Darkness

14. Wired Up

14. Wired Up

// Spencer //

♦♦♦

I don't see Justin again until he comes to collect me the following afternoon. I'm already showered and dressed in the nicest – and cleanest – of the shirts and jeans left for me. It's all I have to work with.

I've been tossing and turning all night, and the restless night shows in the dark circles under my eyes.

"We'll have a wire on you all time," Justin instructs me, pulling out a jumbled cord from his back pocket. "It's linked to my phone. I'll be listening. If the line goes quiet for too long, I'm pulling you out. Don't try to use other forms of communication; I will know," he warns me with a growl. "Trick me and you're done. Both of you."

He instructs me to lift up my shirt, and I do it reluctantly.

I don't have it within me to fight him today.

The events of last night are still too fresh. I've been tossing and turning all night to the echo of bullets ricocheting through the night, reliving the night like a bad rerun.

Justin makes quick work taping the thin wire to the exposed skin on my stomach.

Although it's brief his touch is electrifying – cold against the warm skin on my stomach. Rough, callused hands moving across soft skin. I can't fight the goosebumps spreading like a wildfire at his touch.

I'm relieved when he doesn't comment on it.

"Ready?" he asks, once he's done taping the wire down and I've repositioned my shirt to cover it up.

I can feel it everywhere, not just the remnants of his touch, but the thin wire twisting along my skin, like a river carving its way through the valley. The tape is the worst part of it. With every movement I make the tape tightens, pulls and pushes at the skin it's attached to, constantly reminding me of its presence.

I nod once, a small jerk of my head. I can't find it in me to answer him or shoot a snappy comment his way.

I'm numb to the core, as I follow him down the stairs and into the garage.

I feel hollow, like I imagine a convict on death row would, marching towards my final meal, as we drive through the city and towards my childhood home.

Justin doesn't force me to speak, for that I'm grateful. But I can see the skin on his knuckles whitening from being stretched too tightly, when he tightens his grip on the steering wheel. I hear his rapid breathing in the car. I see the tension in his jaw and the way he rolls his shoulders, as he turns onto my childhood street.

I can't find it in me to care, not when my heartbeat is still matching the echo of the firing squat last night.

We pass my dad's house and he slows down, but doesn't stop until we're three houses down, perfectly out of viewing distance from my dad's kitchen window.

"Time to prove your worth," he tells me, pulling up the curb and turning the key in the ignition. The car dies down.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach for the lever on the passenger door. It all happens in slow motion as I step out of the car and find myself breathing in the familiar scent of the neighborhood.

I turn my back on the car.

My eyes lock on the yellow brick house I grew up in, and my knees almost give in at the rush of need hitting me right in-between the ribs; a need to be there, to be sleeping in the bed my parent's used to tug me into, to roam the hallway and climb the tree in the backyard. A need to turn back time, to before darkness, and Justin, swept me away and consumed me.