dahlia palmer (blindingly) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-03-18 18:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | alternate universe, complete, dahlia, holiday: valentine, jenny |
act iv
Who: Jenny & Dahlia.
What: Valentine prompt of 'Love Potion # What?'
Setting: Valentine's day in 20XX. Jenny and Dahlia have been happily married and raising Jenny's son together for six years, in love with each other even longer, but career success and stress begin causing trouble in paradise. Until Jenny takes fixing her marriage into her own hands, with disastrous results.
Warning: Language and death, y'all. Sorry we broke the posting limit four times over. :/
((TWO WEEKS LATER))
She had a plan. It wasn't a perfect plan, or an honorable one, but it was the only plan (only option) that she had left.
Fixing the problem was no longer an option. Jenny had given up. She didn't know what she had done wrong with the potion, she couldn't figure out just exactly where she had gone wrong, and she didn't know how to fix it. She had tried. God, she had wasted hours, tried to look everywhere that she could for something, some scrap of knowledge, a way to make things right again. But there was nothing. She had checked online, pored over website after website, checked her grandmother's book, then tore it to shreds when she couldn't find any help inside of it. She had been down all of her avenues, everything she could think of. Jenny was a smart woman, but book smarts only took one so far. It wasn't like she was qualified to be dabbling in such things in the first place.
There was no cure, no answer, no fixing it.
Chase was catching onto something being not just wrong, but seriously wrong. He was growing up. He wasn't stupid and there was no way to hide Dahlia's strange behavior forever. She shielded him as best she could. She had managed to clean her wife up before her son ever saw anything too traumatizing, anything that Jenny couldn't explain away, but he wasn't stupid, and even if she snapped at him and wouldn't answer his questions, he knew that something was terribly off about his step-mother now. With his family. Jenny had stopped making him go to school over a week ago. Today, she had made him go. He needed to be there, so that she could pick him up when she left home.
It had been almost three days since Jenny had slept a wink, a fact which could not be disguised. It showed all over her face, even the way she moved, totally exhausted. Her book was long forgotten, seemingly a part of a past life that she barely remembered now, a trivial stupid thing that she couldn't even remember being concerned about. She hadn't slept, hadn't ate, for the last few days. She couldn’t even remember the last time that she had taken her medication. She was weak, ripe for a fit. Because she hadn't done anything, really, except watch and be with Dahlia for the last two weeks now. She couldn't trust her to be on her own, couldn't trust her not to hurt herself. She couldn't judge when Dahlia would take a sudden turn for the worst if Jenny said the wrong thing.
She was healing, but twice already she had caught Dahlia trying to rip the bandages off her arms, and twice it had dissolved into a screaming match. Jenny wanting to know what the fuck she was doing, Dahlia wanting to know why Jenny didn't understand before dissolving into pitiful tears. She had to stay with her constantly, she had no choice. She had couldn't trust her enough to turn her back on her.
It was her fault, all her fault, but she couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take responsibility. She couldn't tell her son what she had done. They just had to go. She was losing her mind, she was almost positive of that fact. It had started the first time that Dahlia hurt herself, the day with the scissors, but everything had just begun to snowball from there. She loved Dahlia, she loved her desperately, but this wasn't Dahlia. Not anymore. She feared, more than anything, that she had long since killed the real Dahlia anyway. Her Dahlia. If she stayed any long with this woman, she was going to lose her mind for certain before much longer.
She had to get out.
Pallid and jittery, the blonde had locked the bedroom door behind herself after returning from dropping Chase off at school, because locking up was the only way to guarantee herself any privacy anymore. She leaned back against the door, relieved. Dahlia was everywhere, always right at her elbow, right behind her. Smiling one minute, crying the next, angry a second after, then grinning again. Dahlia, Dahlia, Dahlia. She couldn't get a break, a minute to breathe away from her, and even if the sex had ceased, the constant advances hadn't. The harsh reactions to her rejection hadn't ceased either. Over the last two weeks, if she wanted to be alone, she had to lock herself in the upstairs bathroom. It was the only place she could get away without having to make up an excuse to go alone. Mostly, she turned on the shower and let herself cry.
Today, she forwent an excuse at all. There was only one objective on her mind. Just marching straight upstairs to their bedroom, expression stony and unreadable as she retrieved the suitcases from their closet. She wouldn't cry today, she told herself that she wouldn't. This was her fault, her choice. She was a coward, what right did she have to cry about it? Still, she was sniffling even as she opened the closet doors, having to close her eyes to keep the tears from spilling over her cheeks.
