Yeah, new story. Very different from what I normally write, much darker, from girl's POVs and little romance. Don't let that put you off thought. It's been hovering around my hard drive for months now, I wanted to complete they whole thing before posting, but decided I'd be much more encouraged to write if I had a little feed back first. I'm thinking it's going to be 10-15 chapters long from the alternating POV's of each sister. Not much happens here, just introducing the two main girls and their situation. More characters to come for the next four or so chapters. I'm worried it feels too rushed so just tell me if you think it can be improved in a review. If you like it feel free to say so too :D

Warning: Contains violence, not that people killing each other would bother most of you, but this is violence against animals so if that's a sore spot for you I'd proceed with caution.

1 - Rita

Screams. Terrified, anguished screams from the darkness of the outside world. They seemed so far away and yet were so close Rita could practically feel them vibrating up her spine and making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Jesus Christ, she thought, this is what I get for having my bedroom on the ground floor of a three story house. Whose idea was it to put a bedroom down here anyway? Talk about a useless architect.

Rita pushed herself grumpily up from the comfortable position on her green shag carpet. She liked it laid out on the carpet, her mom and sister thought she was insane but she found it more comfortable then the bed, she'd sleep down here if she hadn't been banned a few years back. It reminded her of lying in the grass of a meadow, like she would when she was little, looking up at the sky (except minus the dirt and bugs.) Similarly her ceiling was painted blue to look like sky. Her entire room was decorated in this fashion, random bits of colour and shapes from anywhere and everywhere picked purely because she liked them. Sheets picked because they were comfortable. Posters because she liked the pictures. A full length mirror she avoided looking in (her mom had insisted she had it, "every young woman needs a descent mirror" apparently.) It was a little odd, a little mismatched, much like her.

She pushed her window open to its full capacity and leaned out, elbows resting on the sill, slanting her body as far as she could into the night air. Neighbour lady's (fuck off if you expect her to memorise these people's names) screams had diminished to a loud, raspy panting mingled with a few pathetic sobs. What the hell is going on over there? She angled herself uncomfortably to see through the gap between the untamed hedge and the garage onto the woman's back lawn. Fortunately she had turned on her outside light so visibility wasn't and issue. The woman was stood on her patio, hands pressed to her face. Rita couldn't really tell from this distance but she imagined the look of upmost horror etched into her features. She was staring at the dog kennel as far as Rita could tell, either that or the pile of concrete slabs stood next to it. It took her a moment to realise why she was screaming, and it wasn't because she had finally cracked up as Rita had hoped.

From her position she couldn't see all the gory details, but smeared across the front of the kennel there was definitely a splash of bright, dripping red liquid clinging to cheap wooden structure. In a morbid sort of way she wanted to check out the kennel herself, but she'd bet her life the mangled remains of the woman's annoying spaniel, Malcolm, were painted all over the inside.

She sighed and closed the window forcefully. That's it, she thought, the psycho's taken it way too far this time. Crushing mice under those stupid killer boots and burning cockroaches with deodorant was one thing, but making it so the neighbour's dog's insides were suddenly and violently on the outside is too much. How did she think she was going to get away with it? Did she even care? Rita scowled and spun around, shoving her hands into her pockets and storming out of the room. She was going to force her to explain this time, explain why she's such I fucked up idiot. What the hell would possess her to kill the neighbour's dog? Was Rita the only one trying to keep her out of the loony bin here? If anyone ever found out she got her kicks from torturing small animals they'd lock her up for the rest of her life. She must realize this and yet she does whatever she wants anyway. What the fuck is wrong with her!

The her in question being Rita's cracked sister, Georgia, of course. She had always been messed up, for as long as Rita could remember she'd enjoyed the experience of inflicting death. When they were little it wasn't really an issue. The most she'd manage was crushing snails underfoot after it rained or deliberately dropping baby birds from their nests. Not exactly healthy practises for a young girl Rita realises but nothing they couldn't either hide or explain. Georgia may be forty-five minutes older then Rita but Rita was always the smarter twin. It all began to turn complicated when Georgia hit puberty at thirteen and, in her infinite wisdom, decided it would be more fun to focus on her sadistic tendencies on herself then the usual small animals. She began cutting herself, only scratches at first, but soon the scars got deeper and the blood began to flow. For six months this carried on. It was only when she came mere millimetres away from severing a major artery Rita begged her to stop. She shuddered upon remembering that night. She'd spent nearly two hours stemming the blood flow and a further three sobbing on the floor, pleading shamelessly for her to quit. She'd eventually agreed on the condition Rita was to help her find another way to vent her detrimental desires (they'd both made their peace with the fact they weren't going to go away any time soon.) That's how they'd ended up in the position she was in, creeping around, abducting small animals just so Georgia could torture and kill them, smiling all the while. It made Rita feel awful, but she had to do it. Georgia was her best and only friend; she couldn't let anything take that away from her.

