This is a protest to the process - Carly
It wasn't long before the cold had seeped to entirely into Carly's bones that her whole body ached with each step.
Imagine if I died of hypothermia and that one stuck, Carly thought as she stumbled thought the night time streets, starting to laugh at the idea. Every person she passed - most of them under struggling umbrellas or sheltered beneath awnings - drew away from her and she couldn't blame them. She was wet and bloody and stumbling and laughing. She was the exact type of person everyone should have been avoiding.
That bitch! That stupid evil demon bitch!
She hoped Harley was okay. The car had been gone when she'd come to - had he gone away with Imogene? They couldn't still be together, surely. He'd have to leave Imogene now!
The tube station provided desperately needed shelter, but only served to show how truly wet she was. Fortunately the rain had washed away most of the obvious blood, and she wasn't the only one on the station looking like a drowned rat.
From her pocket, Carly retrieved her phone and found it off. She tried turning it on, then pressing every combo of buttons to get a reaction, but it was dead. Probably water inside it. No phone.
How was she supposed to call Harley? A payphone? Where would the closest one even be? She'd never had to use one before because she, like everyone, carried their own phone. Who used a payphone these days? Besides, even as she considered the logistics of finding one, she realised she didn't know Harley's number. She didn't actually know anyone's number.
No. She knew one number. She knew her old home number, which wasn't even connected anymore. And even if it were, it would ring out into an empty house, a ghostly chime through the hallways of an abandoned family home.
Carly kicked out, Jonas living north, Elias locked up. There was no one there anymore.
Seemed a waste.
Carly rode the train past her stop, not wanting to deal with her housemates yet anyway. Instead she kept going until the stations became familiar in a different way, a way that she'd had to leave behind. Her bones ached, and every time she breathed her chest felt like it was splitting open.
Getting off at the Belgravia stop made her feel dizzy and unwanted, but Carly was here now and she was doing this, even if it was a dumb idea, even if it was pointless. But even in the pouring rain the walk between the station and her childhood home was well-known, and slipping around the back was just as natural.
She looked up to the second floor and for just a moment she began to reconsider. It was so dark and wet that Carly didn't know if she could manage this tonight.
But what was the other choice? Turn around and get back on the train? Go... somewhere else?
No. Dammit. She was here now and it had taken ages and so much energy and honestly she would rather curl up in a ball in the garden than turn around and think of something else.
But the garden wasn't the plan. The old Sneak Out Sneak In high school routine was the plan and Carly was already regretting it. She went over to the rose garden and grabbed one of the heavy rocks from the edging, shoving it - muddy and slimy - into her pocket. Then she wiped her hand clean (but sadly not dry) on her jeans.
The streetlights didn't really come back here behind the house, although she knew at which exact point the security lights would turn on. But she wasn't going near them, and so she would work in darkness. She'd done it before, even if it hadn't been so treacherous.
To the edge of the trellis was where Carly went, stepping out of her shoes with the help of the other foot, and then pulling off her socks. The spaces in the trellis were small, but it was climbable if you had small hands and feet. She wished she could feel hers a little better, but there was no use complaining. Too dark to use that as a guide, Carly closed her eyes to allow herself to feel more clearly. She didn't know if she helped, but she felt like it did.
Slowly and oh so carefully, Carly began pulling herself up the trellis, feeling the way it shifted under her weight, trying not to react when a rose thorn cause her flesh.
It took longer than she wanted, long enough that Carly could feel her muscles shaking. She had nothing left for them. All her energy had been used up by the trials of the night. She had began to slip more and when her hands gripped onto the guttering of the roof, she almost start crying with relief. It gave her the burst of strength she needed to pull herself up onto the roof and roll onto her back, breathing hard.
The sound of heavy rain on the roof tiles all around Carly might have been somewhat peaceful on any other night.
Moving again was hard. She was so tired! With an exhausted single sob that hurt her throat, Carly rolled over and forced herself to half-crawl half-walk towards the bathroom window, careful on the slippery tiles. There was a reason Carly didn't sneak out this way when it was raining. She wasn't an idiot... usually.
She reached the window and found the little gap where she had dug out the frame a little - difficult to see from the inside and so never repaired. She got her fingers into the gap and pulled. The window came sliding open and Carly felt like maybe someone really was looking out for her. She wouldn't need to smash it open and risk alerting the neighbours.
Pulling herself up, Carly slipped through the window like a half drowned creature, the bathroom tiles no warmer than the roof tiles, but at least they were dry.
She stopped, standing in the room and listening. There was only the sound of the rain through the open window. The house itself was as silent as a tomb.
Satisfied that she was alone, Carly pushed on into the house, shivering and teeth chattering. It was down the hall and to her old bedroom she went, hoping to find something dry to wear. The door to the room was open and she flicked on the light.
Empty.
No furniture, no boxed possessions, no nothing.
Carly swore and flicked the light back off. Had he gotten ridden of everything she'd left? Or was it stored somewhere else in the house?
She made her way to Jonas' room instead and found his door closed. Opened the door, flicked on the light. Her brother's room looked much like she remembered it and the sight of it hurt her. Oh, but of course. Jonas hadn't been kicked out. Jonas would be allowed to come back any time he liked to stay, it appeared.
She tried not to hate her brother and her father equally, when the hate should only be directed at Elias.
In Jonas' cupboard she found clothes he'd obviously not wanted to take with him, and in the middle of his room she peeled away her wet layers as quickly as she could. When she pulled at her shirt it made her hiss with pain as it stuck to her chest with freshly drying blood. She closed her brother's door to look at the mirror on the back and, naked and slightly blue-skinned, Carly saw the vicious gash that ran across her chest. She reached up to touch the skin around it and her face twisted into a deep frown that was threatening to turn into some very hearty sobbing.
Why hadn't that healed? That wasn't fair! What was she supposed to do with a cut like that? It probably needed stitches but how was she supposed to get stitches? God, she wasn't going out into that rain again, not tonight.
Fuck it, Carly decided. Fuck it all.
She pulled on a pair of Jonas' trackpants and socks, and then with a jumper in hand she went downstairs to the main bathroom, where the first aid kit lived. She turned on the heater and then sat down on the edge of the bath, the box of medical supplies on the closed toilet as she rifled through it.
She found a box labeled butterfly stitches and turned it over in her fumbling hands, reading the back. Not suitable for deep cuts or large cuts.
"Well," Carly told the box as she opened it, "I guess today's the day you learn what you're made of, little bandaids."
She did as the packet said, washing around the cut with soap and then patting herself dry. The cut didn't seem to still be bleeding so that was good. She guessed. She assumed. Every other time she'd died, there had been nothing really left to deal with. She hissed her breath as she used one hand to push the edges of the cut together, and the other to attach the bandage. She used almost the whole box, spacing them much closer together than suggested in the hopes that it would somehow help it hold.
The tightness of the bandages was a different sort of uncomfortable but she welcomed it as she carefully put on her brother's jumper. The small bathroom was not taking long at all to heat up and she leaned back against the door. Carly closed her eyes and let herself drift.
When she opened them again, the bathroom was sweltering and she pulled herself up and left it behind, heading downstairs. There in the living room she turned on a small reading lamp and left that room to warm up as well. In the kitchen she found food and filled a bottle of water. From Jonas' room she collected a bunch of bedding. All this she took back to the living room and made herself a little couch nest.