Saints
Chapter One :: Light it Up && Burn it Down
A/N: I ended up merging the original chapter one and two into the big one for the first chapter. You can expect every chapter to come in around 10,000 - 12,000 words from this point on. Because of this, updates will probably come in about every other week.
The car jerks to a stop in the otherwise empty driveway, and though the house is in the exact same state as it was when I left it a few hours ago, it is somehow entirely different.
Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm entirely different.
Because before, pushing through that front door felt like busting through iron cage bars. Stepping outside into the chill of the winter night felt like ridding myself of heavy shackles. Driving away down the street in my white Jeep liberty, headed towards Kensington . . . It was my getaway. It was my escape. It was my freedom.
It was a step towards change; a step out of the shell that I'd allowed my father to stuff me in, concealing my real self with a better version.
But now that I'm back at the house, stuffed in the bed of a different truck, surrounded by intimidating people that I hardly know, it doesn't look like my prison anymore.
It looks like my refuge.
The doors to the truck swing open when the other two trucks pull up behind us, and bodies pile out one after the other. The people around me follow suit, using the sides of the truck as leverage to swing themselves over and out, landing on the ground easily and spreading out over the front lawn. In seconds I'm the only person left in the bed.
This is insane. Why did I ever think that this was a good idea? This isn't me. This isn't how I'm supposed to act.
I'm no criminal.
I'm a straight-A student with a record so clear it would sparkle and shine in a dark room. I'm a sixteen year old with more friends in retirement homes than in my school - only having one friend that I regularly spend time with - with community service hours that would make Mother Teresa's cheeks flush with shame. Not a single curse has passed through these lips, and the same goes for any and all illegal substances. I've never had a non-platonic relationship in my life. I was accepted into a special allied health program that allows me to work with patients in a hospital freshman year, and have successfully continued it every year that followed. I'm going off to my first choice of college next fall with a full scholarship.
I'm the child that every parent wants.
Quiet, intelligent, considerate, and compassionate.
Pleasantly boring.
And as pathetic as that is, and as much as I wish I weren't, it's not something that I can change. Isabella Swan is pleasantly boring.
She doesn't do things like go out past the curfew her father set for her. She doesn't converse with gang members. And she most certainly doesn't try to become one.
More importantly though . . . Isabella Swan doesn't burn down houses.
Especially not her own.
"The fuck are you waiting for?" My eyes dart over to the owner of that voice. I don't know his name. "Get out of the damn truck. I wanna get my dick wet tonight and you're dragging ass," he says crudely, yanking the girl closest to him by her arm into his chest. She chuckles sultrily, tilting her hips backwards, rubbing up against his crotch.
My legs shake as I uncurl them from their pretzel position and stand. I peek over the side of the truck to see how far the fall is.
This truck is monstrous.
It's easily a five foot drop.
A large hand appears beneath my wide eyes, so large that it blocks my view of the ground.
Jake.
A boy that I've known since I was ten years old. A boy that I've tried to fit in the place of another after it happened; after my father adopted me from the shelter where my mother abandoned me. A boy that never quite filled the other's place, but fit well enough for me to pretend that he did.
Enough for me to pretend that he filled the crater that the other boy had left in me.
And now, for this reason, every time I look at Jake I see the fourteen year old boy who'd held me all night every night at the shelter. I see the boy who let me soak his shirt with tears. I see the boy who allowed me to follow him around every day - who never grew tired of my presence.
I see the boy who I fell in love with when I was nine years old. The boy that made me feel wanted. The boy that made me feel safe when gunshots could be heard outside, when nightmares pulled me from my sleep and into his arms.
The boy who broke his promise to me.
Jake is frowning when I look up at him. Disappointed? Annoyed?
"Come on," he urges, moving his hand even closer for me to take.
Angry? Bored? Tired?
I can't tell.
I take his hand regardless, and he helps me to the ground. He lets go and strides over to the rest of the Hell Hounds to stand next to Sam, the leader of the gang.
Jake has stayed next to Sam all night. Maybe he's second in command.
He's never told me much about his gang, and I've never officially met any of them before tonight. I think he's always purposely kept me out of the loop. Then again, the time we spend together is generally shared with my ever-present father, and he certainly wouldn't want him to know that he's in a gang.
Seth, the only other Hound that I know personally, comes up and wraps an arm around my shoulders. "You ain't backing out?" He asks me playfully, although it isn't a question. "Come on! This is easy shit!"
The arm around me is light, but it leads me closer to the rest of the pack.
Aside from Sam and Jake, they're all in motion now. The front door has been kicked in, and I can see people moving quickly from room to room through the windows.
I'd forgotten to close blinds before I'd left.
One of my father's rules is that the blinds need to be closed after seven. Preferably at the exact moment that night falls, but never past seven.
If he hadn't been held up at the station, they would have been. I wouldn't be watching the Hounds rip and tear my house apart, saving only what they wish to keep for themselves, dousing everything else in gasoline from containers that I don't recall seeing before now.
They're very thorough.
I don't think I've ever been more relieved that my father wasn't home than I am in this moment.
I have a feeling that he wouldn't have lived to see the next day. He'd have died before his traitorous daughter.
A shiver runs through my frame.
"You got this, girl." Seth pats my back comfortingly.
Strangely, I do find comfort in this gang member's touch. But then we were playmates as children, so I guess it makes sense. We were close up until he turned fourteen over two years ago – up until he became a member of the pack. Surprisingly, he seems to be the same as he was since the last time we spoke: playful, friendly, and almost puppy-like in his excitement.
I'm not fooled though.
I know that he's just as bad as every other person in this lot.
Jake and I have always been friends. He didn't give me up the way Seth did when he joined the pack, but then that might be because he has a higher rank. Maybe Jake can do whatever he wants, and Seth has to do what he's told.
Will I have to do what I'm told?
I watch as someone lifts up my bedroom window. It's a girl.
"Anything we can sell in there?" Sam calls up to her.
"Guns," she replies. "But they hot, so no. No jewelry. No money." Distracted, she looks at something on the wall next to her.
Her laugh is loud and obnoxious, and then she pops back though the window, sneering as she holds something out. "You some kind'a smartass?" She taunts, shaking one of my plaques around carelessly over the ground. She reads the encryption aloud before dropping it.
I watch as it breaks into splinters on the concrete.
A few other plaques suffer the same death.
When I look back up she's already gone, and now they're all flooding out of the house just as quickly as they'd gone in.
Suddenly a box of matches is in my hand.
I don't know who put it there.
I turn, expecting to find Seth at my side, but there's no one there. Seth is leaning against the mailbox now, at the end of the driveway.
Far away from the house that is about to go up in flames.
When Sam had asked me if I knew what I was getting myself into, I said yes. And when he asked me if I could handle it, I lied. I said yes again.
