Page 97 of Reckless
All of this… because I lived in this house? Because I was here and Celeste wasn’t? What kind of stupid fucking asinine reason was that? I’ll tell you—not a reason at all.
Bobbi wanted someone else to hurt as much as she did, and she succeeded.
“I’m not Celeste,” I said, feeling a single tear course down my cheek. If I let myself lose it, I’d be dead. As it was, I could feel my blood pumping faster, the adrenaline in my body start to pick up. I hardly felt my single wet sock, although my mom’s blood had spread to my other one, too.
“I know,” Bobbi said. “But you’re the next best thing. Finally, something Oliver Fitzpatrick can’t fix. When you’re dead, I’ll be the only witness. He won’t silence me from telling the world you were a crazy psychopath who killed your own mother.” She lifted the knife in front of her face, tilting the blade. “I had to defend myself.”
“Then come at me, bitch.” It probably wasn’t the best idea to taunt a knife-wielding psycho, but at the same time, I had nothing left to lose.
Bobbi smiled. “With pleasure.” And then she lunged. She lunged so hard and so fast I backed up, momentarily forgetting the fact that my mom lay there, dead. I tripped on my mom’s shoulder, falling to the floor, scooting back as Bobbi attacked.
I had my back against a cabinet, nowhere else to go. When she brought down the arm with the knife, I used both hands to stop her wrist from lowering all the way. Neither Bobbi nor I were obscenely strong. Our advantage was the same: one of surprise. It would’ve been easier if Bobbi would’ve stabbed me in the back, but I supposed that wouldn’t have fit her narrative as well.
“Just die,” Bobbi hissed.
Since our hands were at a stalemate, I decided to go at her from a different angle. I let my body fall to the side as I let go of her wrist; Bobbi pushed the knife down, but instead of impaling my chest, the knife’s sharp edge slid into my upper shoulder. Pain sliced through me, searing and blinding, but I managed to do what I set out to by moving in the first place.
I shoved my fingers so far into her eyes that I felt their gooey roundness.
Go for the eyes, Jacob had told me, and then run.
Only problem here was I didn’t plan on running.
Bobbi cried out, losing her grip on the knife as she went to reach for her face. Some people would’ve taken the opportunity to run, but what good would running do me? Look at all that had happened, all that had been lost, and tell me that running was an option.
It wasn’t. Neither one of us was going to run from this.
My heart pounding, I grabbed her wrist again and pushed her to the floor, holding the knife back. I slammed the back of her hand onto the tile below, and combine that with the pain having her eyes practically poked out, Bobbi made the mistake of letting the knife go. All of this happened within seconds.
The knife felt heavy in my hand, the blood dripping off its steel blade a reminder of what she’d done, who she’d hurt. All because of what? Because of a girl and two boys, because of what those boys did three years ago?
I brought the knife above Bobbi’s chest, but she had started to struggle, finally back in her right mind enough to curl her fingers around my wrist and try to stop the knife in its descent. Unlike when she had me cornered on the cabinets, I had a better position now. I could literally put all of my body weight behind my hand… and that’s what I did.
Even Bobbi couldn’t hold my entire torso up, not when I gave my everything to pushing down that knife.
The knife cut through her shirt, and her eyes widened. I met those eyes—those hazel eyes I’d stared at so often while talking with her at school, at the choir concert, even here. I met her stare and held it as I felt the knife meet a bit of resistance below. Alas, the resistance wasn’t enough; the knife cut through her skin and the underlying muscle, sharp enough to slide all the way down into her chest.
Bobbi’s stare blinked and the hands trying to futilely stop me fell to her side. A wet, liquid-filled gurgle escaped her lips, a thin trail of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth; I must’ve punctured a lung or something, because for the few breaths I heard after that, it sounded like she was drowning in her own blood.
Good.
I said nothing, watching as the girl I used to think was my friend breathe her last breaths. I watched as those pupils dilated and her body relaxed. I watched as she died, and then… then something took over.
Yanking the knife out, I spoke through ragged breaths, “You killed my mom.” The words fell on deaf ears, dead ears, but I still said them. The blood currently dripping from the knife was now a mixture of my mom’s and hers.
My hand didn’t shake, the adrenaline inside me fueling me, the desperate, crazed feelings inside me made me do what I did next.
Or maybe I just wanted her to pay, even though she was already dead.
I brought the knife down again, this time over her shoulder. The knife cut into her easily, blood splattering from the fresh wound when I took back my hand and the knife. I was never a fan of blood, but hers? Hers I would see spilled.
As the air grew to be tangy, metallic and heavy, I realized I couldn’t stop. Halfway out of my mind, I kept stabbing her. Her chest, her stomach, her neck. I lost count. Blood splattered on me, but I didn’t care. How could I ever care about anything again?
Bobbi’s body shook with the force of my blows, her entire front seeping red now. I plunged the knife into her upper stomach, my hand nearly losing grip on the knife from all of the blood on me. Both my hands and my arms were covered in it. When I breathed, I could taste it in my mouth. My hair was wet with it.
Who knew stabbing someone dozens of times would be so bloody?
Chapter Thirty – Jacob
