Page 12 of Her Sloth

But I am used to fights. I have been fighting my brother since he could walk and the bullies since school.

I grab her leg and pull her off balance.

She smashes backward onto the ground, hitting her head. But instead of giving up, she catches my leg with hers and brings me down, launches herself onto me, and hits me back, hard onto my cheek.

I don’t even feel the pain as I wrestle with her until I have the upper hand and sit on her. The rage in me just needs an outlet. Needs to hurt her. Needs a release. I hit. And hit. Blindly. Again. And again. And again.

Blood splatters from the impact; her nose is bleeding heavily when she pushes me off by thrusting her hips up.

I fall onto my back, and she lunges onto me; her fists hit me so hard my face flies to the side.

Fuck me, that was a punch. My vision distorts for a second.

She is being pulled off me by my brother, fighting him with all she has.

My chance. I jump up. I’ll⁠—

But before I can do anything, Nikki builds herself up in front of me.

“Move out of the fucking way!” I shout at her.

“You need to fucking calm down,” she says. “We settle things on the street, not with fists.”

“I don’t fucking care what we fucking do; I am going to kill the bitch! Elise was family!” The rage in me overcomes me, with spit spraying from my mouth as I try to get past her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” shouts Nikki back at me, pushing me back by the shoulders.

“That’s her Eleanor!” I shout, pointing at the car. “HERS! And she,” I add, pointing at the bitch who presses her arm against her bleeding nose, panting and kept back by my brother. “She’s the elites, little traitor, leaving family behind,” I tell Nikki before I turn to the bitch.

“Don’t look at me like that, you know very well what you did, you—you!”

She scoffs derogatorily. “You call me a traitor leaving her behind, but all I hear is judging what you did yourself. She was family, you say? Where were you when she needed someone? Where were you when she was all alone in Hawaii? Where were you at her funeral?”

All of this is too much. My skin feels as if it were incinerated by the daring this bitch has. I need to crush her. Destroy her.

So, I pull my gun and point it straight at her.

“Cass!” shouts Nikki, but I am not one to reason with.

“Come on,” the bitch says, wiggling herself out of my brother’s grip and walking straight into my gun. “Do it. Pull the trigger so you can see my face for the rest of your pathetic life.”

I stare into her eyes. She has the same blue eyes as Elise. The same blonde hair. It’s like I am looking at an older version of Elise.

And the realization of it crushes me. It’s when I realize everyone is standing around us. Everyone watches me. Waiting for me to prove what I can do.

But I can’t.

Because doing it would be like killing Elise. I would kill her twice, and now that my immediate rage flushes out of me, I am left with nothing but the void she left me in.

Elise. The only one I ever loved.

4

AUDREY

PLAYLIST: MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT – ELLEY DUHÉ

Istare into the eyes of the woman who just beat me half unconscious; her features are so hardened, and of all the things that just happened, I don’t recognize myself. I don’t know what happened to me when she walked up to me, but I became someone I detest. Someone I ran away from. Someone I never wanted to be, and yet…I feel alive. I feel so fucking alive.