Three weeks ago, she had started all of this mess to keep her wife from leaving her in the first place. Now, she was upstairs packing a bag to leave Dahlia. The bitter irony was not wasted on Jenny.
---
Jenny wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept. Dahlia couldn’t even remember the last time she got some rest, but that wasn’t important. Her stomach had long since given up trying to growl in order to remind her to eat. Nothing was as important as Jenny Palmer. Not sleeping, not eating, not bathing - nothing.
So when Dahlia heard the sound of a suitcase being packed, she might have come a little unhinged. Quietly, so quietly that her feet didn’t make a sound against their carpet, Dahlia made her way to the bedroom door and gave it a tiny twist to see if it was locked. Of course it was locked. She took in a sharp breath, gave it one more try, and then spun on her heel. Jenny was planning to leave, this time for good, and that couldn’t happen.
It wouldn’t.
Her steps were heavy as she descended the stairs, no longer trying to be quiet, and her face was eerily stoney - not angry, not sad, not anything. Jenny made a mistake, a big mistake, in not trying to leave a little more discreetly. There would be no soothing this over with sweet words, no making it better, because Dahlia knew the truth. Jenny had been pulling away for weeks now, pushing Dahlia farther and farther away every single day, and it seemed like the harder Dahlia fought for her, the harder Jenny pushed back.
Unfortunately for Jenny, she’d need the keys to get anywhere, and Dahlia was already in the kitchen, plucking them up from their usual spot. With one hand holding the keys and the other curling around a nearby butcher knife, Dahlia turned and stared at the door. She was ready for Jenny to come through at any minute, suitcase in hand.
Slowly, she slid the hand with the butcher knife behind her back.
There was no use in ruining the surprise.
---
Though her intention had been to move quickly, get it over with and get out as soon as possible, Jenny lingered. She was quick in her closet, haphazardly grabbing outfits and only half folding most of them before throwing them into the suitcase. She hadn’t wanted to alarm Chase, so she hadn’t asked him to pack a bag. She had packed one for him three nights before, when she had officially begun to realize she needed out. It would take two seconds to grab it on her way out. Packing clothes for the two of them had been the easy part, however.
She was leaving her house, her home. How was she expected to fit everything that she wanted and needed into one suitcase? It was insane. She still didn’t even know where they would go, except for away. Maybe they would go to her sister’s house. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford two tickets to San Francisco. Even if Dahlia hadn’t been to work in almost a month, it wasn’t as if they were short on money. She hadn’t even told her mother. She couldn’t. She had been avoiding Paula’s calls all week. February was over and they hadn’t even gone to her mother’s house for her birthday dinner, which they did every year. She couldn’t think about her mother though, or she knew she’d back out.
Jenny grabbed her jewelry, took every picture from the room, frames and all, arranging them on top of the clothes. One of Chase’s baby pictures, one of her and Ella together, one of she and Dahlia on vacation with Ian and Nona. Their wedding picture. Dahlia had been so beautiful. She still was.. but that wasn’t Dahlia downstairs. Jenny tried to tell herself that.
She had ruined Dahlia. She might have acted like the perfect wife, but that was a far stretch from reality. The marriage was over, in the end, no matter what she had tried to do to stop it.
Zippering the suitcase, the blonde picked it up, taking a deep breath and looking toward the door.. just as she heard the sound of Dahlia practically stomping down the steps. Jenny froze. It had to be Dahlia, no one else was home. She was onto her, then. Jenny had been hoping, praying, for a quiet escape. That she could just.. walk out the door and leave the whole thing behind. But she should have known that it wouldn’t be so easy. She had started the problem, she owed it a finish. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what Dahlia’s mood might be when she got downstairs; she could be furious or sobbing or maybe even laughing like she was the one losing her mind. Jenny had come to expect any or all of the above from her wife. Sometimes all in practically a matter of seconds.
Dahlia scared her, honestly. There was no way around it. When the blonde finally reached the bottom step, her suitcase in one hand and Chase’s bag in the other, she was bracing herself. Her keys were in the kitchen, and she knew it. Swallowing thickly, Jenny made her way to the kitchen, slowly. Carefully. Like she expected Dahlia to leap out from around a corner at any moment, smiling serenely. Or maybe sneering. She might as well announce herself. “Dahlia,” she called out, her voice barely there, just before she stepped into the kitchen. She saw her wife standing across from her, just the sight of her making Jenny hesitate in mid-step, stopping in the doorway and watching the brunette closely with red-rimmed eyes. “Hi, Dahlia.”
