Intoxicating Predator [FIN]

The classroom hadn’t been used since last year at least. All but one of the desks were neatly tucked away in a corner, their chairs flipped on top of them to conserve space. Cassandra had pulled a desk a little ways away from the cluster in the corner and set up camp in the cold lonely room, not even bothering to turn the light on or shut the door. She was in a typical school outfit for her, a green pleated shirt and a button down but instead of knee high socks she had opted for a pair of legging to keep warm. She hung her heavy fur-lined brown coat over the black of her chair as she settled in to work. The doctor had warned her to keep warm and comfortable.

And with good reason. Cassandra still felt drained from the pneumonia and extended hospital visit she had suffered after her last train wreck of a date with poor Lochlann. She missed him. It’d been ten days since then and she hadn’t seen them. He’d sent her flowers, but that didn’t convince her that he still liked her, only that he felt sorry for her. She had spent more than half of her visit sadly watching Pirates of the Caribbean that she had requested especially to watch with him in case he visited, but he never did. She watched them about fifty times herself after she had recovered a bit and didn’t have to keep the oxygen mask on all the time.

How could someone like him like her anyway? She was young, ugly and stupid. Right now in her opinion there wasn’t a damn good thing about her. Maybe she should give him money? Then at least she’d be useful for something. Though it was still deep in her mind, she had sort of forgotten about him being a horse, but it didn’t matter. He was still her hero. Nothing he was and nothing he did would matter to her now, he had literally brought her back from the brink of death and she idolized him for it. She rubbed her temples and groaned. She didn’t have time to think about him right at this moment though, she had too much work to catch up on.

She didn’t want to think anymore about how much Lochlann probably hated her or what she should do to force him to like her right now, let alone all the stupid rumors going around about her absence. She just needed to get this done so she could go lay down. She sighed, folding her arms and lying her head down atop them. Who was she kidding; there was no way she was going to get this done today. It was only about 4, right? She could nap for a moment, right…?

At first Cassie thought she was getting beaten up again but she was somewhat relieved to find that Lochlann had been the one to pull her out of her seat. The brief spark of happiness faded almost instantly though. He reeked of booze and there was something obviously wrong with him. Suddenly he fell and instead of trying to hold him up she jumped back in surprise. She didn’t know what to do.

There was a long moment where she stared at him with her mouth gaping before she dove to the ground next to him, snatching up the bottle. She looked at him like one might have expected her to when she found out he was a horse. A mix of horror and disbelief. “A-are you okay?! You didn’t take these did you?” she shoved it in his face before looking at it them again. “Oh my god Lochlann where did you get these?” Briefly she wondered if the person they belonged to needed them badly. She was NOT about to give them back to Lochalnn. She knew she needed her sleeping pills sometimes and if someone took them… well she would have a lot of sad sleepless nights.

A more pressing matter- Lochlann could be dying. She put the bottle on the desk before straddling him and cupping his face in her hands, staring at him and feeling his forehead. “Are you okay?” She knew he was drunk; she wasn’t that naïve…. though she was naïve enough not to know what to do. “Have you eaten at all Lochlann…” He didn’t look good and it was making her sad just to look at him. Suddenly she wrapped her arms around him in a tight full body hug. She wanted to cry. He looked awful. What had he been doing since she’d been gone…

“Thanks.” She it wasn’t very sincere. She wasn’t a huge fan of how sexual she was coming to find he was and she wasn’t really in the mood to be seduced. This was awful and of course he was acting like it wasn’t a big deal. She just wanted to cry. She backed off of him and sat down, hands covering her face and her legs folded under her. This was so overwhelming. She took a deep breath and was silent for a long moment. “Lochlann did you try and kill yourself?” Why the hell else would be taking sleeping pills and drinking. She still didn’t look at him and her face was still in her hands. She wasn’t crying and was strangely calm but this situation made her sick. Every time she was with him he seemed to be in danger of dying and she was too weak and small to do much about it. She didn’t have any food with her and she was exhausted.