Because I don't seem like the kind of person who would be a good liar, and probably because Jake knows me and didn't object, and largely because my father is a cop, he didn't question it.
There's no turning back now.
If I chicken out, they'll turn on me. They might even toss me in the house and finish the job themselves.
Gangs love nothing more than messing with the police. What better way is there to screw over a cop, than to pull his daughter into the chaos that comes with being a member of a gang, trashing her promising future, and using her as a pawn to ruin his life?
Starting by destroying his home.
"Alright, Iz," Sam grunts from behind me.
That's not my name. Nobody calls me that. Ever.
I don't like it.
It doesn't sound like me.
I don't turn, but I feel him press entirely up against my back. Two hands come down on my hips, squeezing so tightly that it's nearly impossible to keep myself from wincing.
To stop myself from showing just how weak I really am.
It's definitely going to leave a bruise.
Fingers push locks of hair behind my ears as he leans in. Lips brush my lobe as he whispers, "Light 'er up."
I don't like having him this close to me. I haven't been this close to someone - and in this way - in so long that it feels unnatural. Claustrophobic. I want to step away from him but I know that he won't let go.
I look down at the matches in my hand again.
This is it.
It's a complete mistake, but it's far too late to change my mind.
All I have to do is light a match and drop it.
And then everything after that, but I'm deciding not to think of the future anymore.
I've worried about the future and the past for so long that I haven't been able to live in the present - not that my father ever would have let me anyway.
He has always been too busy trying to make up for his own sins that he never allowed me to commit any of my own.
Everybody has to sin sometime.
If they don't, they might as well be dead.
This might not be my particular preference of sin, but it's a sin nonetheless.
A step towards changing myself.
A step towards happiness - something that I haven't experienced in a long, long time. Not since the last time I saw him.
I pull a match out of the box, and Sam starts moving me closer, each of his own steps forcing my legs forward. He stops when we reach the porch.
I look in through the busted door.
The house is already broken.
It would be almost merciful to burn it down. To put it out of its pain. It could be restored from this, but it would never be quite the same.
I would know.
My father tried to put my pieces back together once he got me out of the shelter in that awful neighborhood. He did it all exactly right, following all the instructions on how to put something broken back together - with glue and tape and staples.
But I'll never be who I once was or who I could have been, because I've lost pieces of myself along the way. I've been worn and torn in places where glue and tape won't stick, and I've been so hardened in others to where staples cannot push through.
On the surface I'm a porcelain doll with wide, innocent brown eyes, and flawless fair skin. It conceals the wreck beneath it, but it does nothing to heal it.
The only real solution is to end it.
And though I never had the courage to do that for myself . . . I can do it for my father's home.
"Go on."
I put the tip of the match against the box, and swipe it quickly across the rough terrain. The fire burns my fingertips because I'm not holding the match correctly.
It's not mercy or intent that causes me to drop the flame on the gas-soaked porch.
It's a natural instinct to release the thing that pains me.
And when a monstrous fire breaks out over the porch, I pull myself from Sam's grip and lurch away from the startling heat. I trip over something, and fall backwards onto the ground a few yards away at Jake's feet.
The house roars and creaks as the fire spreads.
Cheers break out amongst the Hounds. Clearly none of them actually expected me to do it, and honestly, if my fingers weren't being singed as I held the match, I probably wouldn't have done it.
I'm not that bold.
I wonder for a moment why none of my neighbors called the police or came out to see what was going on - why no one ever tried to stop it.
I guess I know the answer.
Because this is a gang. A gang filled with ruthless, horrible people who are incapable of feeling remorse for their actions.
And nobody wants to end up on their bad side.
And while I may now be a member of the gang, I know that I'll never really be a Hound. And I know that there's no way out.
This is my life now.
I hear an engine roar. I look over to the truck, stupidly surprised that we're leaving so quickly. In the same moment that I realize the truck isn't on, I realize, too, that it would probably be a good idea to leave as quickly as possible.
I also realize that it's not only one engine that I hear.
It's several. More than I can possibly count.
"Saints." The word comes from nearly every single one of the Hounds. And they don't simply say it.
They breathe it. Almost as if they can't believe it.
Or maybe just as if they don't want to believe it.
"Saints?" I ask quietly, looking up to Jake from my place on the ground. If that is a noun instead of . . . Whatever else it could be, there's about to be a serious problem.
Jake yanks me up off the ground with a firm grip on my shoulder,then pulls me to his side protectively. "You gotta get outta here," he speaks quickly and I can barely hear him over the increasingly loud engines.
I gulp.
Where am I supposed to go? I don't exactly have a home anymore, and I'll never make it to his house. Kensington is over a half an hour away by car. It would take me hours to get there on foot, and the winter night is only getting colder.
I think I remember the news saying that it's going to snow tonight. It feels so long ago that I was sitting on the couch with my feet propped up on the coffee table before the television, sipping on a cup of tea with my AP Physics homework in my lap, listening to the forecast.
Four to six inches, I remember the woman saying.
I can't walk twelve miles in snow in a white sweatshirt, yoga pants and Uggs.
"Isabella!" Jake snaps, pulling me from my thoughts. His usually brown eyes are black with seriousness. "When they come, they're gonna hit hard."
The Saints. The most feared gang in the state of Pennsylvania. They have territory all over the state, and they don't take lightly to riffraff stepping on it.
The engines are louder now. They must be on the street.
"We're on their dirt. We shouldn't have come here." I think that he's speaking to himself until he addresses me, saying, "You shouldn't have done this, Isabella. You should have just stayed home."
Stiffly, I nod.
My first bad decision might lead to my death.
Beautiful.
He steps in front of me as motorcycles and expensive cars screech to a stop in the middle of the street. "You gotta go. And don't stop running until I find you," he adds quietly. "I'll tell you when. Don't move till I say."
I'm reminded again of the boy I knew, but I push his face out of my mind. Now is not the time.
"Jake?"
He keeps his eyes forward, his arms moving quickly, probably fondling a weapon in his hands. His head tilts only slightly to the side to let me know that he's listening.
"Thank you."
"I told you before, Isabella. I'll never let anyone hurt you." His promise rings out just as strong as it did the first time he said it. "Not till I say," he reminds me. Then the engines are cut, and the vibrations settle in the air.
Silence breaks out over the lot.
Not daring to peek around Jake to see our attackers, I chance a look to the right.
Sam stands with his hand on his back pocket. It's resting on something that's sticking out of it. A handle.
A handle to a gun.
Does everybody have one?
Have the Hounds ever had a run-in with the Saints before? I get the feeling that they haven't, otherwise they'd be more confident, more rowdy in their reaction to their presence.
Also, the fact that the Hounds are still alive is a good indication that these two gangs have never met before.
