by Celia Crown
I hadn’t regretted the action of crushing that bottle and waking her up rudely. I was angry, and my patience was just below zero during that day, but it wasn’t her fault.
“Get rid of it.” My voice startles her, and I got surprised too. I didn’t know I would be saying anything, but it comes out harsher than I wanted.
“What?” She turns around, eyebrows knotted and supporting her crouched position on the suitcase.
“The medicine,” I ground out; there’s a twitch in my pulse as I glare at the bottle. “Get rid of it.”
“I might need it—”
“Just do it!” I snap, voice raised and deep as the echoes of my tone swallow the silence in this room. It leaves a nasty tension between us as she keeps her eyes locked on me, but my eyes can’t return to her when that damn bottle is still there.
“Okay, okay, I’ll throw it away.” Victoria picks up the bottle, and a hasty thump of my heart creates a shuddering breath in my lungs.
The loud clatter in the garbage erases some of the muscle tension in my back, but I know I won’t calm down and stop her from picking it back up when I’m not looking. I have to get rid of it soon, or I’ll go crazy.
“Silas,” Victoria murmurs, curling her hand into my arm and dragging me to my bed. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t fight her touch, and I don’t lean into it either. I just don’t feel right in my own skin, and it’s driving me up the walls. The absolute audacity of her to pull that bottle out again after what we had gone through. It was that bottle that triggered me because that was her reasoning.
Fighting with myself is a losing battle, and I didn’t have a chance of winning when she kneels between my legs and soothes the rage boiling in my blood. Her soft hands rub my forearms, bringing warmth to the coldness that I feel despite my scorching thoughts.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asks because she’s that kind of girl, always not knowing what is going on even if it’s right in front of her face.
I don’t want to fight anymore. I want the truth, the truth that I already knew seven years ago. I’m a masochist that likes to put myself in a pool of pain; I want to hear her reasons again.
I was immature and agitated, I just wanted to hear the reason, and nothing else mattered. Not the excuses before and not the explanation after the reason. For years, I have held onto that part because that was what mattered.
“No.” I wrap my hand around her wrist, holding and not letting up the pressure. She’s so small, and it makes me want to throw her on the bed and curl up against her.
She’ll be safe there. She’ll always be safe with me. I won’t ever let anything happen to her nor will I allow anything near her. Good or bad, everything stays away from her unless it’s coming from me.
This revelation is fucked up, and it’s not news to me. I have always had these possessive thoughts about Victoria, and it’s incurable, and I have tried to make it stop. It seems to only get worse over time and eventually, it becomes an obsessive train wreck about wanting to know everything about her.
When Sebastian would talk, it’s not hard to make him steer into the topic of Victoria. I don’t care who he met that day or what girl he took to his bed; I just want to hear about Victoria. I breathe easy when I know she’s safe and out of harm’s way, but I would get this unusual and eerier satisfaction knowing no man had put their hands on her.
Mine, the voice in my head sneers. Yes, she’s mine. I was too stupid and too stubborn to accept it, but I’m ready to. A part of me doesn’t care what had happened in the past; I’m not above using manipulation and violence to get her to stay.
The lights flicker violently, and her attention is stolen from me. She looks up and winces when the lights keep wavering on and off. It eventually turns off, and she frowns in confusion. I have to remind her that my grip on her arm is secure so she doesn’t get away.
Victoria pats my hand with her free one before reaching for the phone attached to the nightstand in the middle of the room that separates two beds. She dials the reception desk, but they don’t pick up, and she hangs up.
“Huh,” she ponders. “It didn’t go through. Weird, I wonder what happened.”
I tug her hand, letting her sit on the bed while I want to take this chance to let everything take its course. I want every piece of information, and I want to know why she denied what happened seven years ago.
Maybe I had missed something when I was too angry to listen to her, and if not, then I want to dig into her head to see what is going to make her stay with me this time.
There’s a beep on her phone and it shows a message on the screen. She reads it while letting me hold her wrist. She can’t outrun me, and I’m not going to let her either. This consuming need to dominate, to control her is insane, and somehow it had only resurfaced when Fyodor showed up in the picture.
He’s so close to her, and it makes me envious, a bit too obsessively jealous of knowing how far their relationship had gone. I never got a chance to ask her before as I was battling with my feelings, but also because I was scared of her answer.
“Fyodor,” I begin, and it’s hard to phrase the question.
She hums to let me know she’s listening as her eyes read the email.
“What is he to you?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I wait for her to look at me. She’s going to see this insecure man, and I have reasons to be. Fyodor is more successful, older, and more experienced in life than I am. He has been in her life for the seven years that I actively avoided her, and I regret that a lot.
He has seen her change and made memories with her that most likely took over the memories of me in her heart.
I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the washed-out fragment that occasionally comes up in her thoughts and fade away just as quick.
“A wild animal.”
“What?” A growl rumbles in my chest, but she pays no heed to the noise as she scrolls through the email.