Hers and Georgia's relationship had always been slightly strained. Georgia was deprived, always in need of being bailed out of trouble and required being closely watched at all times. Whether Rita wanted other friends was completely irrelevant, she didn't have the time or personality for them. She'd always been nervous around people, shy and introverted, not wanting to be the centre of attention. She would've had enough trouble making friends by herself but when paired with Georgia she had no chance in hell. Georgia was brash, cruel and their seemed to be no filter between her brain and her mouth. Every threat she ever dealt anyone was in grotesque, minute detail. Whatever twisted thought popped into her head she verbalised immediately. Everyone at school thought she was a psycho, avoided her, and Rita didn't blame them. She was dangerous, and Rita was the only one who could at least semi-control her.

Rita climbed the stairs quickly. Georgia's room was the large one which took up most of the top floor. She had to by pass her mom's room on the way, and if her mom heard her out of bet at this time of night she'd scream the house down. Rita didn't know why she bothers, she was usually working anyway. She'd got some big important promotion at some stupid big company and took it all very seriously. She only came home to sleep and yell. The sisters generally ignored her anyway.

Rita arrived at the top floor; there were only two rooms up here, one to the left and one to the right. The left one's an old storage room everyone dumped all the crap they didn't want anymore but didn't really want to throw out either. Boxes of books, broken stereos, tonnes of baby-toys and, if Rita wasn't mistaken, a plastic bag of festering rodents and birds wedged behind an ironing board. Rita made a mental note to throw that out before someone else found them. The door on the right led to Georgia's room.

Rita liked Georgia's room. It was like a purple and black cave of fabric and glass. Georgia had hung sheets of cheap silk over the walls; giving the room an almost claustrophobic feel. Glass beads hung over the doorway and windows and in some other random places, reflecting the light, twinkling like tiny stars suspended in space. Georgia's bed was four- poster with curtains and folded quilts of, yet again, purple. It was huge and comfortable and took up half of the floor space. Even her desk and closet were made of dark wood, adding to the opulence. The entire place was warm and inviting; so unlike Georgia herself.

She was sat at her desk, typing on her laptop. Rita got a glance of what looked like an internet message board before Georgia closed it quickly and spun around on her chair to look at her. Rita groaned inwardly, she wished she knew what her sister did on there all night but she couldn't monitor every tiny aspect of her life. She knew there was someway to look up a computers internet history on the machine but had no idea how to do it. She was never very good with technology.

"What's up?" Georgia smiled casually like nothing was wrong.

Rita groaned outwardly this time, for several reasons. For a start, as petty and unimportant as it was parallel to everything else, Rita always hated looking at her sister and comparing her to herself. Rita may have been smarter but Georgia was by far the prettier. Her unblemished skin was a dark mocha colour; her hair was long, dark and flowing down her back. She had this preposterously perfect hour-glass shape which never seemed to change no matter what she ate. Her face was heart-shaped and angelic, straight nose and full-lipped. She wasn't all perfect though, her eyes gave away her soul. They were brown, almost black, and empty. Like dark tunnels that lead nowhere. You couldn't look into them for long without knowing something horrible was going on behind there. They made her seem dangerous. Guys, being the ridiculous creatures they were, loved it. She was a fallen angel. There were a million different sexual fantasies about her sister which Rita didn't want to know about. Not that any guy ever got close enough to test it out, that is. Georgia would cruelly reject anyone who had the balls to approach her.

Rita had always been more dorky then beautiful. Not completely unattractive, but it was always "she would be really pretty if she changed her hair/make-up/clothes." Pretty much her entire persona. Rita had always cut her hair short; it was much easier then wearing it long, she didn't have to brush it everyday and it never got in her eyes. She didn't wear make-up at all, didn't see the point. Her clothes? She wore a coat when it was cold, shorts when it was warm and loose jeans and t-shirt the rest of the time. Again it was just easier; she'd never understood the girls who'd wear tiny denim skirts and string vests even in the middle of December, it was retarded.

Rita looked her sister up and down disapprovingly. She didn't want to flat out accuse her of killing the dog, even though she knew she'd done it. Damn it, Rita really hated her sometimes.

"Did you kill the neighbour's dog?" she spat. So much for not sounding accusatory.

Georgia didn't even flinch which annoyed Rita even more. "Yeah, it was barking all night. Keeping you up, remember?"

Rita's whole body tensed up although she tried not to show it. Getting mad wouldn't help, plus she'd want to yell, with her mother asleep down stairs she knew it wasn't a good idea. Instead she kept it all inside, forcing her voice to stay calm. "I wasn't hinting you should kill it! Fuck Georgia you can' go and keep doing stuff like this..."

"What? No one saw me. The house was empty the whole time." She said as though that was all Rita was worried about.

"Georgia that was somebody's dog! They're beloved pet. You can't kill anything people are going to miss, you know the rules. Now it's going to be all around the neighbour hood-"

"They'll just assume it was a wolf or something."

"There are no wolves around here!" Rita's voice had raised a decibel out of stress.

"Then a fox. Or a bear. Or an angry racoon. Jesus Rita just chill out would you..."

