Filed to story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“No,” Declan snaps.
“Literally in my pocket,” Luca clarifies. “It’s just a tiny bit of cocaine; it won’t hurt her. You’ve got friends now, baby; you want to do some drugs with me?”
I turn to Declan. “Can I have drugs? Please?”
“Fine. But only because you asked for permission nicely,” Declan says. He runs his fingers through my hair before pushing it away from my chest and over my shoulders. His eyes drop to the scars on my chest, lingering there before he circles one of my hard nipples through my thin tank top with his thumb. “You’ll get what you want a lot more being sweet like that.”
“But she’s black licorice,” Luca says. “She can’t be too sweet, or she’ll poison you.”
“Mmm too late for that,” Declan tells him. “Go do your drugsjust bring her back to me in a timely manner. I’m about sick of this shit, too.”
Luca takes my hand and pulls me behind him toward the bathroom. I catch the eyes of the girl with the blonde ponytail before she pulls her hood over her head.
She does look familiar, and it’s not just because I saw her at the concert. I didn’t see anyone at the concert. I was in the front row with my family, much drunker than I am now, and I only looked at them.
How could I notice anything else?
We step into the men’s restroom, which, although significantly filthier than the women’s, is probably a good choice. This one is empty, and almost everyone here is female.
“Where’s that pretty little knife of yours?” Luca asks.
It’s loud in hereso loud he still has to shout for me to hear him. The walls vibrate from the music blaring through the speakers outside.
I point to my right tit. “Right here.”
“Ah, I see.” He reaches inside my shirt, taking his time searching for it. “That’s really pretty, Teagan,” he says, pulling it out. “Pretty knife for a pretty girl.”
He flips the blade open and runs the flat side just under my jawbone. I don’t even feel the cut, but I feel the blood when it starts running down my throat.
“Whoops damn. That’s sharp as fuck.”
He uses a fist full of my hair to tilt my head back before licking and sucking the area clean. “You taste so good,” he says. “The only thing sweeter than your blood is your pussy. I could drink you all day.”
Both his mouth against my throat and his words pull a desperate whimper from me. “Luca ”
“All right, fuck,” he groans, handing me the blade. “Hold this out flatlike this.” He takes my wrist in his hand and turns it so that the blade is horizontal, with the flat part facing upward. Then, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small plastic bag with white powder inside.
“Hold it still,” he says. He opens the bag and carefully taps the side until a small amount spills out onto the blade. “You know what to do?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’ve seen it before.”
He wraps his hand around my own to help steady the blade. “Go for it then.”
I plug my left nostril and lean down, snorting the white substance. By the time I’m finished, my tongue is numb and my right eye is watering.
“You good?” he asks. “It should kick in pretty fast, especially since you’ve never done it before.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, smiling. “I’m good.”
He smiles, laughing just a little. “Okay. Hold it for me now.”
He spills a much larger amount onto the blade in a line for himself and then does the same thing.
“Shit,” he says. He tilts his head back and runs his hands over his face a couple of times. “I think you’re going to like this, Teagan. I’d better put you back now. Come on.”
He takes my hand in his, but before we can leave, someone else steps into the bathroom.
The girl with the ponytail. The one who’s been following him.
My heart thuds in my chest, and it’s not just the drugs. I know who she is now; I know why I recognize her. I saw her picture online months ago, before Ior before Declanstarted all of this.
Unfazed and completely unaware, Luca nods in her direction as he attempts to step around her. “Sup?”
She spits the word back at him as she moves in front of the door. “Sup?! Really?”
“Luca ” I say softly. “That’s Heidi’s sister.”
“Oh, shit,” he says. And then he laughshe fucking laughs. “Sorry about all of that; I hope she gets better.”
“What the fuck is funny about this!?” She pulls a gun from under her sweatshirt and points it right at him. “What is funny about any of this?”
Tears leak from her eyes and her arms shake while she holds the weapon in front of her, her jaw clenched tight. I’m hyper-aware of all of it. I suddenly realize I’m still holding the knife in my right handshe’s so fixated on him that she hasn’t noticed yet. I flip the blade and tighten my grip on the handle.
“I’m sorry, I’m just really fucked up right now,” he says, covering his mouth to suppress another laugh. “Are you going to kill me or something?”
“Luca stop laughing. He’s sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry about what happened to your sister. Please, don’t do anything stupid.”
“He’s not sorry. He’s a monster,” she says. “Nothing happened to herhe did it to her! You ruined her, and you ruined my family!”
“Okay, just calm down,” Luca says. “You’re not going to sh”
But she is going to shoot him. I see the muscles in her hand flex before he can finish his sentence and shove her to the side just as she squeezes the trigger. As the gun goes off, I drive the blade into her stomach with as much force as I can get behind it. I hear the weapon fall to the ground, sliding across the tile. I stab her again, and this time, she slides down the wall of the bathroom onto the floor.
Overcome with rage, I straddle her waist and drive the knife into her chest, over and over againI don’t know how many timeseven though she stopped moving and stopped fighting a long time ago. Blood splatters over the front of me and soaks the floor around me, and I don’t stop. I can’t not until I feel Luca’s hand on my shoulder.
I forgot about him. How could I forget about him?
I look down at my body and the one beneath me. I’m covered in blood, head-to-toe. And so is she.
She’s dead. I killed her.
“Teagan, I need help,” Luca says.
I finally whip around to face him; he has his hand covering a spot on his shoulder, his dark shirt wet with blood.
“Oh my god!”
“It’s not that bad,” he grunts. “But I need help. Can you get my phone out of my front pocket?”
“Um yeah.”
Before I can move, the door opens; my heart drops into my stomach.
“Holy shit,” Declan says, quickly slamming it shut. “What the fuck is this? What did you do, Teagan?”
“She was Heidi’s sister,” Luca groans. “She fucking shot me.”
Declan finally looks from me and the bloodied body beneath me to Luca. But I’m stuck on the word was. They’re talkinggoing back and forth. I’m aware of their voices, but whatever they’re saying just sloshes around in my head; I can’t make any of it out over the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears, the word was at full volume echoing through my brain.
She was Heidi’s sister.
She was a person.
Now, she’s a bag of meat and bones on a dirty bathroom floor.