I've heard rumors about the Saints before in school. The less respectable students speak of them enthusiastically, with admiration, while more respectable students tend to look down upon them with rightful fear.
I once heard a group of guys talking about Alphonse Machetti, the leader of the Saints. Apparently, one of his own members turned against him, threatening his girlfriend or something in an argument. He said that they'd broken out into a fight in the middle of the street somewhere in Phili. The student claimed to have watched as Machetti pounced on him, literally sinking his teeth into his neck and draining his blood until his veins ran dry.
My experience in the medical field - studying anatomy and physiology, working with doctors in the hospital - tells me that this rumor was probably just that - a rumor. But when a tremble runs through Jake – who I've never seen be scared of anything or anyone in all the years I've known him - as a car door opens, I find myself doubtful of my previous conclusion. The likelihood of a person living through something as unsanitary as ingesting another human's blood is slim to none.
But Machetti is foreign to me, and from what I've heard he's survived through even more fatal situations.
Now I really, really want to look around Jake to see what's going on. I don't want anyone to see me, though, so I don't.
A deep, seething voice breaks the silence: "Nobody fucking moves."
A few people repeat his demands, and though they're intimidating, none of them quite compare.
This might be Alphonse Machetti himself.
Which means I should probably say a prayer before I die.
If he'd come only minutes earlier I probably would have been safe. But seeing as lighting the house on fire was my initiation . . . I'm a Hound. And I'm on their territory.
I repeat Jake's promise in my head, trying to convince myself that he will be able to protect me from this much larger and much more dangerous threat.
"Now," the same person as before continues when the others quiet down, "I'm only going to ask this once. And if the answer is in that house," venom saturates his tone, poisoning the air as he hisses, "then I'm going to send every last fucking one of you mother fuckers in there until someone brings out what's mine."
My legs tremble beneath me. I lean into Jake's back, resting my forehead against it as I listen to his rushed breaths. Waiting for instruction.
Waiting for death.
Because whatever this man had hidden in my house was surely burnt to ashes by now.
The house creaks again.
What could he have kept in there? And how could he have managed to sneak it in there?
I guess it wouldn't be hard for someone as criminally skilled as a Saint to sneak into even an officer's house. And I suppose it is a rather good hiding place, seeing as not many people would take the risk of being caught burglarizing an officer's house.
But what could he have put in there that I'd never noticed?
I catch myself starting to sway to the side, my curiosity getting the better of me for a moment. I force myself back against Jake, safely concealed by his taller, bulkier body.
My desire to take in this lethal man's appearance will not cost me my life.
Burning down this house probably will, but that's not something that can be taken back.
And there's still a chance of me getting out of this alive. A slim chance, I'll admit, but a chance nonetheless.
"So listen closely."
Oh, believe me. I am.
"Where the fuck is she?"
She?
Now I am positive that there hasn't been another human being living in my house unbeknownst to me.
He's got the wrong house.
Sam, clearly eager to avoid conflict with the notorious Saints, must think the same thing, because he says, "I think you have the wrong place, man."
"Oh, I can assure you that you don't think at all."
I can't even imagine just how menacing this man must be.
"And I think we all fucking know that this is exactly the right house. Cut the bullshit and just say where the fuck she is."
Seth is the next one to speak, and I instantly get the feeling that he probably shouldn't. "The only girl that lives here is Iz -"
Seth starts to say my first name at the same time the man says, "Doe," cutting him off.
A gust of air fills my lungs at the name, causing me to choke and cough an exhale.
Doe.
I haven't been called that in years. And only one person has ever called me that in my entire life.
Only three people in the entire world would know the significance of that name, one of them being my father, another being the woman that abandoned me in the shelter, and the final being . . .
Him.
Edward.
I don't realize that I have once again tried to move from behind Jake until his hand catches my wrist, pulling me back behind him, reminding me that this man is dangerous.
It wouldn't be difficult for him to get his hands on a file with my birth name on it. He could be smart enough to know that it would be something of value to me.
But he clearly thinks that I'm in that house. And his threat was serious. He would kill them if nobody told him where I was.
Or maybe he said that intentionally. Maybe he knew that I wasn't in there - that I was standing in the crowd, but he didn't want to have to chase me. Maybe he's pretending to be someone that he's not so that I'll come right to him.
But how would he know about Edward?
And why would he want me anyway?
"Nobody's got an answer?" He's infuriated.
He wants to get to me - almost sounding like it's a basic need to know where I am. Like he needs me to be out of that flaming, creaking house. Like he needs me to be alive and well.
Like I am more important than anyone else.
"You want us to take them out, Al?" Somebody asks, and I hear several clicks.
Of guns?
Great.
My eyes flick over to Sam when he starts talking again. He's sweating profusely. The light from the fire exposes the sweat stains down his armpits and his back. "Listen, man, I'm telling you. There ain't no bitch named Doe in -"
He stops speaking all of the sudden. Only a second passes before his body flies backwards. He lands on his back a few yards away.
Somebody steps into my line of vision, directly in front of Sam's gasping body, pointing a gun right at his nose.
He's unreasonably tall, easily six foot four, with heavy, muscular limbs. From this side view I can see that the ball at the end of his nose angles up somewhat. The fullness of his bottom lip makes up for the thin upper lip that is currently stretched over pearly white teeth. Dark scruff covers his sharp jaw, all the way up to his sideburns, where short, dark brown hair lays beneath a Snap-back that rests backwards on his head. His eyebrows are thick beneath it, and his long lashes are tilted downwards, surrounding glaring eyes that I can't see the color of.
Unlike most of the other members of the gang, he doesn't look like a teenager. He has to be over twenty years old.
As inappropriate as it is, all I can think about in the moment that he cocks the gun sideways at my gang leader's face, is just how astoundingly attractive this man is.
I've never been so attracted to anyone in my life.
When he speaks, I know that this is Machetti by the familiar masculinity of his voice. "That's not an acceptable answer, pup. Now you're gonna be the first to go in there searching." He motions between Sam and the house with the gun. "Get the fuck up and get the fuck in there."
Sam stares up at him with wide eyes, his jaw dropped open.
Machetti turns, giving me a nice view of his broad shoulders and narrowed back, and says, "This motherfucker better be deaf."
The gun never falters from the target - Sam's nose.
I imagine how painful receiving a bullet to the face must be. Would the blood drip down to his lungs afterward, suffocating him as further punishment for not giving Machetti the answer that he'd been looking for? Probably.
I wonder if Machetti would do it just for that. Although, if he wanted to go for a painful death by way of bullet wound, I think I've heard that shooting the stomach is the most effective.
Maybe he's just angry and wants to wreck his face.
His finger moves, and it take me a minute to realize what he's doing that has Sam wincing every second.
He's tapping the trigger ever so lightly.
