#rioawrites

I’m flattened, defeated, pinned under a body much bigger than my own. My eyes are filled with obsidian spots that flutter across my vision. My head pulses and splits, spitting images across my eyes, blocked out by the dark specs that blind me. I feel a hand on my throat, claws digging into the sides of my neck, palm hot and pressing. I’m a child hiding in a closet, afraid and weeping. I feel the wisp of a tail, hear a cat mewling and I am weak, undone, I succumb to the torrent and do not brace for the onslaught. Tears are leaking from my eyes as my nose crunches into my face, a fist smashes against my cheek, my head flies into the wall. Adrenaline rockets though me and my mouth salivates, my body begins to shake as my blood free flows and chokes me. It pours from me in rivers. I’m drowning in my spit, tears and blood, I am drowning in life.  

It’s going to be a real shinner, I hear him say. His laughter penetrates and permeates, slithers up my spine and around my neck. My bag is forgotten as I manage to fight my way to my knees and brace the wall, pulling myself from the floor and fumbling towards my bedroom door. It swings open, a rabbithole that I am all too happy to fall within and my bed a welcoming crash against my skin.

*  

It is raining as I watch them. Three girls file from the suburban and march across the lawn to the red front door. The house across the lane is no longer empty, it is now filled with people and Balekin tells me that one of them has horns. 

“General Madoc is to be my personal bodyguard," Balekin pulls at his collar and smirks. He is proud, I hear the bragging undertones in his voice, cool like onyx. "There has been some disturbing mail coming into the office. Some threatening letters and I do not stand by and obey idle threats." Balekin pulls at the cuffs of his suit and presses the palm of his right hand to the crown of my head, my lips sneer at his touch. 

“You can stop sending them, little brother,” Balekin turns and drags his knuckles along the innards of the hallway, his rings scraping against the paint and drywall. “One day you might end up at the bottom of the creek.”

Good, I want to say, but I've learned that with a quick witted tongue you have to learn to hold it. Instead I feel the corners of my lips twitch and I pick at the tips of my fingers, there is glue under my nails.

*

There is a tap against my window that wakes me. My blood has crusted against my skin, and there is a weal under my right eye, it swells and presses into the underside of my eye. My head is still a ringing mess, my body sore and aching as adrenaline has seeped from me. My sheet sticks to the side of my face and I feel the hairs on my face pull and release as I rip myself from my bed. But when I turn to look at the window, I finally see for the first time, everything that he has tried to blackout.

“You have been home for hours and you never opened your window Cardan,” I can hear Jude from behind the sheer black curtain, from behind the single pane glass. “Cardan,” Jude is already pulling open the window, already swinging her leg through it and into my space. I bow my head at her commanding presence, her air as she enters my room, she fills every part of me with molten, down to my toes that threaten to drag me towards her. My neck is a hinge and I have lost all my will to lift my head and look into her eyes, so I close my eyes and I remember the day that she told me the first truth I have ever received. 

*

I’m free, the wind blowing through my hair. I peddle faster and faster, all the while Jude Duarte yells behind me. Her auburn hair is styled up in horns, like some freak, like those stupid stories she reads.

“I HATE YOU CARDAN GREENBRIAR!” She is screaming from behind him, running as fast as her legs will take her. 

“YOU HEAR ME? I HATE YOU! YOU AND YOUR BLACK HEART!”

I can’t help but smile at her words, they warm my blackened heart because no one has ever spoken such truth to me. 

I will reward her by dumping this pink bike in the creek tonight. 

*

“Cardan…” 

I hate the sound of her voice, as it is now, laced with pain and pity as it pulls me from a precious memory. She will never know how much I wish her to be that little girl again, in the street, yelling that she hates me over and over again. I just want to feel alive, with the wind in my hair and her words in my veins. 

She approaches me tentatively, it has been different, since that time. When I took her on this bed that is now stained with my blood. She is soft and full of sweet words, when all I need is her seething and swearing under me, over me, around me, I don’t care so long as she breaks over me, like water against rock, coating me, consuming me.

“Cardan, look at me.”

I see her booted feet from between my legs and I struggle to lift my head. Her hands come into my line of vision as her palms cradle my cheeks, my shoulders flinching at the warm, delicate touch of her skin. Slowly, she helps me, rolls my head on my shoulders until it is fully erect and I am staring up at her.

“Will you kiss me now and make this better?” My words are laced with venom as I say them and they slather against her skin as her fingers drag across my lips. “Kiss me Jude,” I press my tongue against her palm, my eyes never leaving her’s. Her gaze, lighting a fire in my heart as she stares down at me with eyes full of adoration, full of love and my guts twist at the emotion. 

