might, his neck letting out a crack that echoed throughout the corridor for several long moment. She reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, fishing out his razor-edged hunting knife, before bolting off down the corridor.
She entered into a large bleak stone room, with crumbling brick walls, and a smattering of unkempt ivory clinging to the celling.
Derek Halin was sprawled across the floor in a bed of his own blood, a razor sticking out of his chest. Her brother was a few feet away, clutching at his leg-in visible pain-with Bill Halin standing over him, pointing a gun at his head. Neither of them had noticed her.
“I’m gunna enjoy this, you piece of shit.” Bill cocked the handgun, grinning to himself.
Chessa pulled out the switchblade, and hurled it across the room, its blade tearing through Bill’s gun-hand, slicing off two of his fingers.
Bill screamed, the gun falling from his hand, and Chessa went racing towards him.
kIll. KiLL. kiLl.
Bill pulled a machete from his belt and went veering towards, slashing wildly. “I don’t need my fingers to burst yer fuckin’ ‘ead, ya stupid bitch!”
She blocked his first swing with Edd’s hunting knife, before narrowly ducking beneath the second. He stabbed madly at her, and she forced his weapon down with her own, punching him in the side of the face with her free hand, sending him staggering backwards.
“You’re gunna regret that, ya filthy whore!” He barked, taking another stab at her, which she sidestepped.
Suddenly, his leg shot forwards, kicking her feet out from under her. She fell to the ground, and only just managed to raise the hunting knife in time to block his next attack. The sheer force with which he struck sent the knife spinning from her hand, and she had to roll out of the path of his next swing a few seconds later. Chessa leapt to her feet, and within seconds she was stooping out of the path of his machete.
She tore off her belt in one fluid motion, and when he took his next swing she snared it around his arm, gripping tightly. Whilst she had him in her trap, she kicked the Machete from his hand, the mental blade clanging to the floor and skidding across the room.
However, he was the physically dominant one, and it did not take him long to break from her belts hold, followed swiftly by a rock-hard fist slamming into her face.
She stumbled backwards, her head ringing and her vision blurry, and was promptly punched in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
SwEEt, SENsual, SEXy, paIN
He struck her again, splitting her lip, and sending a river of hot blood into her mouth. She felt the buzz flow through her, a rippling effect that bounced off of every cell in her body, igniting something buried deep within her, making her stomach flutter with delight.
gOto thE daRk plAcE. UNlEash tHe bEast
His fist came flashing forwards, but before it could reach her she bolted to the side, catching his arm in a death-like grip, and forcing her nails into his joint. She let her demons be her guide, pushing until she heard a tear, and his arm was soaked in blood. He screamed, and knocked her to the floor with a wild swing of his arm, cursing and bellowing and crying.
He leapt on top of her, but a firm kick knocked him back off again, and within seconds she was back on her feet.
Both of them were tired now, gasping and wheezing for some brief respite, but Chessa had the voices on her side, and they’d never let anything bad happen to her.
She bounded at him, hissing and spitting and clawing, and forced him backwards, weaving and bobbing out of the way of his punches. She gripped hold of his arm and bit into it, her mouth filling with gooey red nourishment and chunks of ripe flesh. He screamed and fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, his body shaking, blood dripping from all of his wounds.
A flurry of movements and she was on top of him, ready to finish it.
“CHEESA! STOP!” iS thAt mY nAmE?
She turned, and saw Kyle pulling himself across the floor towards her, gritting his teeth through the pain.
“Pete’s gunna want words with him. Let him be for now. He’s not going anywhere.” He pleaded with her with his eyes.
She gazed back at the snivelling mess on the floor in front of her. dO iT, dO iT, dO iT, dO iT, dO IT dO iT, dO iT, dO iT, dO It
Fighting against the primal lust within her, Chessa pulled herself off of him, going over to give her brother a hand.
The King’s head was closed for the evening. Pete had made sure of that.
Pete was a well-built black man, cleanly shaven and smartly dressed. He took a steady sip from his glass, his eyes scanning the room.
Chessa and Kyle were sat around the same table as him, with Bill Halin sitting between them-his hands bound-a mess of scars and cuts and bruises, his clothes soaked in dried blood.
