CHAPTER FOUR.
( walk the line ! )

            THE MARTINEZ HOUSEHOLD isn't often a chaotic one. With only three women, two of them scarcely home, it usually made for peaceful mornings and restful nights. So when Abigail began hurling herself across the kitchen in the dreadfully early hours or the morning, half-dressed and frantic, Reyna couldn't help but be shocked still. Her sister had always been one to delay her leave, never pressed for time in the mornings. Or ever, really.

A pot of tea wailed on the stove as Abigail shoved on her white nurse's shoes, her dark hair thrown in a quick braid over her scrubs. Reyna stepped out of her way, nearly colliding with the hurricane of a girl whipping through the kitchen.

"Are you late or something? I thought you were off today," Reyna inquired sleepily. She was still dressed in her pyjamas, although she hadn't been doing too much sleeping in them recently. The night before had counted the fourth restless night of the week. It wasn't easy, forcing herself to keep awake, and yet she knew it would be for the best. She knew the sleepiness of the next day would be more manageable than the fear that her nightmares would bring.

"There was another attack down at the video store last night," Abbey explained hurriedly, crying out as she scalded herself on the running coffee pot. Cursing, she turned to grab her lunch from the fridge. "They're calling in all of the reinforcements they can."

"An animal attack?" Reyna questioned, leaning herself against the countertop.

"That's what they're saying," Abbey snapped, taking a moment to run her reddening finger under water. "There's basically a hysteria going on at the hospital ever since the police disclosed too many details in the last incident. I need to get there right away,"

"Abigail!" Their grandmother cried from the hallway, lowering the tone of the radio as she sauntered into the small kitchen. "What are you up to, making so much noise this early in the day?"

"I need to go, Lola, there's an emergency," Abbey insisted, shaking off her grandmothers grip as she bolted to the door. "There's two survivors being held for examination, so everyone has their hands full. A bunch of the RT's already took holidays this week so I really need to head over there."

Reyna would never have imagined a respiratory therapist's job to be so demanding. Then again, her sister did work similar hours to the registered nurses working at the hospital, and could hardly keep herself awake after being hammered with the night shift.

Reyna shook herself from her stupor, finally registering her sister's words as she poured herself a cup of hot coffee. "Wait, survivors. Somebody got out of there alive?"

"Um, yeah, a few kids were able to hide themselves behind the shelves. They're shaken up pretty bad, though." Reyna could hardly understand her as she rushed through her words, but she could definitely catch the saddened look falling over her face.

"What's that look for?" Reyna paused, cup halfway to her mouth. Her sister was one of the least vulnerable people she knew, and her stomach seized at the thought of could cause such a look. Abbey's face twisted in regret. She knew she'd said a bit too much.

"It's just, one of the kids was held overnight in psychiatric care," for the first time in the rush of a morning, her sister finally seemed to breathe. She leaned herself against the doorframe, keeping her eyes locked on Reyna. "She's home now, but heavily medicated. She was in really rough shape."

"If you have something to say, apo, say it." her grandmother said with a stern tone, her dark eyes pinning Abigail to the entrance. "There is no need to dance around your point."

"Reyna," Abbey sighed, pursing her lips together. "The girl was Lydia."

REYNA HAD KNOWN LYDIA MARTIN since they were eleven years old. On the first day of fifth grade, she'd tossed a dodgeball a little too powerfully, knocking Lydia on the side of her chubby cheeks. The girl had whined all through Reyna's endless apologies, insisting the new girl had hit her on purpose. Reyna had nearly been in tears herself that day, disappointed that she'd already seemed to make an enemy on her first day in a new town. She'd come home sniffling, turning to her elder sister for comfort.

Thankfully, Abigail, already having enrolled in high school, knew all of the wonders that a show of good faith could make. It was only by the purchase of one Oreo ice cream sandwich later that the two girls managed to bury the hatchet and actually speak to one another. They laughed over Joey Halter's god-awful mullet, and spent the lunch hours planning the successful pop band they'd form in their teen years. It hardly took a week before the two were joined at the hip.

It hadn't taken Reyna long to realize that the her and Lydia led drastically different lives. Lydia lived comfortably, always sporting a new favourite dress and the trendiest gadgets, while Reyna sometimes went weeks without heating in her home, often relying her sister's hand-me-downs and her one pair of shoes to get her through the school week.

Lydia liked playing dress with her mother's pearls and breaking little boys hearts on the playground, while Reyna found her joy in planting flowers and reading poetry. It wasn't a bad thing, how different they were. If anything, it made everything more fun. Lydia introduced Reyna to the world of makeup and fashion, helping her pick out her first cute bra in the eight grade, while Reyna showed Lydia her mythology books, reading up on various monsters and heroes together.

