Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex
King - Years And Years

Petals fall from the sky

The flower was no longer

Silence filled the air

The beast was tricked

An awful scheme, a sick ruse

Colors flying from the sky

The flower dead among life

//

Something hits my face and I wake with a start. At least, I thought something had touched my face. I open my eyes as something hits my forehead. I sit up and look up at the ceiling, plain white like the rest of the room. There it was, a growing wet spot dripping from the ceiling. Actually, there were three; one over me, one by the door and the other by the corner. The patters of rain rung throughout the room and calmed me as I got up. Honestly, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where anything to stop a leaking roof would be.

I creep out of the room and tiptoe down the hallway to the kitchen, to look for bowls. Jase was nowhere to be seen or heard for that matter. I stop when I reach the counter and look around the small space, just to make sure he wasn't hiding in the shadows like normal. Nothing. I look up at the cabinets and see everyone with a small lock. I could have sworn there weren't any on there before. I mean, it was comical to think I would do something with a bowl. Well, putting thought into it, I did hate the man enough to kill him with a bowl.

There was only one without a lock, so I open that to find exactly what I needed; bowls and plates. All of them plastic. Clever boy. I take three of the large red ones and shut the cabinet as quietly as I could and go back to the room. A slap of thunder booms through the house as I walk back into the room to set the bowls under the drips. I look over at the soaking bed and throw my plans of going back to sleep out of the window. I wished I could open the windows to let the rain in. I loved the rain and would go out in no matter the temperature. Sadly, they were all plastered shut tightly. A fire hazard if anything.

I didn't know what else to do, so I sit in the same chair next to the window and stare out at the rain. I could see the puddles gathering out in the yard, muddy water mixed with the tall grass poking up. I start to imagine koi fish swimming around, frogs leaping out to get shelter, flowers withering from the tons of water being dumped on them. It wasn't hard to imagine when all I had was my own mind. Another clap of thunder booms and that was when I heard it. The whimpering.

I turn my head and look over at the door. Was it Jase? Who was I kidding, like anyone else was going to be in the house? Hello Mr. Burglar, meet Mr.Serial Killer and Stalker. Have fun now. I pass it off as my own head making things up and look back out the window. If it was Jase, I didn't care. Probably murdering someone as I sit here, torturing them to the extent their bodies give out.

The whimpering was more prominent this time and I definitely knew I heard it. I sigh and scoot out of the chair to go investigate. If it was Jase, what was I going to do? Beg him to stop killing whoever he had contained? Perhaps he would listen to me, he was utterly infatuated with me. I go over to the door that always stayed locked, right across from mine. I watched him go in there every night for the past three days it had been raining and he would sparsely come out. I wasn't complaining, it gave me time to work on my escape plan and snoop through the house. Not that there was much.

Knocking on the door, I put my hand on the knob and it easily opens. The room was dark and not from the gloomy outside; the curtains were pinned closed and there wasn't any light except the opened door. What a way to torture someone. Locking them up in a dark room. Sounded familiar.

"You don't have to kill people, you can just let them go! I mean, you have me, isn't that enough for you? Are you that insane that you need more than one victim at a time?" My hand roams the wall until I feel a light switch and flick it up. The room wasn't exactly a mess, but it wasn't neat either. In fact, it sparsely had anything. None, however, were torture devices and or victims.

There was a big desk with papers stacked on it and a vintage looking lamp. A bookshelf that stretched across the wall to my right with perhaps hundreds of books. Then, there was a small sofa with blankets and a single brown pillow. Jase was leaned over the desk and seemed to either be reading or writing. No blood anywhere, no bodies. The room was so clean, it didn't look like he lived there at all. Jase doesn't even turn around when I turn on the light, but I see him tense up.

"Bold of you to assume I'd lose interest in you," Jase smoothly says, turning a page in a book followed by a scribbling noise. I have no clue how he had been writing in the darkness if that was even what he was doing. I walk over to his desk and before I could take a peek over his shoulder, the book shuts and he whips around to stare at me. The black dye had already vanished from his forehead, but his ears still had some left over. His glasses were tucked into the shirt collar of his black dress shirt.

"I told you not to come in here, didn't I?" I remember the specific words being 'You'll regret crossing me.'

"I heard noises. I was curious," I state and cross my arms against my chest. Jase smiles for a second before dropping his smile as the thunder booms through the house again. He covers his ears and the whimpering before erupts from his lips. Now, this was new. Was he scared?