She had the fucking keys.
---
“Hi, Jenny,” she sing-songed, almost mocking her wife, who seemed so timid. I caught you, Dahlia thought to herself, a tight little smile tugging at her lips, but she didn’t look amused. It certainly didn’t touch her dark eyes. “I’m guessing you’re going to need these if you want to leave.” She jingled the keys in her fingers before wrapping them up in a fist once again. Jenny wasn’t getting the fucking keys. Jenny wasn’t going anywhere.
“So, that’s it? You were just going to leave? You weren’t even going to tell me you were going, were you? You were just going to disappear.” Dahlia’s hand tightened on the knife’s handle, still hidden from sight behind her back. Could she do it? Could she kill the love of her life?
Yes. Yes, she could.
“You know, I just wanted you to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted, and this is how you repay me?” Dahlia laughed; it wasn’t a real laugh, but a short, cruel bark. “But it wasn’t enough for you, was it? It was never fucking enough.” The words were punctuated by a sharp blow of her fist to the counter. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? It’s that good looking lawyer down the street. I’ve always known that the two of you had something. What? You just get tired of women? You decided you’d try your hand at guys again?”
Dahlia’s step forward was slow and predatory, a shark sniffing out blood-tinged waters for its prey. “I’m not some toy that you can just toss away when you’re done, Jenny!” she screamed suddenly, going from calculating to enraged in a second’s time. “We took vows, you and I. We said we’d be together forever, but I guess we should have changed that to, ‘until Jenny gets tired of me and decides to fuck the nextdoor neighbor,’ huh? You always were a slut. Everyone knew it. I was the only one that couldn’t see it.”
Another step forward, another cruel smirk. “I should have listened to them.”
---
There was something behind Dahlia’s back, Jenny knew that much. She didn’t even want to think of what it might be, but her eyes and attention were moved to the keys as soon as Dahlia jingled them her way anyway. “Dahlia, you don’t understand-” she began to try to protest, but cut herself short with a little whimper, flinching as the brunette slammed her fist down on the counter. She had to be strong, she had to be in control. But that was easier said than done, and Dahlia didn’t even allow the blonde much of a chance to get a word in edgewise on her tirade.
“What did you expect me to do? What else can I do? What choice did you give me?!” Jenny managed to get out, before her eyes went wide at Dahlia’s next accusation. Someone else? Someone else? Where in the hell would she find time for someone else? The ‘lawyer down the street’ had been a friend, to both of them. He had been just as happily married to his wife as Jenny had been back then. Before he moved away from their street, over a year before. Dahlia was out of her mind, she was off her rocker.
Her lips parted to state this, to argue that the brunette was truly insane if she actually believed what she was accusing her wife of doing, but the sudden screaming made the blonde flinch again. It echoed through the quiet house, seeming even louder in the confined space of the kitchen. It was always too big for three people. She had taken so much for granted, they had lived such a life of excess, she had lost herself. Now her nerves were shot, and she was shaking all over again, her lower lip trembling as she stared at Dahlia as the brunette stepped closer. It took all of Jenny’s self-restraint to not take a cautionary step back. Instead, she faced her head on, looking slightly up at the other woman in front of her.
She had been ready to get her two cents in as her wife’s temper heated up, in the heat of emotions she had almost forgotten about whatever was hiding behind her back, but Dahlia suddenly calling her a ‘slut’ caught her entirely off-guard. Her entire body seemed to go tense, her expression falling, as if the brunette had hauled off and given her a backhanded slap rather than just insulted her. She was clearly hurt, taking a deep inhale through her nose, and feeling a familiar lump forming in her throat as she tried not to cry in front of the other woman. Never, ever had Dahlia called her that horrible word. Said that about her. She was one of the very few people in her life who hadn’t.“You’re not the woman I married,” the blonde spat, a watery sob escaping her a second later, despite all of her best effort.
“I didn’t make vows to you, you’re wrong! You’re all fucking wrong,” Jenny shrieked, holding her arm out straight, palm open. Demanding, despite the fact that she had tears running down her face. She wiped some clumsily from her cheeks with her other hand. “Give me my fucking keys, Dahlia, I’m going. I can’t, I just-- I’m sorry, I did this, okay? Is that what you want to hear? It’s my fault, my fault, okay?”
