Let's Start A Riot

Chapter Twenty-Two - Red

I stumble back in shock, only to hit my back against a hard chest, an arm wrapping around my neck and squeezing tight. Laughter echoes around me, but that quickly turns into strangled gasps as everything fades slightly, blurring.

When the men come back into focus, the one with the mashed face has disappeared, leaving the other two back in the grasp of Hugo and Sarah.

Except, it isn't Hugo and Sarah – not really.

It is them, but it isn't, simply because the grins they wear on their faces are animalistic and twisted – wrong.

I seem to only be able to watch as they squeeze the men's necks, the knives they hold to their necks being pushed further and further into the skin. At first there is only a small trickle of crimson, but then, everything is red.

The pained tears in the men's eyes go from being clear, to running in rivulets of red, and these rivulets begin to flow from every orifice in the men's faces. I don't even notice when the knives reach their hilts in the men's sagging bodies, their eyes having long gone glassy – all I can focus on is the red.

"That's what happens to the people we don't like, Freak." A disembodied voice echoes around in the darkness.

"Permission, denied." The voice is right in my ear now, the two words simple, but they ricochet in my mind.

I am spun in someone's arms, and a pair of lips smashes onto mine.

My body reacts with a mind of its own, my arms instantly slinging around the person's neck, kissing them back without hesitation.

Everything else is distant, forgotten. The red instantly banished from my thoughts.

My eyes close involuntarily when I turn and refuse to open again. I can't stop kissing the person either even though it feels so wrong. The desire is overpowering as their hands run over my body, my chest flat against theirs.

I am so lost in the moment that when I hear the thud, I don't even think about what it could be. It is only when I find myself choking on something that I am able to pull back from the kiss, coughing hard.

I bring my hand to my lips, my fingertips brushing numbly against them. When I pull my fingers away, they come back red.

Red, red, red. All I can see is red.

I frown, looking up, stilling when I find Marcus in front of me, his eyes void of emotion, his face a mask of stone. It's the exact same look that he had when he stared his father down while his father tortured him.

"I warned you, freak." He scorns sternly. "You can't trust anyone. No one's your friend, they'll just stab you in the back without a second thought." He comes in close, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as he promises, "You know that I would, especially me."

I look at him blankly, unable to understand what he is trying to tell me.

Suddenly remembering Sarah and Hugo, I turn to see if they know what he means.

When I turn, they stand with the knives held loosely at their sides, still covered in the men's blood. They wear sad expressions, pitiful even. "Even us." They say in unison.

"Wha—" I am about to ask them what is going on when I feel a sudden, sharp bolt of pain jolt down my spine, my legs wobbling and giving out, pitching me forward onto that cold, broken tarmac.

Although everything is going fuzzy, I can still see Marcus as clear as day as he stands over me, a knife in his hand, a smug expression on his face.

He kneels, placing a bloody hand on my cheek, pushing my hair from my face with a gentle caress.