"Help," I tried again, but it was less than a whisper, it was more of a breath.
If anyone was nearby they couldn't have heard me but I also got the eerie feeling that on this ship there were no souls left on board.
My breathing was too quick, I tried to calm myself down.
"Hi," Was all she said, with a little wave of her hand.
Even her voice was weird, sort of monotonous and low, weird because she actually had quite a light feminine looking body.
Her plaits touched my covers as she leaned over me.
I tried to scream for help again but again I could not get past the letter 'h'. This was less to do with my being ill and more to do with the anxiety that was currently consuming me.
She seemed to take this as a returned 'hi' and continued talking.
"My name is Mara."
I couldn't speak, my tongue was a limp slug in my mouth.
She scooched on closer to me.
The air felt colder.
"You're Mylo."
Since I couldn't talk I nodded, on retrospect maybe I should have shaken my head but what would that have actually achieved, some mild confusion?
"Wow," She hummed. "You're not manly like Ryuu, but I see why he likes you, you look like me, we have dark eyes."
I felt some anger flare up, not only because she had basically called me effeminate but because she described me as looking like her.
Dark eyes or not. I wasn't her, I never wanted to be her, desperate for the man I love but always distanced and never seen.
I sucked in my breath, I was on my way to becoming like her, I already felt sick to my stomach that he was gone and it can't have been more than one or two days since he left.
Was my life really so consumed by the man? There was a desperation in me that made me feel weak and out of control, I hadn't done anything but I felt like a stalker, so genuinely stricken by the fact that he was gone.
Then it struck me that the way she said that it made it sound like she thought he liked me because I looked like her?
Which was weird, to be frank, because I had dark brown curly-haired, slight olive coloured, and am male... Just obviously looked nothing like her in any way shape or form.
I swallowed my tongue.
"Get out," My voice was rough, I was thirsty, my throat was dry.
Her eyes, which I hadn't thought looked kind, now looked anything but.
"You're very rude, you don't look like it."
I pursed my lips.
"L-Leave, I w-will c-call..." I had to pause to cough loudly, "I will call h-h-help..."
She looked angry, "Call for help? I'm sitting here being nice to you and you want to call for help why?"
I felt a shiver run up my spine, please, I don't want to find out what mean is in her book.
I looked at the door, then at the window, still no one.
I heard the sound of a motorbike ways away in the distance and I dreamed of Ryuu bursting in through the door to save me.
What a day to leave me to fend for myself.
"What... do... you w-want from... me," I growled as best I could.
She looked at me very calmly and with honesty in her eyes as she replied, "I don't want to hurt you," She said, "I just... I want to know what he smells like."
I felt it the second my heart stopped beating and my ick meter flew of it's hinges.
"Tell me what he tastes like?"
For a second it struck me that I had a very detailed answer for both of those questions. It seemed as though I had examined him head to toe, somehow, without even being in charge. It seemed something embarrassing but then I remembered... when he is in control it feels as though everything I see or feel is on purpose.
Thinking about it caused a flush of possessiveness to grip me.
I might be Ryuu's, but he was mine as well.
Now was not the time for insecurity, I had to believe he would return, I had to believe the girl, that she would not do anything crazy.
I desperately hoped that when she wasn't looking I could gather enough strength to hit her.
"I won't say."
My heart beat fast, I should have said 'I don't know'.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Don't be like that, he's leaving you anyway, give me something?"
I felt a pang or irritation at hearing that but forced myself to calm down. I bit my lip. I was sweating badly.
"I just want you to describe him, you can make it up if you like, just a little bit has to be real."
"Get out-" I took a breath, "Get out of my h-house."
From out of absolutely nowhere she smacked me in the face and I mean smacked me. That was not a girls slap that was a bears slap, the force of which made my head swing to the side.
I gasped.
"Why won't you answer me?"
"I don't want to!" I bit out through tears and shock.
Why, though I had such a sinister feeling about Mara and knew of the creepy things she had done, did I completely not expect her aggression? Was it the calm tone? Was it the way she looked at me, as though she wasn't even angry? Or was it just because she was a girl, and a frail looking one at that.
And then, bizarrely, she leaned down and kissed me on the lips.
I tried to pull me head back when she moved in, I thought she was going to headbutt me, but I could not move back any further.
She then patted my heard weirdly, awkwardly, as though she was trying to make me feel better. It was as though this girl had absolutely no social skills whatsoever, I felt like she had raised a hamster at one point in her life but never met a human.
