Luckily she didn’t have to open her email app. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to. The drugs were all mixing around inside of her, and yet they were making her feel distant too.

It was the same way she’d felt as a girl, when he had done what he wanted, and off she went, bye-bye, floating into the ether.

Scott opened the door. “Did Natalie… did she show you this, and you believed her?”

“It’s not a question of belief when it’s absolute fact.”

“Did she tell you why she wrote it?”

Casey wasn’t exactly sure what happened. One moment Scott was staring at her with that annoying look on his face. The next he was on the floor, blood streaming from his head, matting his hair. Casey dropped something; the back of the toilet thudded to the bathroom floor. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, then turned away. She didn’t relate to the woman at all; she wasn’t convinced it was her.

“Up, up.” Casey snapped her fingers. It was time to take control of this situation. “Now, Scott.”

Scott rose to his feet, cradling his head. He was crying again. She was so tired of his sobbing. She was tired of all of this. Part of her wished her father had gone all the way. There was one night in particular when he’d come close to killing her, splitting her cheek wide open with his ring, her head smashing against the wall. Her world had darkened. At the time, she’d fought it. But she longed for that dark now. A release from the numbness.

But no, no, no. She couldn’t let that happen. Scott would help her. He had to.

“Cuff yourself.” She gestured at the bed. Scott was familiar with the command, but still he lingered. “Now. You’re such a retard.”

“Please.”

“If you don’t do what I say…” She walked right up to him; she was looking up at him, and yet he did nothing. “It won’t be the videos. It won’t be that slut Beth Vaughn. I’ll murder you. I’ve killed before. I’ll do it again.”

That was a lie. Casey had never killed anybody, except for animals, which didn’t count. But she would. She was ready. That might be it, the natural progression that would end this numb purgatory.

Scott obeyed. He’d cuffed himself to the bed a few times during their games. Casey had whipped him, burnt him, beaten him, all while he lay there helpless. But she’d always stopped before doing any real harm. She wouldn’t make that mistake this time.

Scott took four sets of handcuffs from the bedside table. He spread his legs and leaned down, wincing as blood dripped onto the sheets. With a click and then another, he secured his legs.

Then he cuffed one hand to the top bedpost.

Casey handled the last one – his left wrist – as she had the other times, and stared down at him.

He was doing that spacey-eyed thing, like he wasn’t there. Casey punched him in the face. He croaked, and then his eyes went vacant again. She hit him harder, even felt a flicker inside of her, along with the beautifully real physicality of his tooth against her knuckle.