Page 124 of A Foster Fling
Caerus loves my hair. He’s weird for it. Rule forty one I guess. I'd never judge him. Especially knowing that's not the strangest thing he's ever focused on about me. It's because of Caerus that I’m not going absolutely postal about my situation.
Being with him has conditioned me in several ways. Caerus is delicate in his darkness. He was diagnosed young with schizophrenia and sent to the asylum that we ended up growing up in. If we were ever overheard calling it such, we were punished. We were to refer to it as Healing House. Just thinking of the place made my neck heat uncomfortably.
In legal terms, it was a foster home.
A foster home run by unimaginary monsters that fed on the mental illnesses of children. The ‘good doctor’ opened the home to help those children who’d never find homes because of their usually violent natures. To the public he was rehabilitating us, healing us.
No one healed there. We all just learned to be bigger than the monsters we were plagued with. Healing House was a prison for our dreams and demons alike. The darkness contained in its walls rivaled that of history's greatest villains.
Caerus never belonged there. Despite his flaws he was always kind and brutal in the way he protected others from himself. When he wasn't cowering from the hidden things he saw he teetered between heavy depression and devotion to the people he cared for. He was a kaleidoscope of contradictory behavior and I was absolutely taken by him. Always have been.
As I never agreed with the labels others put on him, he never agreed with the ones put on me. Sociopath. Dredge. Apathetic void. He saw more in me and he showed me how to be so.
Before him I didn't know all the ways a heart could beat. I didn't know that my worth could feel so vast. He was my sculptor. He carved me from the stone of my withered soul into something sturdy and everlasting. He mademe.
For that reason there is no way I can allow myself to end here. I can’t give up on everything we made together. I can’t give up on him.
I have to put to use all that he taught me about reading people and conforming when necessary. Like water I need to twist and bend in order to continue my path. I have to gather everything boiling to the surface and keep it tucked under my skin. I have to channel my inner Caerus.
I have to be the bigger monster.
With my new resolve I muster a deep calming breath and make sure the bubbles cover my bits. He hadn't told me what to do when I was done so I guess yelling will have to do. If he’s gonna drown me for it what was I to do?
"Hey Squatch!" I chortle before subduing my humor. "You didn't give me a towel!"
I listen for a few moments but nothing comes. I sigh and lea my head against the back of the tub. The tingly feeling on my skin has mostly subsided and fatigue is taking its place. If left to my own I would fall asleep and drown before he could kill me.
"If I drown it's your fault." I breathe around a yawn.
I drape my arms over the side of the tub and rest my head on them. It’s the best I can do to keep from slipping under the water. My eyes no longer obey my commands to stay open and a fog of sleep closes in. I hear the soft swish of the door opening over carpet and through my narrowed eyes I see his large form in the doorway.
He closes in and the last thing I see sends my mind into a whirlwind of strange dreams and old nightmares. Fears I had all but forgotten bubble to the surface of my conscience. There’s no way he could know. No way he couldbe.
The mask adorned with horns and sightless eyes is so similar to one from my past. The absence of a mouth so like the face that plagued my youth. As I fall asleep, a long slumbered beast wakes from its place in the dark.
My darkest demon has come back for me.
Chapter Six
NO HORNS IN THE DARK, A DEVIL THE SAME, deals made of ash GIVE THE FELLA THE NAME.
The only thing louder than the screams in my head was the squelching of my hungry belly. I lost track of the days. I hated to lose time because I never knew how long I stayed strong. I never knew if I beat them. Their expectations.
“Have you learned yet lamb?” His voice crept up my back like a serpent chilling my already cool blood.
“Fuck you.” I grated through my clenched jaw.
It was freezing int here. Not cold enough to kill me but enough to keep me very uncomfortable. That on top of the fact I’d gone almost a week without eating had left me virtually incapable of controlling my limbs. I was a pathetic sight but I refused to cower.
“Sayler I don’t understand why you feel the need to be so defiant. We are only trying to help you. Don’t you want to get better?”
Of course he’d brought along miss Mason. Her voice was like tin in a blender. She was perhaps the worst of them all because she was so misguided she actually thought it was a good place. She believed what we were going through was therapy and not torture.
Despite everything telling me she deserved to sink with all the other monsters there I found myself hoping she got out before all the depravity tainted her. She treated us with kindness and that made it worse. A fucked up part of us was convinced we deserved everything because it was sometimes delivered by such soft hands.
“Better?” I rasped out. “I just want to be gone.” To die would have been so easy. But my pride wouldn’t allow it.
“Oh don’t say that. What about Cae? What would he do without you? You’re important to his recovery too.” Damn her. She always used him to get to me.