Page 52 of Madness & Mayhem
And I’ve been waiting for her all this time, I just didn’t realize it.
But now that she’s here, I’m helplessly in love with her, and I’ll spend my entire life being dark and depraved for her as I pull out her dark and depraved side.
“Lakyn,” I whisper over the music, Lana crooning something that sounds too fucking romantic for my ears. She continues walking, and then it’s as if she hears the tone of my echoed voice around the notes of the music. She glances at me over her shoulder, and I smirk at her, though she can’t see the way my cheeks turn to stone, or the dangerous lift of my lips.
“I love you, Lakyn,” I growl under my breath, and she shivers, as if she can feel the vibrations from here.
Her masked face tilts to the side, and I can imagine the soft gaze in her eyes. “I love you, Reign.”
Her eyes glow before she turns around, and she tightens her hold on her knife, grabbing the handle as she gouges it into the railing. Shavings of wood curl around the blade before sliding down to the ground. She makes it to the top of the stairs, and the music is so loud it drowns out the sound of the knife against the wood. She makes it to the top of the stairs and glances right, then left, where the shower is running from the bathroom.
She glances over her shoulder at me briefly before she steps toward the bathroom. This is about to be bloody, and I should warn her that when the blood mixes with water, it always looks like there is more than there is, but I won’t warn her.
It’s time for her to figure everything out on her own.
Turning toward the bathroom, she nudges the corner of the door open with her boot, and music blares out of Braylin’s phone which is connected to a speaker system. Braylin sings through the shower door, the spray pounding down around her body as she washes the soap from her hair.
I can see as Lakyn begins practically vibrating beside me as she steps into the bathroom, the room surrounded with light while she’s cloaked in black. She steps into the shower farther, extending her knife out and tapping it onto the marbled counter.
Ting.
She tilts her head to the side, her gloved finger reaching out and tapping onto the phone. She turns the music off, and the sound throughout the house cuts off abruptly, Braylin’s voice singing off-tune before it breaks at the end as she settles into the silence.
“What the hell?” she mumbles.
I stare at the shower, watching through the clouded door as she turns to face us. Her body tenses, and she steps back, until her naked form hits the back wall of the shower.
“What are you doing in my house?” she screeches from behind the shower door.
Lakyn giggles, and I almost wish she had a voice alternator like I have, but there wasn’t enough time to get one. Plus, Braylin knows who we are anyway. The masks are a means of a disguise, because we don’t need to be noticed more than we already are.
“Step out of the shower and I’ll tell you,” Lakyn says, her voice holding a slight bit of husk in it.
Braylin freezes, and I can see her eyes widen from through the shower door. “Oh, my God. Reign? Lakyn?” she shrieks, a cry bursting from her lips. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “If you have to ask, you’re one stupid bitch.”
She lets out a scream, her palm slapping against the wet tiled wall. It makes a loud slap, water flinging across the shower. “Get out! Get out, get out, get out of here!” she screams. “You guys are murderers!”
Lakyn takes a step closer to the shower and Braylin starts screaming wildly. “You’ll never get away with this! They’ll know exactly who it is! Everyone knows I’m this close to taking you all down.” She pinches her fingers together until there’s only a hair’s breadth between her fingers. Then her hand flings toward the door, and she slaps her palm against the glass. The walls shake, rattling metal against glass.
Lakyn takes another step, her knife going out, the blade tapping against the glass wall. “I know who you are, Braylin, and I know what you’ve done. I realize that everyone will know it’s me, and see, at this point, I don’t care. I don’t care if the world knows I killed you, because the alternative…” She takes a deep breath. “The alternative is letting you live, and that would involve my friends all going down for this shit, and I just can’t let that happen.”
She starts hyperventilating, through the steamy shower and the pelting water, she starts to shiver, though I know from the heat of the room it’s still hot water pounding against her skin. “I won’t say anything! I’ll stop my podcast. I won’t make another video!”
Lakyn drags the knife down the glass wall until she reaches the door. Pulling it open with her gloved hand, steam pours from the shower and there stands Braylin, naked, trembling, absolute fear and terror in her eyes.
“I’ll delete everything. I’ll make a video and take it back. I’ll retract every word.” She wheezes, fear cloaking her throat. “Please,” she croaks.
Lakyn laughs. “No,” she says simply, shoving her knife forward. Braylin leaps back, her body slamming against the wall. Lakyn growls, lunging through the doorway of the shower. She shoves the knife straight into Braylin stomach, and my eyes widen, my mouth watering when I see the fear in Braylin eyes. Her mouth opens on a gasp, her hand slapping against the knife as she searches for the wound.
Lakyn pulls up with the knife, and I swear I can hear it tear through her skin. She slides the knife out of her skin, and blood soaks the knife, dripping from the tip of the blade and falling to the bottom of the shower. The blood dilutes to a light pink, surrounding both of their feet and growing until the entire ground is filled with blood. It looks horrific, but I don’t sense a nervousness or fear in Lakyn’s form. She is in control, angry, violent, and vibrating with a high.
I know that high. It’s euphoric, one you only get from the scent of blood and the feeling of holding someone else’s life in your hands. Braylin cries, weeping hysterically while her hand presses against her stomach as she attempts to keep her insides from spilling outside.
Lakyn lifts the bloody knife above her head, her chest heaving as the water pelts the front of her black sweatshirt. It looks heavy, inky as it molds to her form, water sprinkling across both of them and spraying out of the shower. The floor gets drenched, clear with a tinge of pink water soaking into the cream-colored mats.
Braylin stares at the opening of the shower with tears in her eyes, and with a groan, she lunges forward, attempting to get away from Lakyn’s impending knife.