All of the other tables and booths in the pub were abandoned, and Pete’s men were dotted about the room, as more of a display of power than anything else. Pete had been an underground boxer back in the day, and was more than confident of his own ability to protect himself.
“Four men dead.” Pete began, his voice thick and deep. “How unnecessary.”
Bill remained quiet, but the fight was still there in his eyes, a roaring flame that couldn’t be extinguished. He might have looked majestic, were it not for all the blood.
“Not talking?” Pete asked, downing some more of his drink.
“Go fuck yourself.” Bill replied.
“Is that the best you could come up with? How underwhelming.”
“You’ll get nothing out of me.” He spat, spraying Pete’s crisp suite with red-flecked spittle.
Pete laughed, a dark, dreadful laugh.
“Dutch, Harry.” He called
Two men, dressed casually, came over to the table. One of them had a Polaroid camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“Am I supposed to be scared?” Bill sneered.
“You will be.” Pete promised him.
Suddenly, one of the men grabbed Bill by the scruff of his neck, hoisting him up in the air, before slamming him down on the table. Bill cursed loudly, but otherwise said nothing
The man moved behind Bill, undid his belt and unzipped his jeans, pulling them off and then his boxers. He took hold of him firmly with both hands. The second one begun fiddling with the camera.
Bill heard the sound of the zipper being undone, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure of himself. “You wouldn’t…”
Pete turned to address Kyle and Chessa, who were watching the scene unfold with varying levels of shock.
“Thank you for your service, I’ll see that you are paid appropriately.” He turned to address Kyle. “You may want to take your leave now. There are certain things that big brothers don’t want their little sisters seeing.”
They left.
Chessa couldn’t sleep. She’d been back and forth to the bathroom countless times. She’d started drinking and eating out of border, and now she just felt stuffed and a little tipsy. She brushed some pizza crumbs off of her bloated stomach, and reached for the TV remote. She turned on the television. Nothing.
“Weird.”
She clambered up off of the sofa, and went to go look out the window. Chessa often gazed out at the city, sometimes for therapeutic reasons, and was used to seeing as sea of bright neon lights, tall buildings of steel and glass, and streets full of people and cars and life. The lights were out. Apart from the occasional flickering street lamp, Chessa could barely make out any of the usual tell-tale signs she was used to seeing. No cars, no booming club music, no police sirens.
“That’s odd….”
The door burst open. Chessa screamed.
Kyle came rushing in, panting frantically, fear plastered across his face. He slammed the door shut behind him, made sure that it was locked, and went rushing over towards her.
“Chessa! Thank –FUCK- you’re alright”. He pulled her close to him, hugging her more tightly than she’d ever remembered him hugging her.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked, confused and more than a little nervous.
“Something’s going down, something really, really, -REALLY- fucking bad is happening.” He was still hugging her, and she could feel his body shaking. She’d never seen him like this before. Not since Dad.
“What’s happening? You aren’t making any sense.” She heard herself speak, and was surprised by how frightened she sounded. “Kyle, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m not sure.” He admitted “I was filling up the car, then I started hearing weird shit on the radio, then-”
‘BOOM!’
Somewhere, out in the darkness of the streets below something bad was happening.
Kyle rushed over to the window, and whatever he saw stirred something inside him.
“Chessa, get your things. Now.”
“What the fuck is going on?!” She screeched, her heart beating faster and faster and faster.
“Chessa-“
“Answer m-“ His hand flashed forwards and struck her. She fell to the ground, mostly due to shock.
“Do as I say.” He glared down at her, and she saw something she’d never seen in him before, something determined, something defiant, something dark. In that instant, she was more certain that she’d ever been that they were related.
She dressed in ripped jeans that were a little too tight, an Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt that was a little too big, and a superdry jacket that was just about the right size.
Kyle shot about the apartment frantically, stuffing all their canned food, portable appliances that didn’t need electricity, and their alcohol into an old Dofe rucksack.
He met her by the door, armed with the Pump-action shotgun he kept under his bed.
“Ready?”
“Ready”
“Then let’s go.” They stepped out of the apartment, and into the world beyond, and whatever awaited them there.