It was only by the end of middle school that their friendship began to crumble. It wasn't so much a falling out as a pulling away. They each discovered other people they were more geared towards, and being with each other became less of a priority. Seeing each other every day became once a week, then once a month, then not at all.

Nevertheless, the strawberry-blonde had always proven a loyal friend—even when Reyna hadn't been such a good one herself. No matter what she faced, she could always rely on Lydia's livening attitude to bring up her mood. She could use some of that attitude now, as she stood in the girl's bedroom doorway.

She'd come to visit only at her grandmother's insistence. If she was being honest, she still felt as if it wasn't exactly her place to come visit Lydia in this state, having hardly spoken a word to her in the last year.

Natalie Martin was just as much of a saint as Reyna remembered, welcoming the girl with a warm hug and bloodshot eyes. She still had the ageless beauty that Reyna had always associated with her, her vibrant hair still matching along with her daughter's.

"She's still pretty out of it," Natalie warned lowly, not taking her eyes off her daughter. "They gave her a little something to, um, ease her nerves."

Lydia lay back along her large bed, still clad in nothing but a silk nightgown despite it being well into the afternoon. Her hazel eyes were frosted over, her movements lagged as she pinched her fingers at the air above her head, like picking fairies from the sky. She giggled mindlessly as she did so, a gleeful grin stretching her cheeks. Reyna felt a grim feeling settle in her stomach. How disorderly did she have to be for them to make her this loopy?

"Thank you, Natalie," Reyna kept her voice low, sending an empathetic look towards the mother. "I promise, I won't be long."

Reyna slowly sat herself on the pink duvet, careful not to startle the drugged girl. Lydia continued to giggle even as she spotted her old friend, reaching up to close her palm just in front of Reyna's eyes. She was gazing right at her, and yet Reyna felt as if she was seeing right through her.

"Hey, Lydia. Do you remember me?" she kept her tone soothing and gentle, as if speaking to a timid puppy.

Lydia's head popped up, smiling as she leaned herself against Reyna. Her usual pristine makeup had smudged beneath her eyes and onto her cheeks. "Rey-Rey! What are you doing here?"

"I just came to check in on you," her response was slow, and surprised. No one had called her that name for years. Reyna made sure to not mention any details of the incident. The last thing she would want to do is come in and disturb Lydia's inebriated state of peace. "To see how you're doing."

"I am doing fan-tast-ic." She punctuated each of the syllables by walking her hand up Reyna's arm, her bewildered grin fading as she fell back onto herself, hands flying in the air.

"Yeah, Abbey was saying they've got you on some pretty heavy shit." Reyna muttered, scrunching her nose. The sickly sweet aroma of roses overpowered the air, courtesy of a bushy bouquet sitting on the girl's bedside table, a little plush giraffe leaned up against it. "Hey, Lydia, what are the first six digits of pi?"

"Three point one, four," she paused, face dropping as her words began to slur a bit. "Three point one, four, one-"

She stopped herself once again, falling back into the comfort of her pillow. Reyna sighed sadly. She knew the girl could have easily gone on to list the numbers she'd asked, and more, had she been all there. Lydia had been one of, if not the, brightest girl she'd ever come across. Hell, the girl had even taught Reyna Morse Code at the age of twelve.

A sense of pride ballooned in Reyna's chest as she lifted a picture frame from Lydia's overflowing shelves. The photo depicted a smiling Reyna, mouth full of braces, and Lydia right by her side, red hair tucked up into a sleek pony tail. The girls each showed off identical gold medals, holding each other close by the shoulders.

"I can't believe you still have this," she muttered absentmindedly, though Lydia hardly heard her. "It's from ages ago,"

"Britney Spears," Lydia giggled, her tone wistful and airy. She rolled to her stomach, gazing at their matching, flashy outfits. Reyna's head had been covered by a sequinned policeman's hat, while Lydia rocked the metallic pink tube top. She internally cringed at their poor recreations of what they'd thought to be Britney's best looks from the time. "we almost got kicked out,"

"To be fair, Womanizer was probably a bit risqué for a pair of sixth graders to be performing." She chuckled as she took in the picture, letting herself reminisce on earlier times. The scene was so pristine, and yet foreign to Reyna. That day, up on the stage with Lydia, singing their hearts out without a care in the world— it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"But badass enough for first place," Lydia pointed out lazily. She seemed to have a bit more clarity than when Reyna had arrived, a bit of her natural sassiness returning.

