I quit work, and that was a big step for me. But I know I shouldn’t go back to that place. It was where all my troubles began.

Where I met Toska.

Where I should have walked away from her to begin with.

It was the place where I first laid eyes on Syler, as well.

My hands lay on my bare stomach, touching the bruising that covers it. My arm is still healing from the track marks of whatever poison she pumped into me. Or perhaps it was him—though I believe it was most likely all her. It usually is. It’s just the type of person she is.

Grabbing my new cell phone that my father insisted I purchase, I pocket it in my jeans. I made sure to buy one that was not traceable, and I’m using only pre-purchased credit on it, rather than having anything traceable associated with it.

“Jaya.” My father knocks on my open door and offers me a small smile. All of this has changed us, and I never would have seen it coming. “I’m going to sell this house.”

Words don’t leave me as my mouth opens. This is my mother’s house. She picked this house out for them, and all her things are still everywhere.

“I need to move on, and you need to leave.”

My hand runs up and down my arm, his eyes catch on and look at the track marks, but he doesn’t say anything as his eyes come back to me.

“I need to leave,” I say, reiterating it, seeing how it tastes on my lips.

My father’s head nods in agreement. “You do.”

“I’ve always wanted to leave. Did you know that?” He shakes his head. “I guess I was hanging on to everything,” I say more to myself.

“Did you love him, Jaya?”

His words shock me. I haven’t heard him say that word since I was a kid. Even now I’ve forgotten what it sounds like from his lips. I miss the man he once was.

“What is love?” I shrug my shoulders.

I thought I knew the meaning of love once. No. I fucking did and I still fucking do. It’s my curse to bear.

“You did,” he says, knowing my real answer.

Turning to avert my eyes, I pick up my purse to avoid eye contact.

“I have a few thousand put away for you... more when the house sells.”

“You want me to leave now?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yes. I want you to go this second. I know you’ve quit your job. So why hang around?”

I want to hang around because I want them to feel the pain that I felt. I want them to know what it feels like to have your life ripped out from underneath you and be left for dead like you’re not worthy.

“In a week... I’ll leave in a week.”

He nods his head. “One week.” He turns walking away, leaving me standing there watching him.

A week is all I have to get at them.

A week is hopefully all I need.

Grabbing the keys to my car, I manage to miss Betty and drive out without her calling out to me. My first stop is the pet store, one that doesn’t just hold your average garden variety cats and dogs. No. It holds something much more fun than that.

Knowing Toska the way I do is also knowing her weakness. Syler, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any. Maybe his only downfall is his sister, his loyalty to her, which I have no idea how to crack.

So, for now, she’s what I will play with.

***

TOSKA’S HOME, BUT ASLEEP. She worked late last night, and when she does that she comes home to get high then passes out in her living room. I’m watching her through the back window, passed out, half on the couch and half on the floor.

Observing his room, Syler’s door is shut, which means he’s most likely asleep as well. He works all night and tends to sleep during the day. Being in his bed so often taught me his sleeping patterns as well. Opening the back door which is never locked, my heart pumps hard, my hands sweat, as I make my way to his bedroom door. The door opens outwards, so I place a chair under the handle to stop him from being able to open it, and I let down the cage that’s in my hands.

Toska doesn’t squirm or even move at the sound of me in her house. I could kill her right now, and she wouldn’t even know it was me or be able to stop me. But, she’s a sinner, and a sinner needs to be punished. Death would be too nice for her, too easy for someone like her.

No, I want to watch her squirm first.

Stomping my feet on the tiles, my boots make a loud noise forcing her to fall off the couch completely and onto the floor. Her eyes open one at a time and then she realizes it’s me. A smile touches her lips, but there’s one already on mine as I lift the cage, opening the door. Twenty rats crawl out of the cage and onto the carpet. I stand back and throw rotting food in her direction, and they all run to her. Her screams fill the apartment. She’s loud and very noisy as she jumps up and down on the floor.

Syler’s door rattles and I know he’s up and trying to get to her. He wants to help her, he always does. Maybe he needs to stop that because it’s not good for either of us anymore.

“You bitch!” she yells with venom. Tears are now running down her cheeks. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.

“Mouse.” The door stops rattling, and his voice comes through. Turning, I see his door is still shut, but he isn’t trying to escape. Walking to the door, I place my hand on it. Toska has crawled into a ball, screeching and crying. She won’t move for hours now, not until she knows every rat has gone. That’s what happens when you spend three long years with someone. You end up knowing all their quirks and fears, and it makes me more than happy to have known this one.

“Wolf,” I say to the door.

The door rattles again and the chair wiggles, but it doesn’t budge.

“Don’t force my hand, Mouse. Don’t you do it!”

Turning around, I stare at a terrified Toska, then I smile, wide.

“You forced mine! Did you think of that?” I laugh, stepping away and taking my fucked-up heart with me. The hunter’s knife in my hand, I step next to her, bending down. She doesn’t even move, just stays in the same position she’s stuck in, with fear crippling her very soul.

“Someone like you shouldn’t be able to breathe, Toska. You’re evil, to your very fucking core.”

Her breathing is heavy, and as I raise the knife in my hand next to me, the door starts to break. Syler is smashing it with the sheer force of his hands. The blade comes to her face, I slide it down her cheek as her forehead rests on her knees. She screams again, but doesn’t move, knowing it will only cut deeper.

“You think you can drug me, Toska, throw me out like the trash?”

“Mouse,” he shouts my name as an ear piercing screech leaves her mouth. Pulling the knife away, she covers her cheek with her hands to try and stop the bleeding, and the rats that are still on the floor from tasting her. Picking one up, I place it in the container then cover it with a plastic lid.

I’m standing now, staring down at her.

“Do you know what a rat does when it's trapped, Toska?”

She raises her eyes up to me which I’m sure are blurry from all the tears she’s shedding. It’s amazing the effect the rats have on her. Terror, fear, horror, dismay, panic—they’re all displayed on her face as she stares through blank eyes. Her brain has shut down, and there’s a glistening of cold sweat on her brow. Toska’s eyes tell the story, they’re wide and waiting for me to claim the fatal blow. She’s living in her own nightmare, one she shares only with herself and the rats she’s so desperately afraid of, while her brain plays on her grave fear. Toska is trapped in her own psychosis, and she’s dressed in nothing more than a pair of shorts and a bra.

“Mouse...” My name leaves his lips again. His voice becoming darker and rationality is becoming a monster for him to bear. He’s so angry, his voice is distorted, and I’m sure I am providing the fuse to the bomb that’s going to detonate with a massive explosion shortly.

Opening the container, I let the rat go and decide today is not the day. I should have knocked Syler out, or come when he wasn’t here.

Syler’s door is almost broken. He’s gaining so much strength minute by minute with the adrenaline that’s coursing through his body right now. I can see his black clothes through the hole he’s punching through the door. He’s still hooded in the shadows, but I can hear the tension mixed with terror in his voice. He’s strung tight like a cello’s strings, one pluck and it will snap and ricochet right into me. Soon he’ll be able to put his arm through that door and push the chair away, and I surely don’t want to be around when that happens.

“Not today, Toska, but soon. I’ll fucking kill you,” I threaten. Turning, I walk out the back door the same way I came in.

“You don’t even remember, do you?” Her voice is weak, but there’s certainly some clarity to it. Touching the doorframe, I turn back to see her eyes stained red from the tears that have left her face. Ignoring her, I run out through the back and head straight to my car, taking off before Syler can catch me. Because if he does, well, we all know how I am once Syler’s hands touch my skin. I’m fucked.