Gone
2146 Words
CAVE: Se*ual Content. Reader discretion is advised.
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Valentina
“Wh—Gone?”
I hear Gianna swallow a few times. Then she continues quietly. “When you went missing, he… lost his way. He... needs to make money. Fast. The only way he knew how to--”
“Drugs.” I don’t have to guess. With how we grew up, I hate that that’s our default setting. Like we’re malfunctioning bots, just repeating our parents’ flawed patterns.
“Yeah. But he not only started selling them, he— he liked to sample his product. Maybe a little too much.”
“I don't believe you! Niki hated drugs. He would never take them!”
“Losing the only person he ever truly loved was enough to change his mind, I guess.”, Gianna says quietly. And I stiffen. She’s right. He lost me. I wasn’t there for him. He gave and gave, and I went and got kidnapped.
“What happened then?” My voice sounds so strained I don't even recognize it.
“There was this party." She blows out a breath. "I learned about it from a friend, and … my boyfriend and I were late. We barely got there when suddenly the cops showed up…as well as an ambulance. We got out of there as fast as possible. But we had to wait for the rideshare around the corner, and I needed to... you know, so I split from them and went back around the corner and- ” Gianna trails off, clearing her throat a few times.
“I… saw them load someone up into the ambulance." I want to stuff my fingers into my ears. NO! "They had covered them with a sheet, but you could see their shoes. Nike Dunks with a pigeon on the side.”
I sob. I got those for him. They were a stupidly expensive limited edition. Vintage. Niki scolded me for buying them for his birthday. But he still wore them almost every day. Can't be though! IT CAN'T!
“That doesn’t mean anything! Someone could have taken his shoes. Hell, I guess quite a few people know how much those are worth. And—
“It was him.” Gianna interrupts me in my grabbling for theories that will make it so I do not have to feel the endless guilt, which wells up inside me. Hot and heavy in my stomach.
A possible reality in which he’s still alive? I will take that. I WILL see my brother again in a few days because Gianna will scream: ‘We got you!’, and then I will hear Nikolai laugh in the background and—-
“I went back," Gianna whispers. "Asked the cops at the scene.” No, no, no. "I told them that... I knew my roommate went to that party and I was looking for him, was worried about him. I even gave them a description, hoping that it wasn't him, but they could maybe help me look for him.” I hear Gianna blow out a shaky breath. “They didn’t confirm it verbally, but they looked at me with so much pity that I knew right then what had happened."
I have no idea how long the pause stretches, my blood pumping in my ears. "They came to our apartment, searched his room, and took his things. I didn't want to be right." Gianna's voice breaks. "One of them came back and gave me Niki's phone a few days later. He said I should look through it again and keep it for his...family members.”
It sounds like she lets out a small sob, and that’s when I break. Dark. Everything around me is slowly turning black, the edges of my vision closing in. I’m alone now. Really ALONE. The last threat holding me HERE, holding my heart in my chest, has just been cut.
My breathing speeds up, and I can hear myself panting loudly, but I just can’t do anything about it. My hands ice-cold, the rest of my body numb, I sit on the ground in a dark hallway, realizing how truly f**ked I am now.
Niki won’t save me. My brother won’t come, and I won’t return to the life I knew. And until now, I didn’t even know that’s what I wanted. But the tightly gripping feeling of loss and terror that crushes my lungs until I feel like they can’t inflate any longer says otherwise.
“I have to go.” I gasp.
I need air. I need space. I need to think and—
“Val, don’t—“
But I end the call before Gianna can finish the sentence. Turning it around, it feels like the plastic of the phone is searing into my flesh, burning with the self-hate that almost chokes me. Without thinking, I toss it, the noise of it breaking apart drowned out by my gulping for air.
My limbs still feel numb. Oh, so numb. I’m numb everywhere except inside. There it’s just raw pain. And I need that to go away! I need the black edges of the numbness to zone in on the throbbing thing in my chest that can't be called a heart any longer. Numbness, to glue the many broken shards together.
“Niki…” I sob once and then force myself to stop. Pushing away the mental image of my brother’s kind brown eyes that would glimmer with amusement whenever he thought of something to get on my nerves. Of his thin frame as a pre-teen and how he stepped between our ox of a stepfather and me. Like I said: I have a big trap, and the incidents over the last few years weren’t the first times it got me into trouble.
My breathing is still ragged when I manage to push myself off the floor, my face feeling numb.
Must be staggering my walk because, after a few meters, I bump into a wall. I curse under my breath, push off it, and try to find my way back to our room rather bleary-eyed.
The numbness almost reached my core, and a wave of relief washes over me. I will handle this. I will smile, flirt, and make stupid dirty jokes through my teeth for the rest of my life if I have to. I’ll do anything to make it through, to survive. Once again, I have to prove that I can put my money where my mouth is.