"Would any of you fuckers like to help your brother out?" He asks tauntingly though no less angrily. "All you gotta do is tell me where my girl is."
Seth pipes up again. "I'm telling you, man - the only girl that lives here is Isabella."
He lowers the gun slightly in response. "That's who I'm fucking looking for. Isabella Doe."
Sam's voice shakes as he mumbles, "You mean Isabella Swan?" His eyes flicker between Machetti and I.
No.
He's really just going to hand me over?! I'm supposed to get protection now that I'm officially a Hound!
Jake's hand tightens on the wrist that he never let go. He still hasn't told me to run. That means there's no way out.
And at this point, it's pretty obvious that Machetti is here for me. For what reason, I'm unsure. Since when have I belonged to him?
"It's the same fucking person - where the fuck is she?!"
He's beyond infuriated now.
He's far past murderous.
He seems desperate; his body literally trembles with emotion. "And don't you dare tell me she's in that fucking house," his baritone breaks at the end of the sentence. His eyes tighten, making creases form on the side as he analyzes Sam.
Once again, Sam's eyes flicker to me and back very quickly.
Machetti's head whips to the side.
Stormy grey eyes bore into mine so intensely that even though I want to look down at the ground, to hide myself from his prying gaze, I can't. I'm frozen beneath his stare.
A loud thud is what pulls my eyes from his, and I realize that he's dropped the gun.
His face is awestruck.
His mouth moves, but I don't hear any sound come out.
I don't know what happened in the very next second that caused it, but all of a sudden, everybody is fighting with each other.
Saints against Hounds.
The Saints are much better equipped for this fight. Every single one of them has either a gun or a knife in their hand, and are using it as intended.
This suburban neighborhood is experiencing a lot of firsts tonight. Why hasn't anybody called the police?
This house needs to be put out.
I turn to look back up at Machetti, but in the same moment, Jake steps to the side, shielding me yet again from the Saint's stormy eyes.
"Run!" He orders me quickly.
I find myself confused at the word at first, but then I remember. I take off towards the side of the house, still unsure of my final destination.
"No!" Machetti roars, causing me to glance over at him in the same moment that he shoves Jake out of his way and into another Saint so that he can chase me.
I don't care how ridiculously attractive this guy is.
I am in no mood to die tonight.
I urge my legs to move faster, reminding myself to control my breathing like how I'd learned to in track.
But his legs are much longer than mine, and he catches me in no time at all.
Thick arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back sharply against a hard chest. He's holding me nearly a foot off of the ground. His heart is pounding hard, beating punishingly against my spine with every pump. His breath comes in pants; his mouth must be close to my ear, because I can feel a gust of air against it with every one of his quick exhales.
He's so insanely and inappropriately close to me. He's too close for me to think straight – for me to come up with a plan of attack, or defense.
With a jerk, I'm spun quickly in his arms so that I face him.
Heaving chest to heaving chest.
Pointed nose to button nose.
Our eyelashes might even be touching.
Astonishment deflates my lungs.
Far, far too close. I don't recall ever being this close to another human being in my entire life. I could count the nearly non-existent pores that dot his cheeks if I were so inclined. "Wha -" I can't even finish the question, because my upper lip brushes his thick lower one the second my mouth opens.
His hands are firm on my back, rubbing up and down slightly as his fire-lit granite eyes scrutinize mine. "Why did you run?" He breathes, nudging my nose with his . . . Affectionately?
Complete and utter disbelief drowns my terror.
Did he seriously expect me not to run?
Gang leaders don't typically search out people unless it's with bad intentions.
Strangely, I don't think that Machetti plans on killing me.
Unless he simply missed his calling of becoming an illustrious actor. And he has no reason to pretend anymore – he has me in his grasp. It would be so easy for him to kill me in this instant. All he'd have to do is trail his fingers up my back and then wrap them around my neck.
It'd break with a light squeeze from his hands.
"Doe." He shakes me from my thoughts, physically shaking my body as if to clear my head.
My eyes squeeze shut as my chest constricts. "Don't call me that." My voice breaks.
His eyes scrunch up, not unattractively. He looks as if he's about to ask me a question, but then he seems to let it go. Instead, he slides his hands down, all the way down over my rear – to which I jump – until they are grasping my thighs. Then he pulls my legs tightly around him, and starts walking.
His hands retrace their path – making me jump again – until he tucks my head under his chin . . . Protectively?
Who is this man?!
The chaos is loud but fading.
I'm so tired. My eyes flutter rapidly, my eyelashes brushing his neck as they do.
Lighting houses on fire, being scared for my life . . . It's all so exhausting.
I just barely realize that a car door opens. Then he lowers me down onto a cushioned seat.
I'm out the minute my hair brushes the headrest.
~ Saints ~
The sun beats down on the truck, making the temperature almost unbearable. I've asked a few times now if they would roll down the windows but have been declined declined every single time. "The air conditioning is on," one of them would say before going back to ignoring me. Unfortunately for me, there are only two vents in this truck, one on the drivers left and the other on the driver's right.
And I'm sitting in the middle-back seat.
There's no circulation in here. It's stiflingly hot.
Uncomfortable, I shift in my seat. The leather material beneath me clings to my skin, making a ripping sound when I lift my thighs up one at a time to un-stick them. Maybe if I'd worn pants instead of shorts I wouldn't feel so gross and sticky, but then that'd only add to the intense heat.
I don't know where we're going. They won't tell me. "Mom," I try to get her attention. "Are we almost there?"
She doesn't respond. Phil is talking, so she's listening to him instead.
Jealousy flares up in my stomach. Insecurity lowers my eyelids.
Why can't she love me like she loves him?
Why can't I be important, too?
The truck slams to a stop abruptly. My seatbelt breaks, failing to stop me from slamming into the plastic-back of the seat before me. The force of the blow leaves me clutching my head. A tear slips from the corner of my eye.
Nobody asks me if I'm okay.
"Get out," Phil orders, hopping out of the car himself and shoving the door so forcefully that the entire truck moves when it closes.
I stumble quickly out of the car, nearly landing face-down on the ground.
A hand grabs my arm before I fall, and for a moment I honestly believe that Phil is trying to help me. In the next, though, he's yanking me up the steps to a door I've never seen before.
Possibly the biggest door I've ever actually seen.
I hear angry voices yelling at each other down the street. I don't want to look. I'm scared.
He doesn't knock on the door. He shoves it open.
His grip is only growing tighter on my arm. It's starting to go numb.
I don't understand what's happening until I look back and see my mother, still sitting in the car, watching. Her face is completely stoic.
This is it.
"No," I start pulling away, trying to rip myself from his grip. I reach out towards my mother, screaming, "Please! Don't let him do this!" Why isn't she stopping him? Why won't she help me? "Please; I'll be better, I swear!" I promise her.
