Scream

Enzo King

Reyna drove us to Makai's house. I know what she's going through. I've been around death long enough that it becomes nothing to me. Now, that's happening to Reyna. And I hate myself and I hate the killers for taking a pure soul like hers and twisting it into something tainted with apathy. Quite frankly, it's rude and almost irreversible. 

 The car ride was quiet. I tried to make conversation, but it was hard when our thoughts circled Reyna's dead father. She wasn't particularly upset or mad, nor happy, which was good. She was just...distraught, I think. Reyna's mind is processing death now because her heart has lost its capability to after so many of her close friends have died. 

 You're the bastard that killed them, I think to myself. 

I had no choice, I counter.

We always have a choice.

I glance at Reyna, her eyes focused on the road but her mind elsewhere. She sighs every now and then, or sometimes she'll shake her head, but it's not about anything she wants to talk about.

"We could stay at my old place upstate," I offer.

Reyna shakes her head. "I need to finish school – physically, not online. I need to come out of this strong."

I nod. In the silence, the call from the killer comes333 back to haunt me. They warned Reyna about who she trusts and who she's iced out. Was that a reference to me? She shouldn't trust me with what I've done, but here we are. And if I'm the bad guy in that

situation, then why will Reyna pay for it instead of me? It isn't fair, but then again, matters like this never are.

"What are you thinking about?" Reyna asks me, eyes sliding from the road and to me for a brief moment.

"The end of all of this. You?"

"I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that if I stayed in the house today, I might've been the dead one."

"But you weren't."

"Yeah, my dad was. And now I'm worried. Before, I worried about how I was going to deal with all of this death if everyone I loved kept passing away. Then, I was worried about my paranoia eating me alive. Now, I'm worried that I'm incapable of feeling anything. My dad's dead and I hardly care. I keep processing the facts and viewing it like it didn't happen to me."

 I take a moment to gather an appropriate response. "That's how survivors think," I assure. "They process it like a crime scene rather than a tragic incident. This way, they can get to the bottom of things quicker than most. You're not some apathetic monster, Rey." 

 "I hope not," she sighs, pulling into Makai's driveway. She parks and looks over at me before getting out. "Promise me something," she demands. 

"Anything," I respond like the hopelessly lost puppy around her finger that I am.

"No matter how I change by the end of this, stay with me. You don't have to for forever, but long enough until I can stand on my own two feet, okay?"

"Reyna," I render, rolling my eyes. "I'm not going anywhere. Got it?"

Finally, she smiles after what seemed like an eternity. "Thanks," she whispers. 

 Part of me wants to tell her that it's me who should beg for mercy. That it's me who should ask her to stay with me when all of this is over. Because whether it's on my own schedule or not, Reyna is bound to find out what I've done. I broke her middle finger. I slashed Della. I strangled Hanzo. I slit Adriano's throat. She already knows I tortured her brother, and then I thought she was through with me for sure. When she finds out I actually killed these people, she might just murder me.