---
The real Dahlia, the Dahlia that Jenny married, never would have called her a slut. Not ever. As a matter of fact, she was one of the few people to defend Jenny’s honor when the others were so quick to tear her down. Dahlia was fiercely protective of Jenny long before they were ever romantically involved, but now she was fiercely possessive of Jenny. Jenny didn’t just make Dahlia love her (she already did love her, and maybe that was the problem); she made her need her like lungs needed breath.
“I’m fucking wrong?” Dahlia asked, mirroring Jenny’s accusation. “What about me is wrong, huh? The part of me that loves you? The part of me that can’t live without you?” She stalked forward, the hand around the hidden knife tensing until her knuckles turned white. “Or the part of me that isn’t willing to watch you leave?”
She didn’t even sound like Dahlia anymore. Her voice was low and dangerous, contorted into something dark. Something cruel and insane. Jenny had herself to thank for that one, though. “You want the keys?” she asked, extending them outward, just out of reach for Jenny. When she went to take them, Dahlia yanked them back with a sharp cackle. “Well, that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it? You’re not getting the keys, Jenny. You’re not getting the keys, you’re not leaving this house, and you’re not leaving me.”
She laughed again, but there was no real amusement there. There was nothing. Dahlia was empty. “You honestly think I’d let you leave me? We’re meant to be together forever, right? That’s what you promised me. You promised me that, Jenny, and what kind of wife would I be if I didn’t hold you accountable for your promises?”
This time, Dahlia didn’t take a step forward so much as she lunged forward, a hand lashing out and wrapping a fistful of blonde around her fingers to hold her in place. “You can’t leave me, Jenny. You aren’t.” There was a flash of metal, a soft grunt of exertion, and the blade of the butcher knife buried itself into Jenny’s abdomen. “I love you too much to let you go,” she whispered, twisting the blade deeper and deeper still. “I’m sorry.”
---
Jenny wouldn’t have even known where to begin to explain what was wrong with this Dahlia. Her wife, the cheeky princess of a girl that she had fallen in love with that had always been a spitfire, was nothing like the unpredictable terror standing in front of her, trying to browbeat her down. Making the blonde feel more like she was trying to own her rather than love her. It wasn’t really Dahlia, not anymore, she wouldn’t let herself think of her that way. There was a stranger in kitchen, dangling the keys just out of her reach.
She wasn’t surprised to have them yanked out of her reach, she was surprised with the other woman’s choice of words, her tone of voice. She sounded serious, deadly serious, about her threats. If she had to go running up the street like a mad woman, Jenny was leaving that house. She’d get to Chase’s school, however she had to get there, whatever it took. She didn’t want to be stuck in the big, empty house with this woman a second longer. It didn’t even feel like home anymore.
“I’m free to do whatever I want, and they’re my keys,” Jenny protested against , her tone defiant even though her voice cracked. She still didn’t quite have her crying under control, it hurt to see Dahlia this way and hear her talking like some unhinged maniac, but she tried to be firm. It was no time to be turning into a blubbering mess. She had just been getting ready to take a step back, calculating in her head how many seconds it would take her to get to the front door. Surely Dahlia wouldn’t chase her out into the street, she couldn’t be that far out of her mind. Jenny didn’t even want to wonder though, she decided she would just deal with it when she got there. She had to get to the door, first.
But Dahlia had her hand tangled into her long hair before Jenny could get anywhere, making the blonde cry out in anger as she hastily tried to pull away from the oppressive grip. It was a matter of split seconds before the blade slid into her stomach to the hilt, as easy as a hot knife into butter, cutting her cry short and drawing a loud gasp out of her instead. It was like all the air was sucked out of her lungs, her vision seeming to swim, double and then triple. She blinked once, twice, staring at Dahlia and wondering if it was really happening, feeling not only the sharp pain that seemed to radiate through her whole midsection, but also an uncomfortable wet warmth running down the front of her. Soaking the front of her sweater, the denim of her skirt. She could hear the soft pit-pat of the blood droplets hitting the tiled floor under their feet.
“D-Dahlia,” she managed to get out, still staring at her with her tear-streaked face, a whining whimper escaping her a second later as the brunette dug the knife deeper, seemed to twist it for good measure. Her vision seemed to be graying around the edges, but Jenny reacted relatively quickly, shrieking as she shoved the brunette away from her roughly; successfully jerking the butcher knife out of herself in the process.. which, really, only seemed to amplify the pain, making her cry out in pain once more. Jenny groped a hand out blindly, grabbing the wall for support, gasping again, but wrapping her other arm around her injured midriff protectively. It didn’t do much to stop the bleeding, her blood seeming to stream even more freely without the blade inside of her to help plug up the damage it had caused. Even the tops of her bare legs were slick with it now.