“Stop Jude,” I turn my head to my left, tucking my chin to my shoulder. “Stop staring at me with those eyes that disgust me.”

There is a long pause that billows in the air and nestles itself into my collapsing lungs. I pull in a ragged breath, the insult pains me more than the evidence on my face. 

“I know you are hurting,” Jude whispers.

I want to bury my face in her white tank, but instead I snake my fingers through her belt loops and drag her towards me, pressing the crown of my head into her abdomen. I'm weak, so weak, so tired of this and all I want is to find a better place to live.

“But you are too strong to drown Cardan,” she whispers and it is to the room, to whomever will hear the words, I know they are not words for me. Those words are a prayer, for her alone.

I feel her nails drag across my scalp and they catch on a patch of matted hair and a memory flashes through my mind.

*

“Why do you speak like that?” Jude is sitting next to me by the creek and the sun is setting behind the buildings of the city beyond. “You sound too smart for a thirteen year old, it isn’t...normal.”

I scoff at her word choice and deign not to answer, but she presses and I acquiesce to her persistence. “I read Jude, books of all shapes and sizes. To learn, sharpen my tongue, to save me.” My sable hair ruffling in the warm breeze as I feel her shift next to me. Jude presses her pink lips to my cheek and my brows knit together. Partly at her action and partly because her lips have stoked the ache back into my jaw, my bruise with it’s yellowing center and purple ring ripples as I clench my jaw at her touch. Jude weaves her arm between mine and she pulls me closer towards her, it warms my bones. I feel something growing underneath the surface of my skin and there is no energy within me to deny it. So, I do the one thing that I am good at when it comes to Jude, I destroy it. 

"Why do you wear your hair like that?" My question is blunt and like a club it strikes at her. I can see her discomfort as she shifts and pulls away from me and it is only shadowed by the simmer in her eyes. 

"The Queen of Elfhame wears her hair like this," Jude spits at me, like I should know this, like we hadn’t played High King and Queen when we were ten. In a rare moment, when I found myself in Jude’s room, I saw her tattered copy of “The Queen of Nothing”, it fell from her nightstand, under her bed. I had reached to retrieve it, to place it back safely where she could find it when my fingers found a slip of paper instead.

I hate you Cardan Greenbriar. I hate you Cardan Greenbriar. I hate you Cardan Greenbriar. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Hate. Hate. Hate. You. Cardan Greenbriar. I love you.

"Some fairytale, those aren't real Jude. Grow up." My words leave my mouth like needles and I have aimed them to prick in all the right places. There is nothing better than this. This is what we have. I have a brother who beats me and she has… 

A demon lurks behind the walls of her home, a murderer. 

“There has to be something better than this Cardan. Something worth living for,” Jude traces a finger to the bruise along my jaw and gently presses. Jude is so full of hopes and dreams, so hungry for all the things that people like me cannot have. She is blinding, like the sun shinning through a diamond and splashing against me. Yet, I want to believe her, to feel hope curl along my insides and blossom in my chest. I want to be so full of hope that I am sick of it. I blame the day she cursed me in the street, cursed my black heart even though I know it bleeds for her. 

If she wants a fairytale then one day she will have it and I want to see her shine, be the one to give it.

“One day, Jude, I will take you to Insmire,” I let loose a rare smile and revel in the widening of her eyes. 

*

“Jude,” I let my left leg shoot between hers and I crane my neck upwards so that I can see her, my cheek still firmly against her. Walnut eyes stare down at me and my fingers clench tightly against her hips, she is wearing a hat, it isn’t like her. “Your hair—its not, the horns," my voice is soft, questioning, so unlike my usual tone.

"I'm not twelve anymore Cardan," Jude presses her thumb to my bottom lip, her fingers cupping around my chin, pressing the side of my face firmly against her. "You were right. fairytales aren't real. Insmire, Elfhame, they are not real. No matter how much I wish them to be. No matter how much I wish that this—" She finally lets lose the breath that she has been holding in, since she has seen my face. “I just wish this was easier and if I could, I would break him.” Her words are like razors and I know that there is a truth to them. Jude is fire against me and I know now that I don’t want her to crash against me like water, I want her to scorch me, mark me, taint me. 

We are not children anymore.

We've tasted sweet whiskey, gone skinny dipping in the creek, she has seen her mother killed, her father cut down, I've lived my life on the ground, with bruises and cuts inked into my skin and I've pressed my tongue between her legs and tasted sweet bliss. I've felt her heat around me, pulling me closer to her, wringing from me everything that I am and she has always outlasted me. 