But she and Phil are gone now.
In the place where my mother had been sitting in a truck, my father stands from his seat in a cop car. He's going to take me from this place.
Hands rubs my shoulders from behind. I turn to see who it is.
Edward.
The boy with ever-changing hazel eyes, wild light brown hair, and offset pouty lips. And a butt-chin that I like to tease him about by calling it that.
"Oh," I gasp, and spin in his arms to bury my face in his chest. "Don't let him take me, Edward. Please, don't let him take me away from you."
"You have to go, Doe," is his response.
My eyebrows furrow. Every night for the past year he's told me that he'd never let anyone hurt me. He's told me that he doesn't understand how my mother could just let Phil take me away from her – he said he could never let anyone take me away from him.
That I was too important. That he needed me with him at all times.
Why is my father an exception to that?
"What? No, Edward -"
"I'm sorry," he shrugs, taking a step away from me. My arms outstretch towards him, seeking the warmth and protection and love that his body has always offered me. But he takes another step away, saying, "There's nothing I can do."
My breaths come faster and faster and my heart beats harder and harder. How could he do this to me? I thought he needed me.
I thought he wanted me.
"Please, Edward." I'm begging him now, literally falling to my knees on the ground before him, "Please don't let him take me from you. I need you!"
"It's your father, Doe," he sighs, rolling his eyes, "you'll be fine with him. He'll take care of you."
"But you said –"
His glare cuts me off, and then his words follow, "I don't fucking care what I said. Now go!"
A vice grip holds me against a steel chest as I claw against it, trying to get closer, still stuck in my dream. "Edward!" I shriek. Ugly tears stream down my face. His image passes through my head and I dig my nails harder into the skin beneath them, "Please!"
"It's okay, baby," a deep voice soothes, "I gotchu."
Heavy hands rub my back comfortingly, every stroke pushing me harder into a strong chest. A familiar scent fills my senses, and I bury my face against a warm neck.
"That's it. I'm here, baby. I'm never gonna let you go again – nobody can take you from me."
Relief spreads through me. Edward has me. He's never going to let me go again. He's never going to let anyone take me from him again. The tighter he holds me, to more my body relaxes against him. I fit perfectly in his arms, in the crook of his neck.
His scent clears my jumbled thoughts, pulling me entirely from my nightmare.
As the dream fades though, I remember that, how it happened in my dream, isn't at all how it happened in real life.
And I also remember that I haven't seen Edward since the day that my father picked me up.
The memories of what's happened hit me like a freight train.
The call where my father told me he wouldn't be home until very late.
Driving to Kensington – going to the pack, asking to become a Hound.
Initiation – burning down my father's home.
Saints showing up.
Me running away.
Machetti chasing and catching me . . . putting me in his car.
I inhale so deeply that I end up choking on it and then I'm scrambling against Machetti to get out of his arms.
He doesn't let me move an inch, "I gotchu, baby – I gotchu."
Why is he doing this? Why is he still pretending?
I know that he is known for his cruelty, but this is just going a little too far. He's supposed to make me suffer a painful death, not a grieving life.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask when I've finally given up trying to get out of his arms. "Why are you pretending – why are you doing this? Just kill me and get it over with!" Instead of being fearful for my life I'm irritated.
No. Not just irritated.
I'm pissed.
"Kill you," he chuckles, the sound coming deep within his chest. He holds me impossibly closer, his strength making it difficult for me to breathe. My ribs can barely expand in his hold, and they're being sore because of it. "Why the fuck would I do that?"
He shifts, rolling over so that he's laying directly on top of me, his weight pushing me into the mattress. When he's sure that I'm pinned beneath him, he pulls away slightly, allowing me to see the outline of his face in the dim, moonlit room.
He's just as stunning as he'd been the last time I was this close to him. I wonder how long I've been here. I wonder if he did anything to me in my sleep.
"I've spent all this time and money to keep you safe, and you think that I'm gonna finish you off? You've always seen things in a weird way, Doe, but even you should realize how stupid that sounds."
I can't decide if I'm insulted by his words or pleased by the fact that it really doesn't seem like he's gonna kill me. Time and money protecting me? Why?
"What are you talking about?"
He doesn't answer my question. "I made you a promise a long time ago. Do you remember what it was?"
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Edward did make me a promise. But after so many years have passed, with no contact whatsoever . . . What am I to think? "Please don't," I beg. "I can't handle it."
Now it's his turn to ask "what are you talking about?" His calloused fingers caress my eyelids. His intoxicating breath fans out over my face. "Yanno," his tone is conversational at first, "I'd expected you to be happy to see me. Did'ju forget about me or somethin'?"
My eyes open to take in his angry expression. "I don't know you."
His hands turn rough on my face, now holding my jaw so that I don't look away from him like I so desperately want to. "Of course you fucking know me – why are you screwing around?"
This isn't my Edward, and every time he says he is rage burns my veins. My jaw clenches with my restraint. I want to hit him. I want to punish him for pretending to be the person that I want more than anyone else in this world.
The person that clearly didn't feel the same about me.
My control vanishes.
"Stop pretending to be Edward!" I scream at him, pounding at his chest as hard as I can.
This is so, so stupid. Do I have a death wish?
But I can't stop myself. Completely insane, I continue on beating at his chest until his fingers clasp around my wrists and pull my hands up above my head, pinning them against the headboard.
He slides his nose against mine, still angry but less so. His bottom lips brushes my upper one when he says, "I'm not pretending, baby."
Tears fill my eyes. My chest aches. "Please," I whisper back against his lip.
"I'm here. I promised you that I would find you and take you back. And I did."
I shake my head back and forth. "You're not him."
"I am."
"Edward's eyes were hazel. They wouldn't have changed."
"They haven't." He's completely calm now.
Scrunching my eyebrows together, I say, "Yours are grey."
His eyes roll as he responds, "You and I both know that hazel eyes look different at different times." He's not wrong. "They're still fucking hazel – you're being ridiculous. I am myself, and you have no reason to think that I'm not. You wanna see my driver's license or somethin'? My birth certificate?"
"You could have gotten a fake one."
"You're unbelievable." Tantalizingly soft eyelashes brush against my cheek. He kisses his way down my jaw line, his stubble irritating my skin along the way, stopping only when he reaches the corner of my lips. "I miss you so much," emotion is heavy in his words. "You're so beautiful."
"You're not Edward," I say, trying to distract him from what he's obviously about to do. Which is kiss me. "You don't look anything like him." He doesn't sound anything like him either
"You've changed quite a bit yourself, Doe," he points out, rolling us back over onto our sides so that we face each other. He trails his right hand down the side of my face, along my neck, past my collar bone, over my left breast.
My breath hitches.
