Page 32 of Welcome Home
He left already.
My smile drops clean off my face before I plaster it back on. This time a little less genuinely as I head out the door, so much hairspray in my hair that hopefully the humidity can’t touch it. The music is loud from Rachel’s house. It's already making my head hurt. Her wide front door jerking open the moment I reach for it. “You’re late.” Oliver snaps, his beast suit molded perfectly to him. He looks so handsome despite the hateful scowl.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to look-“
“You look fine. Did you take a pill tonight?”
“I was feeling good so-“
“Fucking hell Cora.”
I smile brightly as he leads me into the room, fog fills the grand space, all the furniture cleared to make room for dancing, cheesy Halloween decorations nowhere in sight.
“Oh, what a coincidence!” Rachel’s voice trills over the music from behind us. Oliver steers me towards her, my heart plummeting to my feet as nauseous feeling pools in my gut. Her blonde hair is pinned up, the same red rose in hers that’s in mine, her Belle dress is short though. Her toned legs accented by white garter and stockings. Her full breasts heaved up to her chin.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“I knew you had to be hiding somewhere around here. You look great!” Oliver comments, his hand leaving my back as he steps away from me. Towards her.
“A perfect beast too!” She laughs, patting his chest affectionally.
My heart is racing and fuck, I’m lightheaded. The music feels too loud now, too distracting. The unsettled feeling in my stomach surges up towards my throat.
“Cora, you are so cute! You must’ve put so much time into this!”
“It’s accurate to the movie…” is all I can come up with staring at her stockings as my face flushes, the need to vomit growing stronger.
They aren’t even going to hide it anymore, are they?
“Oliver I-“
He doesn’t so much as glance my way, staring at her with so much heat, I feel like a voyeur watching them.
My skin prickles with sweat, saliva filling my mouth as I spin, half running for the bathroom. Vomit threatening to spill out. I’m going as fast as I can in the stupid movie accurate dress, but it’s not fast enough to miss what comes out of his mouth next. “I cannot wait to fuck you in that tonight.”
“Hush!”
Vomit wins the race. I get sick just as I clear the doorway of the guest bath sputtering onto the floor, none of it hits the huge stupid dress.
I spend the next twenty minutes cleaning it up. Nobody comes to check on me. He doesn’t seek me out, wondering where his wife has gone. It’s fine, somewhere between clogging her toilet with toilet paper and designer hand-soap the nasty feeling in my chest has faded, my tears have stopped and when I emerge, big fancy stupid movie accurate dress in place, I’m smiling.
Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
14
Detective Rappert
Something in the Way - Nirvana
Vosz
I’ve lost track of the names I’ve been called. The personalities and feelings, wants and dreams I’ve consumed. It was meaningless, a thing I did because without the skins, we’d be hunted, killed for simply existing. I did it because father taught me to, like his before him. It’s a gift from the goddess they told stories about in my youth, but a purposeless one.
Until Cora.
The detective’s information still assaults my brain as I enter the stale police station, cold coffee sits forgotten and people avoid meeting her gaze. The few that are left, some clicking away with furrowed brows, a drunk woman screaming obscenities somewhere on the bottom floor. There’s a needling in my chest that isn’t mine, a sense of not belonging. It almost makes me smile. She’s an outcast, unwanted. Perhaps not allowed to be here?
I dig deeper, but the feeling fizzles the way it always does with incomplete skins. The dead are foolproof, the living… tricky. My feet falter, digging through her mind to find her office, the office of thesoon to be flower foodlead detective in aresolvedmissing person case that she’s self-labeled homicide. It’s impressive how quickly she caught on to us. It’s unfortunate she has her doubts, although I get the feeling they are far more than that now. She’s unsettled, scared, and pissed. I’m unable to pinpoint why and towards whom all my concentration held on the illusion. Mirroring her rich shade of skin, the smooth inflection of her voice, none of it comes easy with the living. When I find her small office, its cluttered pages strewn around her desk, pinned to the board behind her, reports, notepads, all of it is… arranged. My brows pull together as I slip into her office chair, the back ramrod straight, at full attention. I shift the papers, fighting back a growl as dozens of pictures sit just under the surface. The real thing she was so focused on here… us.