"Still wasn't as cool as seeing her in concert though," Reyna snorted. The concert definitely hadn't been geared towards her age group, Britney on stage with skimpy outfits and rolling dance moves had been enough to nearly give her conservative grandmother a stroke. Still, it remained the only concert she'd ever been to, and she cherished the memory deeply. "I'll never forget when she got those panties thrown at her,"

"In Circus," Lydia pulled her frizzing hair from her eyes, poking at Reyna's cheeks. "You're face was red like a tomato,"

Lydia threw her head back, giggling relentlessly. Reyna smiled sadly, filled with nostalgia as she caught sight of a glint of metal. A thin gold chain with a delicate heart charm rested above her breast, a charm that Reyna herself had picked out while shopping with Lydia years ago. Slowly, she trailed her eyes along her friend's collarbone, resting her gaze on her pale neck.

Her mind moved before she could process, picturing the flow of blood beneath the silky skin, the feel of her flesh in her hands, how sweet it would taste. She could see the rivers beneath her skin, flowing red—up past the beat of her heart, flowing into her jugular vein, passing through her carotid artery. The artery that was so rich and full and so so close. With just a grasp, she could take it. A lunge of her teeth, and she'd have  relief.

Her fingers itched to tear flesh, sink themselves in and devour her prey. It wouldn't take much, just a taste, her mind taunted her. She only needed a taste. The blood continued to run, trickling through Lydia's body tauntingly. Reyna could feel her heart in her ears, her fingers digging so strongly into her own palm, blood began dripping to the clean sheets.

Tentatively, she reached forward, her fingers inches from the girl's throat. She watched the steady rise and fall of her friend's chest, her easy smile, though she couldn't process any of it. She was encompassed by the sweet smell of her blood, what she imagined how sweet the crushing of her bones would sound, the growing hole in her stomach asking, begging for flesh.

A door slammed, heavy footsteps coming from the stairs. Shaken from her stupor, Reyna jerked herself away, squeezing her eyes shut. She could feel the bile rising quickly in her throat, her palm throbbing in pain. The marks were much too deep for her chewed-down fingernails to make, each of them oozing slowly.

"Sorry to bother your visit Reyna, but another friend of Lydia's has come to check in on her," Reyna whipped herself towards Natalie's voice, evidently doing a poor job of hiding her jumpiness. The mother sent her a worried look, but quickly masked it. "You're welcome to stay if you'd like."

"Um, you know what, I actually need to go, um-" She paused as she took notice of the boy nervously standing behind Natalie, rubbing a shaking hand over his shaved head. "What are you doing here?"

"Reyna, don't be rude," Natalie scolded, although Reyna's accusatory gaze never left the boy. She'd never seen him around Lydia, or even at all, besides their brief encounter in the library.

"No, it's alright, Mrs. Martin," Stiles muttered stepping forward into Lydia's room. He was visibly jittery, his heel tapping relentlessly. "It's a bit of an unexpected visit."

"It's no worry, Stiles," Natalie smiled kindly, "Reyna if want to stay-"

The sickening smell of blood and sweat began to fill Reyna's nose again as she took a deep breath to calm herself. Her stomach whirled, only worsening as she made a quick grab for her bag and beelined towards the door, doing her best to disguise her blatant lie. "You know what, that's okay, actually. My grandmother's been calling me so I really do have to go."

Her breaths were shaky as she shoved past Stiles and Natalie, nearly tripping down the stairs in her haste. Crippling fear and confusion clouded her thoughts, tears building up in her eyes as her mind bombarded her with sickening urges.

Her hands digging into Lydia's chest. The sound of her screams. The taste of her heart. Tears brimmed over her eyes, now hot on her cheeks.

She'd hardly thrown herself out the front door before she hurled over, acidic vomit coming up her throat. She ducked into the bushes lining the Martin's house, retching and crying silently as she shook violently. Her throat burned, feeling hoarse as she gagged, forcing another round of vomiting.

With nothing left in her stomach, Reyna fell onto her knees. Her head fell to her hands, sobbing as she heaved her breaths. Her heart wouldn't slow no matter how long she sat, her body quaking like a leaf.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, her gaze caught on a few spots of darkness in the grass, sticking inside the mucus of her bile. With shaking fingers, she lifted up a slimy feather, one of the many scattered throughout the pile. It's ebony plumage reflected in the sunlight, reflecting a near purple sheen. It couldn't have been longer than her thumb, yet it incurred another round of panicked breaths from Reyna.

She was overcome with fear and loathing, her throat closing up in her violent nightmares were erupting from her mind, into her daydream of a life—and there was nothing she could do to stop it.