When I round the next corner, I’m too lost in thought to register that the hallway is made significantly more narrow by a big body leaving a room to my left. Barreling into them, I hit them at chest height, my forehead smacking against their pecs.
“Sche**e!” The curse is only a mumbled thing under my breath, and my feet are way too unsteady not to have me swaying like a fickle little tree in a hurricane.
“S-Sorry, I didn’t expect anybody- Are you OK?” And the warm set of hands that steady me send a buzz through me, interfering with the numbness. The black hole I’m trying to create is shrinking a little.
Silas. Silas and his warm hands. Silas and his warm voice. The concern in it is genuine, and so f**king inviting. And all I want to do in response is shake my head and burst into tears like a little girl.
But I won’t. I CAN'T. This urge to hold onto this last shred, this piece of me, of control and being in charge in some aspect of my life is detrimental. I need some way to make me numb again. Something… Someone.
My eyes wander over Silas’ body. This could work.
His broad shoulders, narrow hips, and impressively well-veined forearms aren’t terrible to look at in that tight white dress shirt. Hmm.
I rake my eyes over them until I meet his seafoam-green ones. There’s still that earnest look in them and something else I thought I saw there right after he ripped that pig off me.
That’s when I register that his hands are still at my waist. He’s just steadying me. They never wander, never try to cop a feel, or grope me in any way. Everything about this, and somehow even him, is so innocent it almost makes my stomach flip. I push that feeling away. Underneath all of that, he’s just a typical guy! And I know what guys want. Hasn’t changed in the last half hour. The only difference is that I will also get something out of it this time. I will feel completely numb.
This will Finally push all thoughts away and just let me focus on surviving. I just got to-
My head is spinning, and the fear, anger, and abhorrent sadness mix into a big blob I NEED to push as far away from my conscience as possible. So I do what I do best.
“Are you lost? I could help you fi—“
The rest of the sentence is a strange humming sound in his throat because I wind my arms around his neck and press my mouth to the corner of his, over the scars. Hard and brief.
When I pull away a little, my arms still around him, I feel a breath 'woosh' out of him and slightly fan my face. I don’t give him enough time to say something, although he opens his mouth. Kissing my way down his jaw, I go for his neck while slowly pulling up onto my tiptoes. I bury my one hand in the very short back of his hair, scraping my nails against his scalp. The other I let run up and down his chest, feeling him shudder under my touch and push into me more, pulling me to him.
“Valentina...”
I ignore how much I like him saying my name. That it makes me want to perk up. Sending warmth through me because even that one word is enough to turn me against myself. And I can’t let it.
Instead, I let the hand I had pressed against his chest lower to where he was still holding onto my waist. I push a little, and shakily, he lowers his grip, following my instructions. Too slow. "You can touch me, it's okay." Holding his hand tight, I almost drag it to my a**, feeling his skin heat up under my lip, still going at his neck. Cute. I can't resist the urge to run my tongue over his skin. Silas’ scent of black pepper and things that are harder to pinpoint is intoxicating. The way he shudders, even more so.
But the moment he follows my lead, I feel cold seep into the very fiber of my being. With every second he squeezes me, every breath he takes with his head lowered to the side of my neck, kissing my shoulder, nipping at my skin... all of it has my stomach turn. He tugs me even closer, using his hand on my a** to pull me up against him until both my legs are wound around his waist.
Groaning as I slide against him, Silas tries to pull me higher and actually kiss me, but I don’t let him, his hold on my neck loosening immediately. He follows my lead once again. "No kissing, handsome. Sorry, it's a rule."
I gyrate my hips, so I rub myself against his pelvis. For some reason, this motion doesn’t feel like anything se**al any longer. Just practiced. Like something I do. When I feel his growing e**ction, the numbness has reached my toes.
And it’s also when he decides to be the one calling the shots. I hear a door click twice, once when he opens it, then when he closes it behind us.
Clinging to him like a spider monkey to a tree, my mouth never left his skin, and I didn’t stop my assault on his hips with mine either.
A tentative hand, the one not holding me to him, pushes under my shirt.
Silas' touch against my skin is so tender it sends something jolting through me, my stomach erupting into—No! Stop it!
His hand wanders up under the fabric until he can run his fingers over the underwire of my bra, grazing the pointy tips of my n*****s through the fabric and sending little shocks through me every time it happens.
Nothing about the way Silas behaves is hurrying me. He isn’t pushy or moving fast to get me naked, which I find very irritating. It strangely feels like him trying to deceive me in some way. And I don't like it.
So I push forward, my grind against his rock-hard d**k only intensifying, ripping the first moan from him. In response, my spine stiffens.
- Writer
