Runaway

Burning

She came to in the front seat of his car. She looked around, disoriented. She felt her face. Her skin was soft and smooth again. Her arms pale. Her hair was long and shiny.

She hated this car. She hated how it was always taking her to places she didn't want to go so she could get paraded around as eye candy she didn't want to be. She hated posing beside the taller, apathetic, egotistical prick beside her as he showed off one of his prizes to his friends. The amount of care he put into it, how clean she had to keep it, how shiny and new it had to always be, how protective he was over it, all of that was just disturbing somehow. And she really really hated how he was always the one driving. How he was always always the one behind the wheel and it was never her.  

But what she hated most was that she was back in this car, suffocating, back beside this man, dying inside, after her burst of free life. The windows were open, but she felt the walls, the air, literally everything closing in on her, pushing the air out of her lungs, twisting her flesh until she couldn't take it anymore. The man beside her terrified her. Was he even a mortal? He should be dead by now. But no. Whatever he was she had to leave. She had to leave. Somehow. 

"My sweet young flower, I'm glad you're awake." His voice was sickly-sweet. It was teeming in rotten, fly-infested fruit flesh mixed with honey. 

She couldn't bear hearing it. She couldn't bear listening to him. She felt like her head was infested with buzzing, like she was being stung by a million wasps. 

"I'm not going to call the police. I spent quite a lot of time in the hospital recovering from that feeble, measly murder attempt. But alas you have alway been an unstable girl and I wouldn't want to waste police time on you." His voice was filled with, with a certain quality that made it  feel like cold rock being pressed into her neck. She hugged her knees. 

"Now, now, that's not very ladylike behaviour," he said with a hard, cold glint in his voice.

She didn't listen.  She didn't care. She hated him. She could sit however the fuck she wanted. 

"I won't be taking you to the police station but I will be taking you to my friend. He's going to make sure you get punished for what you did. He'll make you regret it. He'll make you regret even being born. He'll make you realize what happens when you don't properly respect me. He'll make you fear me, fear me, fear disappointing me. And he'll make you realize that you need to ... you need to be on my side. Your misery is no excuse." Her hands started shaking. Not because of what he was threatening her with but because of the idea that for all the rest of the decades of her life stretching forwards, she'd  be tied to him. 

"He'll hurt you darling. He'll hurt you long and hard on my behalf. But after that you'll learn. You'll learn to fear me, to respect me, to obey me. And then I'll love you again my darling. Then I can love you again and we can be a perfect family." 

She couldn't. His plan was to break her down until she obeyed him. She couldn't live like that. She had to at least keep her mind free. She had to be free. She couldn't have his grimy little friend torture her back into the naive and obedient girl she used to be. She couldn't. She couldn't. She couldn'tshecouldn'tshecouldn'tshecouldn't. 

"AAAAHHHH!" She screamed as loud alas she could, until her throat ached. She unbuckled her seatbelt, pushed open the door, and tumbled out onto the hard pavement. His car screeched to a halt and he ran out in a rage. 

She scrambled to get up. She started sprinting. He got back in his car. The metal beast seemed to burn in the sunlight. Her feet burned in two-inch heels. The lake beside the road also reflected the sunlight and shone like a portal into hell. The car revved up and slammed into her. She fell backwards into the lake, saved by it's water for just a moment before remembering she couldn't swim very well. 

She was able to pull herself out of the water but in that time HE had caught up to her. Her stomach was bleeding. Her thighs were bleeding. Her hands and wrist and calves and ankle were bleeding. But she could make it. But he gripped a fistful of her hair and dragged her onto the road. 

"You WILL be mine!" he screamed into her ear as he shook her, "or else I'll kill you here and now!"

"NO!!! I WON'T EVER, EVER BE YOURS!" She screamed, tears flowing down her eyes. Hot, angry, defiant tears. 

His voice got quiet. Scalding hot embers instead of the fire it had just been. "I will kill you right here and right now if you don't submit yourself to me," he growled. 

"I'll. NEVER. Be yours." She struggled to get his hands off of her but she knew it was futile. 

He pulled her in for a rough kiss. She bit his mouth, making it bleed. She knew it would anger him. That was the point. He looked at her with eyes that burned like supernovas. 

He clenched her hair. She looked him in the eyes, her eyes full of strength, full of defiance. His full of rage. He bashed her head into the asphalt road. Again. And again. And again. It hurt. She could feel her life leaving her body. She didn't care. Because in death she would be free. He wouldn't win, not this time. She would be free.