Her the darkness of her hands pressed against her eyelids helped her stress but she couldn’t even look at him right now. Why on earth would be taking sleeping pills and getting drunk. Though she sat next to him, she didn’t lean on him or display affection of any kind at the moment. Deep down, she was actually rather angry with him for leaving her own in the hospital and then showing up like this after she got out. Was he partying and doing drugs like this the whole time she was gone? Was she expected to take care of him even when she was sick? She thought that liking someone meant that you were supposed to take care of each other, but he didn’t even make sure she didn’t die. He was too busying being unable to care for himself. So was this her fault or his? Her train of thought made her more depressed than angry now. She was confused and stressed. “Should I take you back to my dorm and find you something to eat?”

She asked him because she didn’t know. Should she take him to the hospital? Should she go and get him food and leave him here? He seemed really sick, judging by his temperature. Fact of the matter was that no matter where they went people would see them together and it would cause more problems for her. She didn’t mind so much the future issues that it would cause her but… She was afraid that someone would jump them, even in the halls. The only real option would be to bring him to her dorm, that was the closet place and Trini would know what to do. Ugh. She wished she had a phone. Finally she removed her hands from her face and stroked the top of her own head, looking very much like her father whenever her mother got mad at him. “Yeah… I think we should go back to my dorm…”

Still she didn’t look at him, dark eyes resting on the dusty floorboards. She seemed very detached and sad. She hadn’t really acknowledged what he said about talking. She was too busy trying to figure out what to do.

She very suddenly looked at him wide eyed in disbelief. She looked angry. “Ah… Ah..” She didn’t even know what to say. She kept making noises and breathing heavily. Suddenly she burst out with high pitch, breathy angry words. “A-Are you like… Like… retarded?! Like… Are you serious?! Do you not know anything? How many did you take?” she wasn’t yelling but she was doing the Cassandra equivalent, speaking so breathily she was making herself faint. She kept making weird disbelieving stupid noises.

Suddenly her faced dropped and though the noises continued they sounded a lot more pathetic. Her eyes welled up with tears. Suddenly she pressed the base of her hands deeply into her eyes to force herself not to cry and went very quiet. She thought he was trying to dump her on top of everything, but didn’t want to face it by bringing it up. Everything hえ said just upset her more. She could barely understand him, but everything he said just made this nightmare worse. She sniffled and brust out in a sob in reply to his question. “Yes you can!” she didn’t say anything else, didn’t explain herself further, just bti down on her lip and pushed her hands harder into her eyes.

She started to shake a little in her effort and finally lost it when he went on implying that he almost killed her. Suddenly she slapped her hands down onto the flood violently, breaking two of her fake nails on her right hand right off, ripping part of her real nail underneath off as well, causing blood to rush out and onto the floor. “NO!” she suddenly yelled at him, tears pouring down her face. She looked angry and upset and was right in his face now. She had never felt so furious in her life. "Wh-whats wrong with you?" she suddenly back off and moved away from him, covering her face and holding her breath to prevent from sobbing. "Y-you s-save me a-all of th-th-those times. Fr-from that guy, then from th-the fight." She had to stop to try and put herself back together, but it wasn't working and she didn't want him to interrupt so she forced herself to continue. "Y-you don't even know me and you st-still saved me." she took a shaky breath. "I-if i hadnt hit my head i w-wouldnt ha-have fallen in th-the hole a-and you could have gotten out easier o-or i c-could have gotten he-help" She went quiet after that, folding into herself and crossing her arms so that she could red her head on them on the ground, blood splattering onto the flood randomly from her hand.