"Jude, go home." I push her away as I rise from the bed I've slept on since I was a child, the bed in which I laid her bare. Her eyes are full of hurt, but I see the curiosity that is stitched along her irises, she doesn't understand why I am doing this. 

"You shouldn't be sneaking into the Governor's house," I say as I ruffle the paperwork on my nightstand. "You aren't a kid anymore. It's breaking and entering," I sigh as I fall back on my bed and slide my fingers under my mattress, the thick envelope greeting the tips. 

"Balekin wouldn’t dare," Jude scoffs.

"Balekin, hates you, leers at you." I press my forefinger and thumb to the bridge of my nose and squeeze, the pain knitting my eyes closed. "Balekin says many things Jude. There is only abhorrence for your family, your father, deeply seeded and nourished with pale ale." My eyes find her's, there is shock there, truly. What did she expect?

"Do you hate me Cardan?"

Her question would have caught me off guard, if I didn't actually know that it was coming. 

Yes. 

My voice whispers across the blackness of my mind, her eyes like glass, round and waiting.

Make it easy for me, do not stare at me with those fragile eyes.

"Yes," I finally say. "Yes, I hate you. You once cursed my blackened heart, Jude, but it isn't the worm riddled, flea bitten parts of me that hates you. It's the parts that you have ignited and turned to flame."

She steps towards me and leans forward, her lips brushing against the shell of my ear as she whispers. A second later she is gone, out the window and the last light of the day fades with her.

The shower spray hits my skin like heated bullets and I watch as the water bleeds red between my toes. My hair falls into my eyes as I drag my fingers across my nose and press, I hear a faint pop from under the spray and my toes curl. I can breath again, barely. I toss around Jude’s words in my head and a smile creeps across my lips. I turn the shower knob and I’m left standing naked and in the cold. 

I hear Balekin, in the other room, the television is fading in and out as he flips through the channels and I can see him through the drywall, sprawled across the couch, a blue ribbon can, clutched between his bruising fist. My smile pulls into a smug of satisfaction as I know that even though he has beat me, I have left a mark on his unblemished skin. Tomorrow, when he holds his scheduled press conference, he will wear gloves, in the middle of August and I will know that underneath them is the evidence of his abuse. 

I pull a pair of black jeans on and open the bathroom door, then I break for my bedroom, my toes barely touching the wood floor, it feels as if I am flying. I click the door close softly and grab a black hoodie from my closet, pulling it over my head I make my way towards my bed, slipping into my doc martens. I flip the mattress and pull the envelope, the one that I felt earlier and tear it open. I count the bills in quick succession, the envelope now forgotten on the floor as I pocket the money down the front of my jeans. I pull a book from my nightstand and I grab a duffle from underneath my bed. I quickly pack what I may need and I brace myself to enter the hallway and head towards the front room. 

I see the television from the mouth of the hallway and I count the seconds with each breath that I take. A minute goes by and the television channel has not changed, I hear a faint snoring and I exhale. I tip-toe across the room and I find Balekin’s briefcase tucked underneath the table. I feel inside the pockets until my fingers brush along something cold and heavy, my fist wrapping around the keys and I tear them from the bag. I have to tip-toe to the front door and I close it gently. 

In my driveway Jude is waiting for me. Her hair is flowing in the evening breeze and she leaves me breathless with the sight of her. Her auburn hair is rolled up in two horns on her head and I can hear the little girl in the street from all those years ago. Yet, this time she isn’t screaming how much she hates me, she is whispering in my ear that she loves me. She is wearing a black tank top with a saying across the front and it makes me smile, a gut tightening, teeth bared smile and I want to fall into her eyes as they widen at me. Before I know what I am doing, my feet take me to her and I drop my bag at her feet, my hands reaching for the sides of her face and pulling her into my lips. 

She tastes like spun sugar and I worry that if I am not gentle I will break her, that she will wilt in my embrace, but she pulls me closer and hugs me tighter. 

“Lets go,” I say as I pull her towards the passenger side of Balekin’s black mustang.

“Wait, wait,” She whispers into the night around me. “I’m going to drive, you push and when we are down the block, I’ll start her up.”

I smile at her wonderful mind and watch her as she darts across the front of the car and jumps into the driver seat. I hear the car slink into neutral and it rolls slightly down the driveway. Tossing my bag into the back seat, I reach the backend and push, the car rolls and with every second that passes I can taste freedom. It isn't until I hear the engine roar to life and Jude’s laughter from the front seat, that  I finally run towards the passenger side and jump in. 