Without a word, searing pain seeming to accompany every movement she made, Jenny turned on her heel and made an agonizing mad dash for the front door. Trying to create some sort of obstacle behind herself to trip up the other woman, knocking over the little table that held their phone in their hallway as she passed it, her legs helping her lunge for the foyer and the opportunity of safety.
But if Dahlia was out of her mind enough to stab her, what were the chances that she wasn’t insane enough to follow her outside and finish the job on the front lawn? She thought of Chase, thanking all of the greater powers that she never quite believed in that he wasn’t home today. She didn’t want him to see the extent of what she had truly done to their family, what she had turned her wife into.
---
She wasn’t expecting Jenny to be so strong, so she didn’t prepare herself for the sharp shove and went stumbling back against the counter. The wound was deep; she was almost positive the knife went straight through to the other side. It was certainly fatal, but how long would it take her to die? Either way, Dahlia wasn’t about to let her out of the house. As nosy as their neighbors were, they would just love this. They’d be talking about it for weeks, maybe months, to come.
Dahlia was after her in an instant, and without a gaping stomach wound, she was much faster than her wife. She leapt over the fallen table, only fumbling for a moment. “Jenny!” she shrieked, something akin to panic igniting in her gut when she realized how close to the door Jenny was. She couldn’t leave - not before, and definitely not now. “Where do you think you’re going, darling? You can’t go out there like that.”
There were two separate ways into the foyer, and Dahlia went the opposite way. By the time Jenny made it to the front door, Dahlia was already there, hands on her hips and dark eyes narrowed viciously. “You know that I can’t let you leave. I can’t.” She didn’t wait for Jenny to react before she was lunging for her once again, fingers bent like claws as she swiped for her. Jenny was smaller than Dahlia, and when the size difference was paired with her rather grievous injury, there just wasn’t much she could do to keep Dahlia off of her.
Using her advantage, Dahlia slammed herself into Jenny with a grunt, sending her careening back into the nearby wall. “You did this,” she snarled, though she had no idea just how true those words really were. She only meant that Jenny brought this on herself due to the leaving; she didn’t know about the spell, about everything. Just a few weeks ago, Dahlia would have died before hurting Jenny, and now she had her wife pinned to a wall, her stomach open and bleeding profusely.
“You didn’t give me a choice.” Grappling for both of Jenny’s shoulders, Dahlia wrenched her forward then back again, battering her against the wall hard enough to make it shake in protest. “I didn’t have a choice!”
---
Jenny barely heard a word that Dahlia said, the only sound seemed to be her own pulse pounding in her ears, her focus only on the door and the pain that spread through her whole body from the wounded abdomen. She could feel herself getting weaker, even as she raced toward the foyer, practically dragging herself. She wasn’t even aware that Dahlia had circled around her, was positive that the brunette was just on her heels, until she reached the door.. and found Dahlia standing there.
Immediately Jenny came to a halt at the sight of the other woman, barely able to hold herself up and still keeping that arm wrapped protectively around her midsection, panting. That was in then, no way out. How was she supposed to get around her? How was she supposed to overpower her? She had to, she had to get out, to get to Chase. Jenny barely blinked, mentally preparing herself to charge the brunette, but Dahlia beat her to the punch again.
She just couldn’t get one up on her.
Slamming back into the wall, Jenny screamed in pain once, before her head bouncing back hard against the wall behind them, dazing her. She could still feel the heavy flow of the blood, the warmth of it soaking over, leaving her, even faster as Dahlia shoved against her, slammed her backwards with the grip on her shoulders. She could taste the blood, the metallic tang seeming to fill her whole mouth, running over her lips. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t fight her anymore, couldn’t do much besides let the brunette fling her backwards. Dahlia had always been stronger than her, but she seemed so much stronger. She was fairly certain that her legs were giving out, Dahlia’s rough grip on her the only thing still holding her up.
In a last ditch attempt to knock Dahlia back again, Jenny reached her red smeared hand up shakily, raking her nails across the brunette’s face. But it was weak, her heart just wasn’t in it. Her heart was beating slow, slower by the second. Her fight was fading fast. “I know!,” the blonde hissed breathlessly at her through bloody teeth, clenched tight. “Just do it, just.. just end it, I deserve it, I know I deserve it.” Even if Dahlia, if this could be considered Dahlia, didn’t realize the full extent of her words. Jenny did. Even if it wasn’t Dahlia, not anymore, it was the closest she could get. She had to apologize. She had made the mess and now she would pay for it dearly. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I loved you, I never meant for any of this to happen..”
