Ruin Maketh Me

67 - Static

     My eyes flutter open weakly through the sudden burst of light, and I'm confronted with a small dusty room and the unmistakable smell of mould. Fuck, this looks familiar, the dead floorboards, the small walls... Except now, now a red haired figure with pointed fox ears is pulling down the slats boarding up the window with great, bold tearing motions filled with uncontainable anger. This... I sit up against the relentless pounding in my head and look down at my hands, blurring ghostly double even in the light. No spider Lily, no rose, just pale skin again.
My heart jolts double against the laws of nature. I've been sold again haven't I? This room, this fox man, I've come back to the place I once started at the beginning of all this. I cup my head in my hands, should I be happy or sorrowful? Everything, even the creak and crack of splitting wood resounds emptily within my ears. I tremble towards the bond and move away the blockades I placed there in such a hurry. The familiar comfort of Sol's thump, thump, thump, overlaps unevenly with the squeeze in my head, but even though the tug is still as strong as ever, so strong I feel like my soul may leave me with our connection's bloody hook, the thoughts and feelings on the other side are jumbled and choked full of static.
Static like an unanswered phone call, and I can't seem to decipher any of his words through the constant hissing. I bury my fingers into the glowing spectre of our bond and shout through the line. Lilith, Sol, what's going on? What's happening? But all I receive as an answer is the terrifying spatter of distorted silence and inconsistent sound. A strange, illogical fear rises amongst the hollow nausea swimming in my stomach, and I shout down towards him again, and through the scratch of fake silence comes a few surviving words.
—didn't—enough time together—Bond—unstable—too far—
Then gone, just a nuisance of inconsequential sounds and a left-over shadow of lily-scented mellow helplessness and frustration. Fuck. My fingers tear at the roots of my hair. I'm royally fucked this time.
"Princess," The fox man with hair as red as Julius's eyes turn to face me from his ununderstandable dismantling, "I didn't expect to see you here again."
The disgusting look of Declan's twisted love and delight flash through my ringing head again, but nothing of what happened after he injected that drug into my blood dredges up into view.
"I was sold again?" I grapple to my feet, pain radiating up the desert heat of my throat.
The fox man's lips turn downwards, and an unprofessional expression uncommon for his careless features courses through his face, "Yes, a client of mine, Declan du Sel sold you to me." His eyes seem to focus on some distant, unseen thing, but as quickly as it came, the contemplative melancholy draws from his face, and a rakish grin twists his lips to reveal his sharp canines, "It's my policy to never see the slaves I've sold off again."
     "Ah well," I grip my head and stumble backwards into the wall, "you've obviously broken that policy."
     He gives a long, soft whistle, "I really didn't expect them to give you up. You should've seen yourself when I first found you in that glass coffin, you looked like a Luchus." He knocks the wall with a clawed finger, "A fallen Luchus at that."
     "Fuck, don't give me that." I grind my head into the cool wall, the fox man's words draining in and out of my dizzy mind, "Wait, did you just say glass coffin? You found me in a fucking coffin?"
     His licks his lips, "More like stole you." A flaming red brow rises above his shrewd eyes, "You're really damn troublesome, princess. No one would buy you for a high price if they knew who you've been with." He leans against the tearing wallpaper and taps his booted foot against the stained floor, "I suppose the right thing to do is sell you back to the Salabens, they'd pay a fortune for you."
An earthquake shiver runs straight through my heart, and the rest of his words drift into oblivion. Pain wracks my chest like I'm being torn open from the inside out, and my legs give out from under me. Salaben. Salaben. Salaben. God, Salaben. My thoughts sing into unison, and the ringing in my mind doubles. A hazy image of a man with hair as bright as gold and mercurial eyes that threaten to bury me in their gaze threads through the static. Salaben. He's Salaben. I need him. Need. Love. Hate. Need.