“He’s a party animal,” she mumbles as the sky grows dark with a blustery storm. “Fyodor looks like a church-going boy with a middle-part, but he likes to go on adventures with women—if you know what I mean.”
Talk about a two-faced man. “You?”
“What about me?” she asks, briefly turning to me until the content of the email becomes more interesting.
“Were you with him?” I have to ask. This is the moment that I have been waiting for and the answer from her lips takes too long to come out.
“Once,” she replies.
My heart throbs painfully. The hand around her wrist pinches her skin, and she yelps in pain, and I loosen it just a bit. She watches for any signs on my face, and if she sees anything, she doesn’t mention it out of respect for this conversation.
“It wasn’t serious. I don’t remember it, only snippets and weird colored yarns. It was during the Last Dimension festival or the morning after. It’s too blurry.”
I hold back the scoff, but not the bitter accusation. “You forget a lot of things. Convenient.”
The green head of jealousy opens its big mouth and spits out a fire to add on the scorching resentment in me. I have this unintended and uncontrollable hatred towards Fyodor for putting his hands on Victoria.
“You’re not making sense, Silas.”
I swallow. “You said you love me.”
“Huh? What? When?” Her head whips to me; there’s utter bafflement on her face and it snaps the control in me.
I pull her down on the bed, trapping her with my arms, mesmerized by the beauty splayed on my bed.
What’s in my bed is my possession.
“That night—before your college entrance exam.” I wait as realization returns to her, and she cracks a nervous smile.
“I don’t remember that night.”
How consistent of her to not remember the most important night that broke everything between us. We were special, and our bond was beyond simple infatuation; she was everything to me and more.
&nbs
p; “Don’t lie. You played with my feelings, and then you just left. You’re cruel, and I never expected that from you.”
“Just—just wait a minute. What are you talking about?” she sputters, pushing one of her hands on my chest while I have her other pinned to the bed.
I want to make sure she knows precisely what I’m talking about. There is not going to be any wiggle room or any miscommunication in this talk. She wanted this talk, and she’s going to take it.
“That night. You were sick, and I was there taking care of you, and you said you love me. Then in the morning, you acted as if nothing had happened last night and you went off to college after that.”
It’s the base premises of the entire shitstorm that went on, and it still hurts remembering how she had just casually acted the next day and had the nerve to pretend that nothing happened.
I was beyond delighted when she said she loved me, and to a boy feared by others, I felt that I could have conquered the world with her confession.
“You left me.”
“I’m sorry?” She blinks, still not connecting the dots as she begins to think and dive deeper into her memories.
That is not what I wanted to hear; it pisses me off. “For what? Leaving or you didn’t give a shit—or you lied?”
She pats my chest, rubbing circles to attempt to soothe me while I merely curl my fingers. The bones in her wrist move when she winces, but the sheets on my other hand nearly tear apart.
“I’m getting really confused, Silas. What in the world is going on? Yes, I was sick, but I really don’t remember anything from that night.”
If I have to spell it out to her, then I’m going down the damn alphabetical order to get the damn facts into her mind.
“You’re still lying.” The accusation makes her brown eyes narrow, and her nails drag down with my shirt between her fingers.
“Why can’t you ever admit it?” I speak before she can.
More than once, I interrupt her because I can’t bear to hear another justification or another lie that comes out of her pink lips. “Are you embarrassed about me? Did you humiliate yourself after?”
Bowing my head, I press my face to her neck and breathe in her sweet scent. Her soft skin is addictive as I keep my lips on her quick pulse. At least she is affected by me as much as I am by her. There is no denying that there is something going on in her head, but her heart’s rhythm speaks more to me.
“I just want answers, and you won’t tell me, am I that appalling to love?” I utter softly, a touch of vulnerability and doubt.
“Listen.” She lets go of my shirt and wraps her small arm around my back as much as she can and find purchase there.
“I was too sick from the panini bread that I had, but I knew I had to make it to the entrance exam, so I took it. That cold medicine works so well that it makes the fever burn my memories. It wasn’t the first time it happened, and I usually use that as my last resort.”
That explanation is just as absurd as Sebastian going abstinent. It’s improbable and unrealistic.
“You’re lying.” I don’t believe it, but I want to. I want to believe that it’s that simple and there was no ulterior heartbreak hidden in her words.
“Silas. Have I ever lied to you before?” She runs her small hand against my spine and my body shudders, fanning her neck with my minty breath.
“Yes, that night.” I stay bullheaded; my brain has been fighting for so long that it’s the only thing it knows what to do.
“I just told you what happened.”
She did. She told me she doesn’t remember the night before, and it was such a mockery to my feelings that she played me like a fucking fool.
“And you still left.”
She sighs, pulling her hand away from my back to cup my face. The gentle stroke on my cheek has me leaning against her hand. “For college. Is that why you were so angry? Because I left for school in another state?”
She doesn’t get it because she’s naïve and oblivious to a fault.
“No, I was angry because I was in love with you too.”
“I—what? You were?” she stammers, her cheeks turning red.
It shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does give my heart hope and feathery lightness.
I admit to everything without a shred of regret or mortification. “Since I was young, but then that happened, and everything went to shit. I didn’t want to talk to you because I was humiliated, angry, and I resented you for lying and for leaving me behind.”
Those were the dark times. I had trouble as a child and in my teenage years, but her absence left a hole too deep to be filled with any help. She just packed her stuff and left, but she still tried to talk to me outside my bedroom door before she went.
I was the one that kept that door locked.
“Silas, you were young,” she murmurs, brown eyes sadden with a drained smile. “You had a whole future in front of you, and you still do, and I wouldn’t have let you follow me and settle for what I want. I don’t want you to settle for anything less than what you want to do, not then and not now.”
I could care less about the perfect future she wants me to have. Without Victoria and her shitty nonsense behavior, it would be just a canvas of black.
“Do you still love me?” I ask.
Her hand twitches on my cheek, rubbing my jaw absentmindedly. “I… yes.”
“Then I don’t want anything else.”
She puffs a breath, her air not catching up to her words. “Silas. You’re still young, and there are others out there who are a better fit for you.”
“They’re not you.”
Victoria needs to know that she is special to me, and I have never once had a night without dreaming of her.
“I couldn’t even figure out what had happened, and I wasn’t strong enough to keep our friendship.” Trying to convince me and change my mind after I know the truth that I stubbornly wanted to avoid, I will not simply back down with her flimsy excuse.
“Relationships take more than one person, and it was my fault too for being stubborn. You tried, tried so hard to get to the truth, but I wouldn’t let you. This time, I want to make it up to you. You were hurt because of me and the least I can do is put in more effort this time.”
“Silas,” she protests, but I bite her neck to shut her up.
“Please. I love you. I have never stopped, and I don’t plan on it either.”
She purses her lips, uncertainty and doubts cloud her eyes. “What if we don’t work?”
“We will because you love me too.” I lean down, and she doesn’t dodge me as I press my lips to hers.
She returns the soft gesture with a breathy sigh. “Yeah, I love you too.”
Chapter Nine
Victoria
The lights didn’t come back on. The remaining sunlight from the reflective snow on roofs is the only source of light in the hotel room as I sigh.
The email from the hotel to every VIP guest that’s invited to the convention had informed of what had happened earlier. The event concert had knocked the power out in the hotel, but the backup generator had been taken out by the snowstorm.
In fact, the entire hotel is out of power like the news alert from my phone stated the power grid was hit. There haven’t been any updates as of yet, but I can only imagine how hard everyone is working to get the power back up and stay warm. However, that doesn’t stop criminals from seeing this as a great opportunity to dabble in crime.
Silas had forbidden me to leave the hotel room. Sebastian and Fyodor had been stuck in their room because every magnetic lock in the hotel had malfunctioned, trapping everyone inside to prevent a security breach and chaos.
“There’s no need to show off,” I grumble, bundling up further into the two blankets that I had combined.
Silas spares me a glance and cocks an eyebrow, his hand holding a water bottle while peering down at the streets by the window. He has this majestic strength in his body as his muscles bulge when he drinks the wa
ter, the bareness of his arm is inked with patterns too intricate to be separated.
“Looking at you makes me cold,” I say as I shudder, a chill running down my spine.
“Then don’t look at me,” he states the obvious.
“Can’t help it,” I murmur, cracking an eye to take in the mirth in his green eyes. “You’re too good-looking. It would be a crime to not look at you. Don’t mind me, just pose and let my eyes feast.”
“I expect payments,” he remarks with green eyes darkening.
Another cold shudder travels down my spine and tickles the back of my neck. I wish the heat would come back on or I’m going to experience hypothermia.
“A small price to pay,” I mutter with a smile.
He puts the water bottle down on the desk, strolling up to me as the stretch of his shirt becomes distracting when he leans down. He’s bold when he presses his lips to mine, muffling a cry of shock as he breathes my name.
“This will do for now,” he muses. “I expect full payment later.”
I lift the blanket, signaling him inside the warm cocoon. “Hurry up and cuddle me; you’re letting the heat escape!”
“How do you survive in winter?” He’s poking fun at me, and I’ll have him know that I can take on the harsh winter just fine.
I just need a bit more preparation than the average person. Due to my house being empty and spacious, the cold tends to settle faster and longer than a smaller home. There is nothing I can do because I need the space to walk around and get my brain cells moving when I get stuck in any part of the equation that makes me want to pull out my hair.
“Every corner has a heater, the couch and bed, and heating pads, and the fireplace is always on with blankets on the ground to absorb the cold from the wood flooring.”
That’s only the beginning, I have more things that I like to do, but I don’t want to scare Silas away with the pointless steps to ultimately stay alive in the winter.
“Dramatic,” he scoffs, burying his face into my hair as I glare at his nice collarbone.
“It’s not,” I correct. “If you thought that was dramatic, then you have no idea what I did in winter break during Junior year.”