But his hand doesn't stop, instead sliding around my waist, down my spine, over my rear – which he squeezes lightly – and down my thigh. When he reaches the back of my knee he pulls, hitching my leg up and over his hips, sliding his right thigh between both of mine so that it rests against my crotch. "You're so fucking beautiful."
This is so inappropriate.
Does this man – emphasis on man – not realize that I'm only barely seventeen years old? That his muscular leg is pushing hard up against the crotch of a minor? "Urm," I say uncomfortably, "how old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
I ignore the fact that his age does line up with how old Edward would be by this time. With my birthday coming up in only a couple weeks, it would have to be seven years since the last time I saw him.
Instead, I choose to focus on the fact that I was correct in assuming that he is a man. A young one, but a grown one nonetheless. And I'm just a virginal almost-seventeen year old.
The age of consent in Pennsylvania is seventeen. If my father found out that anything happened between us – not that I want anything to happen between us, because I don't - Machetti would end up in jail.
"I'm not particularly concerned with any part of the law, or what goes against it, if that's what you're hinting at," he says, taking my silence correctly. "You're mine to do with as I please. There's nothing that could keep me from you now that I've got you back – especially not words on a fucking piece of paper." He scoffs, "And I've done far worse than statutory rape, Doe – and here I am."
I don't want to think about what he's done that's worse than having sex with a minor. And I hate that I worry for a moment if he's had sex with a minor in the past – or with anyone else for that matter. I don't want to think about the fact that he didn't say that I'd misunderstood him, that he wasn't planning on making our hostage/captor relationship a sexual one.
What's more important than all of that is the fact that he isn't Edward. And he just needs to admit that. "I'm yours?" I stress the second word, my tone sarcastic.
His arms tighten around me possessively. "Yes you're fucking mine. You know you are."
"I don't even know you."
"I fucking told you!" He yells loudly, making me cringe away from him. I want to cover my ears but his arms are locked around my body so tightly that I can't move at all. "Why don't you believe me?!"
"Your name isn't even Edward!" I yell back at him, not nearly as intimidating or loud.
"No, it's not," he admits with a roll of his eyes.
"See! I knew it!"
"Edward isn't my first name, smart one." My cheeks flush at the insult but it doesn't faze him. "My name is Alphonse Edward Machetti."
That makes a lot of sense. I'm tugging on strings to keep my resolve now. Everything he's saying checks out. "But people call you Al," I try, even disappointed in myself when that's all I can come up with.
"A lot of people call me a lot of things, Doe," he answers, "but you're the only one who's called me Edward in a long time – even back then you were one of few. And when you left . . . They called me Al instead." The way he says it makes it sound like there's more to the story, but I'm too set in my denial to question it.
"That would make sense, but you still don't look anything like him."
"Jesus Christ, Doe!" he exclaims, releasing one of his hands from my body to pull at the short strands of his hair. Even though he really doesn't look like Edward, I have to admit he's stunning, even in his anger. Maybe even especially in his anger. "The last time you saw me I was fifteen; my fucking balls hadn't even dropped yet! Of course I look different. Why are you being so difficult? Why can't you just be happy to see me?" The more he says, the angrier he gets. His arms squeeze me tighter and tighter. "What do I have to do to prove to you that I am who I say I am?"
He glares into my eyes for a moment before his face smooths out, almost as if he found something calming within them. A calloused thumb brushes my bottom lips, so gently that I find it hard to believe that the phalange belongs to him. "I'm a selfish man, Doe," he says admittedly, but not at all shameful. "I take what I want, and I don't have any regrets about it. And I've wanted you for a long, long time . . ."
What?
"It took me a while to find you," his tone is conversational when he begins again. "Almost a year. You see, I was looking for an Isabella Doe – I hadn't realized that Doe wasn't your father's last name."
My father comes straight from Italy. No full-blooded Italian is gonna have the surname Doe.
"I hadn't realized that you had your mother's," he murmurs.
I squeeze my eyes shut at the mentioning of her name.
Another calloused thumb brushes against my eyelid, working at the same pace as the one on my bottom lip.
"I could kill her for what she did to you, Doe."
My eyes snap open.
Despite the calmness in his voice, the sudden smoothness of his feature, fire burns in his eyes. Hate. "Any woman who could just drop off her daughter on the side of the road . . . Not even just anyone – but you, of all people – with your tiny body and big eyes . . . You were beautiful then, too, ya'know? Anybody could have just snatched you off the road, had their way with you and killed you after. You were so tiny, I bet it wouldn't even have been hard to hide your body –"
"What are you talking about?" I interrupt him. What my mother did to me was wrong, abandoning me as she did, but she didn't just drop me off on the side of the street to die. "My mom dropped me off at a shelter."
Pain.
Sympathy.
Tenderness.
They transform his face into a more familiar one.
This really is Edward.
The acceptance of his identity clears my mind of all thoughts of my mother, and suddenly I'm the one holding him as tightly as my much smaller muscles allow.
It's Edward.
It's my Edward.
He found me and he took me.
Like he said he would.
He really does want me.
"There you are," he murmurs into my ear, nuzzling his nose in my hair, inhaling deeply.
We lay this way for a while, until I remember something that he had said earlier. "When did you figure out where I was?" I ask.
"You were eleven."
He stayed away for nearly six years! Insanity! "Why did you wait so long to come to me?"
He sighs, pulling away from me slightly, chuckling when I struggle to keep him close. "I was going to take you that first night," he whispers. "I picked the lock on the front door, went upstairs and found you in your room, asleep. You were tossing and turning - just like you always had – calling for your mother at first, and then for me. You always called for me, Doe," he says seriously, rubbing my bottom lip again. "You've always called for me in your sleep. I'd wake up a hundred times every night to find that you'd broken out of my grasp, rolled over into isolation. You kicked and screamed and pleaded. You only ever calmed down when I pulled you back. Sometimes people would come running in cause you were so loud, wanting to see if you were alright. But you only ever wanted - needed me."
I remember this.
I woke him up so many times every single night because of the nightmares that have plagued me for most of my life. Sometimes, after he'd calm me down, I'd realize that he had claw marks on his arms from where I'd scratched him in my attempts to get closer to him. He was never angry, though. He never acted as if it bothered him. He'd just pull me as close as he could and hold me until we both fell asleep.
Until it happened again.
"You would suck my thumb sometimes," he muses. "Hard, too." The thumb that had been brushing my lip finds its way inside my mouth then. It rubs against the fronts of my teeth and gums before moving to the back of my mouth, over my molars.
I turn my head in an attempt to dislodge it.
It feels . . . strange.
But he hooks it around my teeth, which he uses as leverage to steer me back to him. "What are you lookin' at? I'm right here," he says, going back to exploring my mouth. The rough skin of his thumb caresses my tongue. Sliding back to front and then back again, going deeper and deeper into my mouth with every stroke. "Do you remember that, Doe?" He asks me, "Do you remember how you used to suck my thumb instead of yours?"