     No. I gasp, choking on the dust filled air. This mindless, reasonless obsession is almost as strong as the Bond, perhaps even stronger and deeper, and yet. And yet 'I' do not know this man, this Salaben, not like I know Sol or Ralphus or Julius. This man is completely foreign to my memories, we have never met, and yet he is more familiar to my body than any of the others combined.
"Holy shit," The fox man stalks forward, "I didn't expect you to have such a big reaction to his name. Well, it's your lucky day, no one but him's gonna pay enough for you."
"No," I retch out, "Don't you dare sell me to him."                                          
     The Fox crouches down before me and studies my face with his irony tinted eyes, "But aren't you his bitch?"
     "Bitch? Fuck no."
     He laughs, short and irritatingly sharp, "I thought there was something strange about you. You really can't remember anything from 'before' can you?"
     I blink slowly, and place a foot into the the dark of limbo, "No. I have amnesia."
     The Fox strokes his chin, scar shifting alluringly, "Salaben the elf, I found you at his house. I'm afraid you were definitely his bitch, though I suppose he didn't care much for you," At this, a cruel smile cuts across his face jaggedly, "but he'll definitely pay highly to have you back."
A rotund frustration settles over my cold skin, but despite that, an excited beating takes over my heart. Damn, I didn't ever think this body'd have an ex-lover...and an elf at that.
"That's not the only thing though, the mating process is very difficult and violent. It lasts for days and many don't even make it to the end. If they do, they die in the birthing process. I've never seen a birth myself, but they say the elf child rips the mother apart from inside."
     It can't be... right?
     I swallow and place a cold hand on my cheek, "You've made the wrong judgement, no one would spend big money to buy back someone they were sick of."
     The Fox shakes his head, slanted eyes concentrated on my entirety fixedly, "Nope, that bastard will spend all his money to buy you back if he had to."
     Staring up at the ceiling, I grit my teeth. I'm having the time of life aren't I? I got injected with some drug that's making my brain go haywire, and now I'm going to get sold off to an ex-lover I've never met before.
"I know someone else who'd buy me at a high price." I say through my teeth.
But he doesn't reply, only breathes in deeper and deeper, and before I can work out what's wrong with him, he leans forward and presses his rough lips against mine with a despicable heat. I slam a hand into his chest, and he stumbles backwards with a muffled oomph but not before his tongue savours the taste of my lips. An unnatural flush travels up his sun-kissed cheeks, and his pupils dilate with a fresh shock.
"You have a mate?" In this instant, all easy jauntiness and bitter amusement drain from his pointed features, and he licks his chapped lips with a red tongue, "A panther?"
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand roughly, "Fuck, yes, I do! And he'd definitely pay a high price for me."
The Fox's face pales down, and he stands up away from me, "Where is he?"
"The Academy."
He ruffles his scarlet head and looks down at me, "They gave me a million on the condition that you'd never appear on that island again." He shrugs, a strained wine-bathed relaxation back in his bones, "I'm short on money."
"Fuck you." I growl, not looking at him, "I don't suppose you can just let me go?"
He lets out a small breath of air in the form of a faint laugh, "Your boyfriend's going to be rubbing his dick raw when his rut comes." His fingers twitch, and his voice grows quieter, "I'll go get some food for you."
Without a backwards glance at me, he makes his way quickly to the small door and disappears outside, locking the exit with a obvious 'click'. I clutch my head and scream into my knees, and letting dizziness grip my mind, I stand up without hesitation and punch the hard wall behind me. Pain swarms up my arms, but my fist finds its way to the shitty wall again and again. Slam. Damn. Slam. This. Slam. All.
Gasps choke my throat, and my arms fall to my sides. He's not my boyfriend, but I have to get back to him, to them. We can't leave it like this. These feelings have not yet fulfilled their ending, their lives should not end in a premature death such as this.
But shit. This time everything really is going to hell.
Every. Damn. Time.
Lilith, Sol, can you hear me? Can you feel me?
And nothing but static answers.