---
Jenny was fading fast. Dahlia could feel the life leaving her as the blood poured freely, staining her clothes and skin, even her chin as it began to bubble out from her mouth. The real Dahlia would have been mortified; she would have been scrambling to save her, to stop the bleeding any way possible. This wouldn’t have happened if she were the real Dahlia. If Jenny never made the potion, they probably would have separated for a little bit. They would have taken the time to figure things out, and it would have been awful for both of them, but it wouldn’t be this.
When Jenny’s nails drug across her face, opening up the skin in five fiery rows of red, Dahlia screamed and whipped her face away. It wouldn’t do Jenny any good, but it did stop Dahlia from slamming her back against the wall. “You fucking bitch,” she growled, tasting her own blood as it ran down her cheek and into her mouth. “Why would you do something like that?” As if Jenny was the bad person here, never mind that Dahlia stabbed her.
“You do deserve it!” Dahlia spat, tears leaping to her hazel eyes. “All I wanted to do was make you happy, and you didn’t care.” The knife was back in the kitchen, so Dahlia had to improvise. She wrapped her fingers around Jenny’s long, beautiful throat, and pressed until the sheer pressure she applied caused her fingers to ache and tremble. “You didn’t care,” she sobbed, pressing harder. She didn’t relent, not even when Jenny’s face turned a terrible shade of purple.
---
There was no time for Jenny to answer with her reasoning before Dahlia’s slender fingers were closing tightly around her neck, crushing her throat, effectively cutting off her air. Jenny’s eyes, which had been sliding closed more and more as Dahlia slammed her back into the wall, now went wide. It was almost a relief, to know that it would be over soon, that she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore or stare at this thing impersonating her wife anymore. But panic was a natural reaction, fighting to the last second was instinct.
Jenny’s hands flew up instinctively, her own fingers clawing desperately at Dahlia’s grip, trying to pry the brunette’s hands away from her throat with every last bit of energy she had in her. But it didn’t do any good. If anything, Dahlia’s squeezing seemed to tighten even harder, just as desperate as Jenny’s own weak struggles. Even if she could have gotten the brunette to release her, the blonde never would have had the stamina to really get away anyway. She knew it, just as well as Dahlia did. It was over. Her vision blurred around the edges, seeming to close in, her fingers slowing, before stopping altogether, her arms dropping away as she went still and rigid. Eyes still wide, almost seeming to bulge, but unseeing.
Her last sight was Dahlia’s face, contorted into a sob, an expression that normally would have broken her heart. Her last thought, what have I done?
--
Dahlia didn’t stop pressing, not even when Jenny’s nails tore her skin asunder in a weak attempt at escape. Even if she did let Jenny go, did she actually think she would make it more than a few feet? There was no possible way Dahlia hadn’t punctured organs. The knife wasn’t some pitiful steak knife; it was a butcher knife, for fuck’s sake. She wouldn’t have made it down the street, even. Still, Dahlia supposed it was human instinct to fight up until the very end, and Jenny didn’t disappoint.
It didn’t take long - she suspected it would take much longer, actually - for Jenny’s struggles to dissipate to nothing, and when her body went limp, Dahlia gently walked her down until Jenny was resting against the wall, leaving a red smear all the way down. “This was you,” she repeated, though she was well aware Jenny couldn’t hear her any longer. She was definitely, without a doubt, dead. Her eyes were open but unseeing, and her chest no longer stuttered and shook with the need to breathe.
She was just gone.
Jenny was gone.
The knowledge crashed down upon Dahlia like a tidal wave, and she buckled under the sudden pressure of her own grief. What had she done? “Jenny?” she asked, a bloody, trembling hand reaching out to shake her shoulder. “Jenny, baby?” No answer. Of course there wasn’t an answer. Dahlia doubled over, her body wracked with sobs, and as she clumsily pushed herself up to her feet, she knew what she had to do.
If there was no Jenny, there was no point in living. None.
Thankfully, Dahlia knew where they kept the gun. It was the only solution. It would only take a moment, a tensing of a finger, and it would all be over. Her steps were heavy as she ascended the stairs, cheeks wet with tears. You killed her, you monster, she thought, numbly making her way to Jenny’s closet. As expected, the gun was still taped to the top shelf, and its weight told her that it was loaded.
There was no hesitation, not even so much as a hitch of breath as she cocked the gun and positioned the barrel in her mouth. I’m sorry, Jenny.
A second later, and the closet wall was splattered with red.