After a moment of sniffles as her body shook form silent sobbing she whispered, making sure that he could still hear. "That girl was going to kill me and if you hadn't stopped her i would have died and you know it. So why are you lying and trying to get rid of me." behind the sadness, there was a very dark anger that gave her a dangerous and mysterious resolve behind the statement. she clenched her hands into fists, savoring the pain in her right hand now as her own words sank in and filled her with angry.

she knew what he was now? No. she knew he could turn into a horse. The dark anger was growing now, almost for no reason at all. "You turn into a horse." She snapped. "So what?! I dont even have a species." she kept her face hidden in her arms on the ground. She didnt want him to look at her and she wanted to run, but her body was so tense she couldn't bring herself to move.

She was just so angry she couldn't stand it. How DARE he try and dump her and lie to her like this?!

She went quiet for a while. So that was how it was then. He had sought her out to kill her. And that was it. He doesn’t ask her out, but he can dump her? He didn’t even know what she was and he wasn’t even going to try and found if there was a way to make it work. He doesn’t visit her in the hospital. He didn’t give a damn about her. He had saved her all of those times just so he could eat her. That's why he was starving himself now, so he could eat her later.

So he was a water horse and was doing this to protect her? But he had gone out with her knowing that he’d eat her this whole time. And then it clicked. He was lying. Her silent sobs became hysterical, dry laughter. He is the only reason she left her room in her free time and he was going out of his way and doing all this just to get rid of her. She had no family and no close friends. She had no home, no pets, not a single person to love in the world. Her adventures with him were the only thing between her and the nightmares of the dead faces of her parents and the incessant harassment of her peers. And he thought he could walk out on her, lie her to about it and do all of this while drunk. She bit her tongue as she silenced her eerie laughter, letting huge tears fall from her face for another moment before she forced herself numb.

She sat up calmly, wiping her face with her sleep, unknowingly smearing blood on her face. She smiled the same smile she always did. He was lying. But that didn’t matter. “You know everyone already told me that you’re dating the girl that I met at the bonfire. I already know you’re lying. You’re just trying to get rid of me, right?” She giggled the same as she always did. “You’re silly.” She looked him in the eye with void eyes and a sweet smile.

“How many pills did you take Lochlann? I think my roommate will know what to do, so let’s go see her okay? And I’ll go buy you some ribs from the cafeteria. Sound good?” It was at this point that it became apparent that that smile that she always smiled was not moving even a little form her face. She stared at him, unblinking. “If you want I can go see if I can go get Lilly from her class, she will definitely know what to do to make you feel better.” She reached out and took his hand, holding it in her own. “You are sick, let me help okay? Then we’ll talk about whatever you want.”

There was a strange, faint presence in the room. It caused Cassandra a great deal of pain suddenly but she barely showed it she was so detached. However, she couldn’t help but yank her hands away to hold her right arm to her body, still smiling like nothing was wrong. Her power had become strange and unstable whenever she felt this. She felt it three different times in the hospital, the first time the evening she arrived. That night it had caused her skin to ripple and her stomach to force blood into her mouth. Her fingers on her left had had fallen off and her left eye had fallen out of it’s socket. She was thankful it was just her arm, though it had never been nearly as bad as the first night. She was able to hold it in place, though it was at an angle that would have meant a hospital trip to most. A few moments later the feeling passed and she was able to reattach her arm without making it too obvious.

She couldn’t mess up again. Just a single slip up and she’d lose him for good. She’d have to be perfect. She then remembered her homework sitting out just a few feet away. She suddenly stood up and started stuffing fist-fulls of her formerly neat and orderly homework into the bottom of her book bag, crumpling and tearing without care. She then shoved the books in haphazardly, shaking. “Lochlann let’s go to see Trini, okay?” She nodded at him repeatedly. She didn’t know herself. She only knew him and the fact that she had to keep him around. She made a mental note to threaten to take the pills she took from him if he threatened to leave her again. After all, then his lie wouldn’t be an issue, right! Of course! That way she’d die either way. It was the perfect plan. But of course, she’d give him the opportunity to cooperate first. She held her hands out to him. “Come on Lochlann.”

The thought of losing something else made her feel empty. She felt as though this was her last and only option.