Rita huffed and put her hand son her hips. Georgia had a way of doing this, getting Rita so mad she wanted to scream and shout and break something. There were rules to this sick little hobby of hers, sensible ones that she never wanted to keep too. Only kill small, wild animals that no one will notice are gone, plan a kill before it happens, make sure the house is empty before hand, Rita had to be there, they both had to clean up afterwards, no more then three kills a week and never kill anything that will be missed. Georgia knew these; she agreed to these, it was the only way Rita could make sure no one would ever find out. But now she'd gone and broken most of them in the last twenty four hours.

"Chill out? Chill out! You killed next door's dog? Do you have any idea how stupid that was? If someone had seen you-"

"The house was empty!"

"You didn't know that for sure. Why do you do this," Rita's voice was becoming high-pitched and shrill. It got like that when she was mad. "I'm trying my best to keep you here with us and you go and risk it all for a cheap thrill. You know what'll happen if someone catches you right? They take you away and-"

"And lock you up and send you to a shrink and force you to take drugs and keep you in an asylum blah blah blah," Georgia interrupted rudely. The drawling tone of her voice made Rita flinch.

"No, not blah blah blah! Jesus do you even realise how serious this is? You can't just go around killing dogs, it too dangerous. You'll slip up and get caught-"

"And then they'll take you away and send you to a shrink and lock you up... Jesus Rita you're like a stuck record. It's boring. No one saw me OK!"

Stuttering for a moment, Rita's teeth grinded against each other. "No Georgia not OK! What if the house wasn't empty? Or they came home? Or they had surveillance? Do you have any idea how fucked up this all is? No one else will ever understand. If they catch you they'll write you up as a nut-job and that'll be the last time we ever see each other."

"Oh so I'm a fuck up now?" Georgia growled angrily, completely missing the point. Rita didn't like Georgia when she was angry, she was scary. Really scary. She'd yell and make threats and eventually get physical. She'd only ever got to that point twice before but Rita would never forget them. Once when Eleanor Marshall was bullying Rita in middle school and Georgia, who was walking by, happened to witness it. Eleanor never so much as glanced at Rita again, although both her eyes were swollen shut for several days anyway. And again after Rita found about the self harming, she'd panicked and punched her. She'd apologised afterwards though and had never hit her since so it was water under the bridge as far as they were concerned. Rita's brain began to work rapidly as she tried to think of a way to diffuse the situation before it blew up in her face.

"No, no, I didn't say you were fucked up, I said this situation was; all this sneaking around. I feel like a naughty school girl or something."

"The whole thing was your idea," Georgia said.

"I'm just trying to keep them from taking you away," Rita retorted.

"You don't have to watch me every second of every day you know," snarled Georgia. "I can take care of myself, I'm not a fucking cripple."

"I know you can look after yourself, but this is different. You start and then you can't stop. I've seen you do it a million times. You need me there to stop you."

Georgia exhaled deeply and pressed her right palm to her forehead. She stayed like this for a short while, completely motionless, as though she'd completely forgotten about the conversation or Rita's presence. Rita was a little nervous, considering making some sort of gesture when Georgia stood up suddenly, making Rita stumble back in surprise. She thought she was going to pounce, like those snakes which go completely rigid right before they strike. But there was no attack, instead Georgia strode over to her bed and threw herself down, making the mattress groan with strain. Rita flinched again, if she wasn't careful she was going to wake up their mom and then they'd both be going under.

"You know what I think is screwed up?" Georgia stated forcefully, "You go and kill spiders and bugs all the time and no one even cares. I kill rats and dogs and suddenly I'm a sociopath. Is it because they're bigger or cuter or something? I don't get the difference."

'I know you don't get the difference' Rita thought, 'that's the problem.'

"I know," Rita says isntead. "Just promise me you won't do this again."

"The dogs already dead Rita, you can't kill something twice..."

"I mean no more killing dogs...pets. Anything domesticated; anything that will be missed. Got it?"

"OK, I promise I'll be more careful." She propped herself up on her elbows and smiled sweetly. "You happy now?"

No. "Yes. Thank you." She thought a million tangled insults to herself, each one damning her sister to hell and worse. Rita loved Georgia deeply despite everything but most of the time thought she was going to be the death of her. It made her so frustrated to even be in the same room as the grinning twin. She needed to leave, she' done what she needed to and now just wanted to go. "I'm going to bed, we have school tomorrow."

"Fine, if you want to be such a goodie-goodie."

"See you tomorrow."

Georgia through her hands up in a non-committal way which Rita took as a good-bye sign. She spared on last, desperate glance at the lounging girl before slipping quietly out of the room and sneaking silently through the house. Georgia, that girl, was the source of all Rita's problems, but at the same time without her Rita would be completely alone. It was catch-twenty-two. And as much as she made Rita want to scream, Rita knew that if she had no one her entire existence would be futile. This was her job now, her full reason for being; protecting Georgia. Protecting her from the outside world.

And protecting the world from Georgia.