Annabel [h.s.]

seventeen

Annabel's downstairs in the kitchen, her hair in a very untidy mess atop of her head and her shirt lifting to show her lace underwear that displayed a nice portion of her backside. She left Harry upstairs to make breakfast because her stomach was growling and the last time that he made breakfast he burnt the eggs. It was funny because he always swears that he's the best chef around and he always seems to mess the smallest things.

The thought of his cooking mishaps has the corners of her lips lifting into the smallest of smiles. Even though they've pretty much been confined to the house and they're 'hobby' has been put on hold for a while, things are pretty nice. Sitting around gets boring every now and again, but she and Harry have been spending a lot of time together and not all of it is centered around sex.

She's gotten to know who he is aside from his illegal interests and he's actually quite an interesting person. He's let her get into his head and it's a little scary, but it's nice knowing who he is aside from murder and sex.

Harry likes to believe that she hasn't gotten to him so deeply, but they both know that she has. It's something that they aren't going to talk about or acknowledge, but they both know that it's there and what it means.

Upstairs, Harry's laying on his mattress and staring at the ceiling and reevaluating the decisions that he's made in the past year or so. He's happy with Annabel, genuinely happy with something other than murder for the first time in his life, but at what cost?

Annabel was fine before he came along. Now he's fucked up her life and put her in danger in more ways than one. There's the constant threat of being caught and he's always, always liable to take her life away every time that they're intimate. And that terrifies him, he doesn't want to take her life away, but he does at the same time because it's in his nature and he can't just get rid of that constant urge to see the red in her veins and feel the moisture on his fingertips.

It doesn't help that the cops are keeping them under constant surveillance (and for good reason) and they can't really do anything because they're still searching the woods and looking for Madison. Madison, the woman that they're never going to find because he took care of that just like he took care of the rest of his unfortunate victims.

Harry's incredibly meticulous about his disposal process, there's absolutely no room for error. He's lucky that he's smart and that he scatters what's left of his victim's remains far from his home and in places where the cops wouldn't think to look. If he wasn't so careful, he'd be rotting in a prison cell right now.

Don't get him wrong, the sex is great, but with nothing else to do, Harry's had a lot of time alone with his thoughts. He's still haunted with the image of Annabel from his nightmare and he knows that he's going to end up killing her eventually. He's going to rip the life away from her with his own hands and there's nothing that he can do about it.

Annabel doesn't deserve that, she doesn't deserve to be another one of his victims, and she doesn't deserve his tainted love. While he's upstairs and dwelling in his thoughts, he decides that he's going to let her go now, before he makes things any worse.

Harry takes his time to wake up and to word what he's going to say to her. He doesn't want to see the look on her face, but he has to do this. He has to let her go before she takes his heart with her to the grave.

By the time he actually makes it downstairs and into the kitchen, Annabel's plating their food and humming to herself. She hears him walk down, he's not a very quiet person when he's not thinking about it, and a smile finds its way to her lips because he's always cute when he gets out of bed with his hair a mess and his sleepy eyes.

He's quiet as he takes a seat and she sets a half full glass of orange juice on the counter in front of him, it's his favorite but he doesn't realize that she knows that. It's not unusual of him, he isn't really a morning person and sometimes they just sit in silence for a while and enjoy the sounds of nature and the presence of another human being.