Jude hits the gas and the wind pulls at my hair and I do the one thing that I had promised myself that I would never do. I turn and look back at the house that will probably forever haunt my dreams. I smile and raise my fists to that green front door and I flip it off, a howl of laughter escaping my lungs and it feels so good to finally breathe. Without hesitation, without the worry that I would wake a sleeping beast. 

Jude is to my left and there is a smile on her lips and I thank every star in the sky. Her hand weaves towards mine  and I link my knuckles to hers and squeeze, bringing the back of her hand to my mouth. I kiss her flesh with vehemence and press my nose to her pulse. 

I reach for the stereo, flip it on and as we drive through the night, under the shining stars, Jude sings.

"Shine on, shine on young love." 

Even outside, in the forest down below, I hear her, in this room, the silence asphyxiates. It is drowned out by gut wrenching sobs and desperate pleas and all the while she believes no one hears, no one listens. But I do. I hear and I listen and I go to the forest to hunt. I throw daggers into trees, pull poison from the creatures that slither and croak, bottle each one in a tiny glass, shove them in my trouser pockets. In the forest I build a bow. The day I kill a stag my heart radiates in my chest at the majestic being, its head bowed grazing. My feet sink into mud and my palms are sweaty, hands shaking as I move swift and silent. This is my gift to her. 

My arrow hits its eye and my hand strikes against the throat, like flint on stone, quick, easy, my strike extinguishing life, not sparking it. I’ll drag a slit across its belly and rest within tonight and tomorrow I will awake reborn. I squeeze inside, my toes curling as they drag along entrails, the steam billowing against the ice filled air. I lay within and I stare at its heart, on the frozen forest floor. When I wake, my hands brush across my chest and cup my breasts. 

“Mara?”

Sapphires peer down at me, her face stricken, but her eyes do not show the emotions that I know course within. She doesn’t know that I do this for her. 

“Oh Mara,” The Queen bends to one knee and reaches out her hand.

My hands are stained, dirty, full of grime and blood and I have water in my eyes, seeping into my lungs and when I open my mouth I am undone.

“Please, let me do this.” My voice isn’t mine anymore. It has betrayed me, exposed me. Everything that I have tried to hide has surfaced in a blubber of tear streaked words. I am lost, so lost and my heart is sinking to the bottom of her eyes. She has found me like this on each new moon, tucked in the skin of a beast, any beast that a man could ride.

“O’sweet Mara, my darling, how I adore you.” The Queen rises and turns, the forest bows to her as she walks. I concede to her and I rise from the inside of the stag that I have so desperately tried to consume. To walk with her in her forest forever is the only thing that I wish. To be with her until she returns to her land and I return to my bones. 

“I am lost.” I say as I stagger behind The Queen, her ringlets bouncing, strands of hair shining like the lake to our left, the sun is peeping through a bramble of blackberries. The Queen picks a few and kills them behind her sharp teeth. My trousers are thick against my skin as the stags blood dries, it crusts and flakes as I walk, my grey blouse is the same, a mess of life now dead. 

I am so lost in my need to save you, in my love for you. Lost that I can no longer find myself, no longer see who I am when I come to this forest that I love so much. When I kill the creatures that have never once known to fear man. So lost and blinded by this Ardenwealde and by you, my Queen, my sweet Ardene.

“I will find you, always my darling.” The Queen turns to me and bows her head. “When you are lost. When you cannot breathe, when you cannot see, when this world turns to darkness and you can no longer take another step. I will find you.” The Queen raises her head to look into my grey eyes, they are stones to her oceans. “Always, forever and to what lay beyond that. I’ll spend every waking moment, taking just one more step towards you, until I am once again before you, like I am now.” 

The Queen brushes her fingers across my lips and my toes curl into the dirt of the forest floor, I can see the tips of her ears flash into thick points as she stands and turns. She will flee from this place, the place in which her body betrays her and I will walk behind her forever. 

“Tell me a story,” I say as I fall into step to her right, but still behind her, just barely within her vision. The Queen sighs and I can see the corner of her lip pull upwards, the sun is no doubt envious of her shine. 

“Of the Queen and the stag, my precious one?” 

I nod my head at her words. I have heard this story a dozen times. She smiles as she reads it, long and lost she has told me. The Queen who rode her stag through the veil and lost Ardenwealde and her people. The Queen who built a kingdom amongst human flesh, The Queen who yearns to run through the blackberry groves, who placates her thirst on mortal wine. The Queen who fell in love with me and who finds me every new moon tucked in the skin of a stag, of a beast, of any beast a man can ride.