"Are you afraid of thunder?" I ask and Jase shoots me a glare filled with poison. He glances around the room and takes his hands off his ears.

"Is it over?" He asks and I raise my eyebrows. Oh, this was just too easy.

"Answer me. You're afraid of thunder, aren't you?" I purse my lips and Jase rolls his eyes in disgust. He stands up from his chair and sticks his hands in his back pockets, walking over to the bookshelf lining the wall.

"I'm not afraid," He hums and grabs a book, peeling it from its tight spot in the row. It was red and covered with silver trim. Another boom shakes the window pane and Jase backs up against the shelf, closing his eyes tight and squeezing the book. The whimpering begins again and I stare at him in utter amazement.

"Terrified. I'm terrified," Jase sighs and slowly bends his knees, sliding down the shelves and onto the floor. He sits there, eyes still screwed shut and lips pressed into a thin line. I feel a pang of pity in my heart and make my mind up. Maybe I could get some information from him and calm him down. I sit down directly in front of him and cross my legs. He opens his eyes and stares at me as I lay my hands on my knees.

"How long have you been afraid?" I ask and Jase sets the book down on the floor. His hands trail the edge of the book and he stares down at the hand.

"All of my life. Ever since I could remember. He always told me it was wrong to be scared. It's funny," He laughs a little and another boom shakes the room. He jumps and I couldn't stop my hands from gripping his knees and holding him down.

"Continue," I say. If I could distract him from the thunder by getting him to talk, maybe he would get over the fear of thunder. Jase opens his eyes and looks at me, tears starting to prick out of his eyes. Another one comes just as soon as the last and I move forward, leaning into him to continue.

"It's funny how he told me it was weak of me to be afraid yet he wouldn't help me. He just sat there and watched me cry. Every time it rained, every time he brought another woman home. He would make me sit there and he would yell at me to stop crying. But I could never stop, Acacia, it was so hard to stop," More tears slip from his eyes and he breaks down into sobs, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face into his knees. I reach my hand out and put my hand on his shoulder, patting softly. Before I knew it, his arms were around me and his face was buried in my shoulder. His tears soaked through and made my skin wet, also making me cringe from the feel. Yet, I didn't move away. I didn't fight him and I didn't yell or scream from the tight grip. I let him cry.

"Who did that to you?" I ask, already knowing the answer myself. I wanted him to say it, though. I wanted him to address who it was so he could address the fear inside him. It was crazy how someone who drove fear in so many others had a fear like thunder. Jase lifts his face from my shoulder and presses his forehead against my shoulder.

"My father. Marlin Gerald Mavis. The Bloody Butcher." My hands tense on his back and I stop the soothing rubbing. I had a feeling that the nickname wasn't a meat cutter, at least animal meat. Instead of throwing distance between us, I continue rubbing his back. This was my chance.

"What did he do to you?" More thunder racks the room and Jase buries his face back in my shoulder.

"He would bring women home when mother left to work at the library. She left at night and my father worked during the day and came home to take care of me. I was in the gifted programs and had lessons and lessons and lessons. I hated them all. When I would come home, father would already be in the basement with his victim. He would make me sit in the corner and hand him knives," Jase stops and nuzzles his face into my shoulder more. I take my hands off his back and place them on his shoulders.

"One day, there were police at the house. The officers were arresting my father. He still had blood on his clothes. I was taken away from mother for a very long time until I was 16 to be exact. After that, she made me realize what I needed to do. The work I needed to finish in my father's place. But then, I found you. She told me I could pick anyone I wanted and I wanted you. I've always wanted you," Jase's arms wrap around me tightly, crushing me against him. My brain was being fried from the information going in, all the pieces that were falling into place. Jase settles against the bookshelf, holding me like a teddy bear.

"You don't have to do this. You don't have to be him," Jase starts to tap his fingers against my arm and hum a little tune.

"It doesn't matter what I want. It never has, hasn't it? I have to do what she asks, right?" Jase coos and rests his chin on the top of my head. I tuck the last part of my plan into my back pocket for later and shake my head against him.

"You dyed your hair, didn't you? If you can do that, you can do so much more," I say and try to push away from him. Jase holds me in place as another round of thunder begins.

"I don't want to let you go. Not yet."