She kept making shushing noises and patting my head and for a second I felt sorry for her because I was absolutely sure that there was something 'cerebral-ly' wrong with her. And then the panic returned.
"Don't cry," She said, and I realized I was.
Fear and anxiety crushed in can with confusion and mortification.
Her thin fingers felt cold and creepy on my head.
I thought of Anaway's poem.
"When the dragon goes and leaves it's treasures behind,
You will be sure to find,
A treasure to measure must be found,
Where the dragon's wings fly down."
[Ryuu's POV]
I stared at my phone in anger resisting the urge to call Donna and spit at her through the phone. The fucking idiot of a girl left Mylo at home with a 'friend' I was angry beyond belief.
Is that normal? Do you just leave your kid at home with a random bitch.
The sky felt darker than normal.
I tried to breath calmly as I left Piccadilly Station and looked for a taxi. My motorbike was in a storage locker and I wasn't going to be able to get to it in time so I didn't bother.
A black cab rolled up and I got in barking out Mylo's address to one of the most silent cabbies I have ever met.
I was glaring, I couldn't help it, fear and panic condensed into sheer raging anger.
The walls of the cab felt confining for the flames of my anger. I wanted to rip everything apart and burn it down. When I got my hands on that 'Mara' girl I would beat the shit out of her before the police ever got near.
She was smarter than I gave her credit for.
She had first, somehow, managed to send Mylo's sister and father a text that lead them to believe that his mother was in the ICU ward with serious injuries and the appeared on their doorstep, apparently in school uniform, informing them that she was his friend and wanted to take care of him.
They rushed off without them.
I felt a spike of anger before I tried to reason with myself again that they couldn't have known.
They couldn't have known because I hadn't told them.
Fucking idiot me.
If I had had the ability to punch myself I would have.
The sheer gal of the girl to just walk in right through his front door, besides buying the uniform it seemed like she had done little to no work at all. It was like she had the key to the city.
The second the car slowed down and it began to hobble through the London congestion at it's regular snail pace I threw some money in the front seat and jumped out to run, I was close enough now, close enough to recognise the streets at least.
I hated how fucking useless I felt in the car, running was better, I could barely notice the sky spitting at me as I went. I felt the icy wind on my face as I threw myself through the streets, the sheer terror of the not knowing driving me forward.
Mylo be safe, please be safe, you have to fucking be safe or I've completely failed you.
For a while I felt my confidence slip, wondering if I had gone down the wrong road and began picturing Mylo covered in blood wondering why I had left just petrified and I felt some relief when I saw his house.
The car that pulled up in the middle of the road with screeching tires spat out it's passengers who almost fell they were so desperate to get back to the house.
There were police sirens way away in the distance and I couldn't tell if they had been called by our jolly little group or someone else.
"Where is he?" Donna shouted.
I was busy panting painfully as I frowned, "You're asking me?"
Her dad looked really freaked out, he got to the house and tried the key and then tried the key again but the door wouldn't open.
Donna threw herself at the door and shouted, "Open the fucking door!" and then, "MYLO!"
I couldn't wait until the door gave it if it ever did, maybe I could have given it a go but I didn't believe it would have given in either way, and then in addition to that I didn't know what Mara had done to the door to keep it closed.
So I got on the rubbish bins and climbed onto the roof of the bay windows. I slipped because everything was wet and my leg crashed into their valley gutter pipes which broke off from each other but didn't fall.
I hung there precariously for a second planning my route.
"Don't beat her Miguel, she's a girl!" Shouted Donna from below me, she also muttered something else but I couldn't hear it. I was just pissed that she cared.
I grabbed onto the window sill above me and pulled myself up, thank god it was the right room, I could see just about see her on his bed, a ridiculously small creature I almost couldn't believe how fucked up she was.
It took me a while to see where her hand was, under the covers, under his fucking shirt and moving lower, what the fuck did she think she was doing.
I felt the rage give me energy as I smashed the glass of the window with my bare fist and just let the panel of glass that crashed inward tear a gash into my arm. She screamed bloody murder and jumped off the bed and started grabbing random shit from any surface in his room and off the floor to throw at me.
The first projectile nearly threw me right back out of the window and down the side of the house but the part of the window that wasn't made of glass was there to just about support me as I fell in.
My hands were shredded by the glass on the floor but I couldn't care less.
I wiped my face and blood dripped from my head.
I saw Mylo who, though clearly exhausted, pale and disorientated, was looking at me like I was the messiah. He looked so frail, what had I put him through. What had she done to him?
I smelled gasoline in my soul.
The fire in me raged ever brighter.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!" I bellowed.