My cheeks burn. This is humiliating.
I'd always sucked my thumb as a child – something my peers found hilarious in first and second grade, before my mother pulled me from school and dropped me off at the shelter. Edward had teased me for it, too, for a while. But one night I woke up facing him, his thumb in my mouth. I'd scrambled away from him, just as humiliated as I am now, apologizing profusely. He'd called me back to bed though, saying that it was fine – even putting it back in my mouth when I'd settled next to him.
"Do you still suck your thumb at night, baby?" He asks, not unkindly.
I don't answer his question. There's no need to, and his thumb holds my tongue down to keep me from answering.
Thumb-sucking is a calming and comforting gesture, two things that I never received from my mother as a child, which is what led me to do it so long after most children stop. They're two things that every child needs in their life. Two things that I had to offer to myself up until Edward came into my life, and gave me that and everything else that he had to offer. Which just so happened to be everything that I've ever needed in a person.
"Do you still want mine instead?"
Our eyes lock. I can barely see them in the darkness, but they're his, so it doesn't matter.
His arm is loose around me now, his thumb still stroking my tongue. I reach up with both hands and wrap them around his wrist. A lazy smile pulls at the corner of his lips as I pull his thumb out of my mouth, holding his hand over my rapidly beating heart instead. "Why did you wait so long, Edward," I say, reminding him of what he'd been talking about earlier.
His eyes still linger on my mouth, but he continues, "I took a look around your room – Doe, you had trophies in there. Plaques, too, for being smart and talented in all kinds of things."
"My father got me involved in so many activities when he first brought me home," I explain. "I think he wanted to keep me busy so that I wouldn't think too hard about things. Swimming, dance, gymnastics –"
"Gymnastics," he cuts me off, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"You're extraordinarily crude," I inform him, making him chuckle. I love his laugh. "But go on."
Edward's still smiling when he continues, "You were doing so much, and had accomplished so much in so little time. Don't get me wrong," he says, "I always knew you were smart – with your big and fancy vocabulary, and how you always knew something about everything, but I never realized just how smart you were." Pride etches his face. "You're exceptional, Doe, and when I saw all that shit – I mean, stuff," he corrects himself, although I hadn't been offended, "I knew that you were going somewhere. That you were really gonna be someone. And I knew that the moment I had you in my arms . . . I wasn't gonna let you go."
I've never wanted him to let me go. Does he not realize that I've yearned for him all this years? That he's made a permanent residence in the depths of my mind, constantly reminding me that I'm supposed to be with him?
Because I have and he has.
I even miss him now that he's here.
"You never would have finished school – you would have joined back up with me and the gang, and that would have been it."
Joined back up? As in I'd been a member of the Saints previously? "Okay," I drop his wrist to press my hands against his chest, wanting his full attention even though I already had it. "What do you mean by 'join back up'?"
Mouth set in a tight line, he analyzes my features. It seems almost as if an hour has passed before he finally says, "You've forgotten a lot."
"What?"
He just shakes his head. "Anyway, as I was saying, I knew you were gonna be big. But I knew you had to finish school to get to where you're meant to be. And you're no gangster, Doe – you're so much better than that."
But I'm still set on what he'd said before. "What have I forgotten?"
"Drop it." His tone is strict.
I get the feeling that he's not going to tell me. "Why won't you tell me? Don't you trust me?" I'm starting to get paranoid. What happened that I don't remember, and why wouldn't he want to tell me about it?
It's clearly very important to him, because he's disappointed that I don't remember whatever it is he's talking about. I don't think that I've forgotten anything of our time together, but then again, if I have forgotten things . . . I would have no way of knowing.
The memories simply wouldn't be there.
"It's not that I don't want to tell you," he answers my first question.
Why not the second? Does he really not trust me? Does he not think that I can handle the truth?
I start scrambling away from him, but when he realizes my intent his arms lock around me once again. "Where are you goin'?" He asks. "I'm right here."
Just like what he said earlier when I looked away from him, I realize. "Why won't you tell me?"
He sighs loudly, flopping over onto his back and dragging my body over top of his so that one of my legs rest between both of his, and one of his mine. He plays with my hair as he crosses his ankles over mine so that I have no way of escaping. "Listen," he orders, and I look at him.
I can see him better from this angle. The light from the moon fans out over his face from the open shades of the window to my left.
Where are we, anyway?
I don't get the chance to ask him.
"If you've forgotten about all that shit . . . It's probably for a good reason, Doe. And until I figure out what that reason is . . ." he trails off, pressing a kiss to my forehead before continuing, "I think it's better for you to just remember things the way that you remember them now."
I have no idea what to say to that.
He's probably right. I've been through a lot in my life – with my father not wanting me after finding out about my impending birth and my mother abandoning me after it, and everything in-between and after those major events. At least that what my memory tells me, but apparently it's traitorous, so maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I actually have no idea what I've been through.
"Hey," Edward's voice pulls me from my thoughts, "there's no reason for that. It's okay, baby girl."
It takes me a full minute to understand why he's saying that.
I've given myself a panic attack – literally shaking in his arms, looking anxiously around the room, breathing heavily. I have got to calm down. He's gonna think I'm a freak. "I'm sorry," I say sadly, hiding my face against his neck.
"Don't be." He continues to play with my hair soothingly until my heart rate settles and my body relaxes against him. "That's it. There's no reason to get so upset."
I laugh sadly to myself. "You probably think I'm the biggest spaz."
"You've had a rough night – you're entitled to a few freak-outs tonight."
That doesn't make me feel any better so I say, "Thanks," sarcastically.
He chuckles, "I didn't mean it like that. You watched those rookies burn down your house. You must have been so scared," he breathes into the hair at the top of my head. "I'm sorry we didn't get to you quicker. We were –"
"They didn't burn down my house."
His hands still. "Huh?"
"Yeah," I sit up, untangling my legs from his and am surprised when he lets me go easily for the first time all night. I laugh nervously, running my fingers through my hair. A nervous habit. "Um, that was kind of me."
"What?" I don't think I've ever seen Edward look so . . . Dumbfounded. "You burned it down? Why the hell would you do that?" Doubt covers his features. He can't believe that little innocent Isabella Doe burned down her own house.
I wouldn't even believe me. But it's the truth. "It was my initiation –"
"Initiation?!" He roars.
This isn't Edward anymore.
I'm staring into the eyes of Al Machetti, the leader of the Saints.
Too quickly for him to stop me, I jump off of his lap, landing on my feet next to the bed.
He nearly as angry now as he was last night, only this time . . . It's directed towards me. This is a level of ferocity that I've never witnessed before in my entire life. I'm half-waiting for him to start foaming at the mouth.
He sits up, glaring at me as he swings his legs over the side of the bed. "By initiation, I know you mean that you did it because they were threatening to kill you if you didn't. Right?"
Should I lie?
I could, but Edward has always seen right through me. And I've never lied to him before.
And Al Machetti doesn't seem like the kind of man that appreciates dishonesty.
"Well . . . actually . . ." I don't want to lie to him, but I can't tell him the truth.
Warningly, he hisses, "Doe. This is not a complex question. Just say, 'Yes, Edward, the mutt said he would kill me if I didn't set my house on fire'. Now say it,"
Technically, they would have killed me if I didn't do it. They just never said it.
He doesn't give me the chance to say that though, because then he's right in my face and I'm slammed up against the wall. "What the fuck are you doing trying to join a gang?" Spit splatters my face as he bellows the words out.
The corners of my eyes burn from just how open they are.
"I was –"
"You better have a damn good excuse for that bullshit!"
Excuse me? "Says a gang leader," I stupidly retort. My hands instantly fly over my mouth. Why would I say something like that when he's in this state? I'm not that daft.
"It's different and you fucking know it!" Red flushes his otherwise tanned cheeks. "You've got your whole life ahead of you and you would throw it all away for – what? A streak a rebellion? Chi sei tu? La miaragazza non avrebbe mai . . . Explain, Isabella. Now. Because I'm not seeing what's so wrong in your life that would justify you doing something as fucking asinine as joining some bullshit street gang."
My jaw drops. "I don't need to justify my decisions to you, and, you know what?" I yell, pushing hard against his chest, only making him move a fraction of an inch away from me – just enough for me to duck out of his hold. "Fuck you," I spit for the first time in my life. "I don't see you for seven years, and you think that you can just pop back up and criticize me?!"
"If you didn't do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Yeah," I say bitterly, "Because you wouldn't have come back for me."
Silence.
He can't deny it and he knows it.
He's the one who chose to stay away from me.
"And you know what?" My voice breaks on the last word, and I already regret what I'm about to say. It's a total and complete lie, but it doesn't feel like one when I scream it. "Maybe you fucking shouldn't have!"
I'm on a roll with the foul language today.
His head falls back and his booming, patronizing laugh shakes the frame of the room. I literally feel the floor vibrate beneath my feet. "That's fucking rich, Doe. You and I both know you need me."
The audacity of this man . . . The arrogance.
The only thing more frustrating is the fact that, no matter how much I want to deny it . . . No matter how much I wish it weren't true . . . He's entirely right.
Edward has always been all that I need. I've always yearned for him, even when his distance and failure to come to me broke my heart. I'd never given up hope that he would come back, and I knew that if he never did, I would always feel his absence. Even when if I was a grown woman, with a lovely husband and beautiful children, with a high-paying job and nice belongings . . . I would never feel complete if he weren't in my life.
And it doesn't seem to mean anything to him.
In this moment . . . I don't seem to mean anything to him. And the idea of me not being important to Edward is so foreign to me that I'm left speechless.
Even when he didn't show for the past seven years, I never doubted that he wanted me, because he always has. I'd assumed that he had been busy, or couldn't find me, or, as ridiculous as it is . . . I'd considered the idea that he'd died trying.
Hurt fills my entire being, literally making me feel as if he just slapped me across the face.
A slap instead of a punch because there's an air of utter disrespect that is conveyed in a slap that isn't found in a punch. It's as humiliating as it is painful, and it burns as much as it throbs.
I want to cry, but at the same time I want to make him hurt the way I do. But I'm not strong enough to hurt him. I only have his emotions to play on. "I liked you better when you were fifteen."
"Ouch." His eyes roll.
"You think you can just hold me hostage here? Has it never occurred to you that I don't want to be here?" It's a total lie, but there is some validity to it. I have tried to wretch myself from his hold multiple times – he simply never let me go. "Because I was under the impression that I was making it pretty obvious all the times I tried to get away from you."
"And the opposite – the truth," he stresses the word, "was revealed when you first woke up. When you were all fucking over me, just like you always have been." Humiliation floods my cheeks, but he doesn't stop there. "And even if what you said was true . . . You won't be getting out of here anyway."
"What are you planning to do?" I ask, doubtful. "Tie me to the bed?" My eyes roll.
"If I have to," he says, uncaring. "This conversation is over, now. You're going to tell me what you thought you were doing -"
"I believe I said: 'Fuck. You'.''
Stalking. That's what he's doing now, circling me as he is, malice darkening his eyes. "Do you know what they do to girls they initiate?" He asks me.
"All I had to do was burn down the -"
"That's a bunch of bullshit," he distinctly pronounces each word. "And if you don't realize what happens to pretty little girls like you when they want to join big bad gangs – well, you already know you have no business doing that."
He's already made it glaringly obvious that he doesn't care for me nearly as much as I'd thought he had. There's no reason for him to even be responding like this. "Why do you even care?"
Then I'm up against another wall. I can see the window from over his shoulder.
"Do you have no idea what you are to me?"
The words elicit immediate relief in me.
His chest heaves against my face as he towers over me. His fingers are clawed against the wall, and his muscles are all bunched up, tense.
I get the urge to touch his arm, to trace the vein that pokes out there, trailing all the way from his shoulder to his wrist. I give into my desires, feeling just as tired now as I had earlier tonight, when Edward had placed me in his car.
It's so strange how everything has changed so monumentally since then.
His muscles tense at first, but then relax beneath my fingertips as I trail them feather-light over his skin. He's so soft here.
And so, so warm.
Stepping towards him, I lean into his incredible warmth, allowing it to envelope me even though his arms don't. I wrap mine around his waist.
We stand there like this for an eternity.
I'm nearly asleep by the time he picks me up from beneath my arms and lays me down on the bed. And when his body spoons mine, and his thumb starts stroking my lips just as they have before, I know that even though I'm not forgiven . . . That even though he's still mad . . .
Edward is here, and wants me just as much as he always has.
When the light started out they don't know what they heard,
Strike the match, play it loud, giving love to the world,
We gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn, (burn, burn),
Burn, burn, burn, burn, (burn, burn),
We can light it up, up, up,
So they can't put it out, out, out,
We can light it up, up, up,
So they can't put it out, out, out.
- Elli Goulding :: Burn -
A/N: This story is way out of my element, but when the idea hit me, it hit me hard, so I just had to play it out.
I've got about half of the next chapter finished already, so that should be out by sometime next week.
Oh, I really hope you loved it. Because I really, really do. There's a lot of me in Doe.
Unfortunately, I don't have Saintward for myself, but . . . Maybe someday I'll have someone even better.
You know the drill :: follow, review, share/recommend && favorite as you please!
As always, I am forever grateful for all of your support!
~ Madison ~