Eventide

Chapter XXVI

Sweet little girl, you have no clue what you have gotten yourself into.

I groan. My limbs feel so sore and fatigue weights them down. My eyes slowly flutters open, my right eye fully healed. The room I'm in is much nicer than the cage I was for an unknown amount of hours or days or weeks. I'm actually lying on a bed, not on a rotten mattress or floor, an actual bed with a nice mattress with fluffy pillows along with a fine blanket. This seems like a very expensive bed.

"How are you feeling?" I turn to my right and there sits the man, the one who saved me from that hideous place. He looks awful. His eyes are bloodshot and he has a beard. His white hair is greasy and very messy with knots. When is the last time he used a razor or a comb?

"Fine." My voice is hoarse and sore. I better stay away from raising my voice or I might lose my voice.

"Twelve days. From the moment you disappeared from Hiro to the moment we managed to get you out of Star*Clan's building. Twelve days went and plus the two days you were sleeping." He says as he moves the chair closer to my bedside. "Were you trying to kill me?"

"Kill you?" I say perplexed. "How could I kill you?"

He sighs loudly and shakes his head. He makes a poor attempt to run his hand through his hair but his fingers get entangled in the knots in his hair. "So it is true. You can't remember anything." His eyes meet mine and I almost gasp with surprise. His eyes glister with tears and he quickly rubs them away before they can spill over. "You can't even remember me."

So I am supposed to know him too?

"Listen." I carefully heave myself up into a sitting position. Good, no pain. "I don't know what all of you want, but I don't know you or anyone. I'm just a normal teenage girl who lived my whole life with my parents. I read books and studies on my free time and that is it. I haven't seen you before and I haven't heard of such things as Meisters and Kishins before." I swing my feet over the ledge of the bed, with my back toward the young man. "And if you excuse me, I have to find my father―"

"Your father is in the room next door. He is fine. He wasn't tortured or anything." He grabs my hand and gently tugs me back toward the bed. "You are still weak from the ordeal. You should rest."

I shake my head and tug my hand from his. "I want to go home. I appreciate what you did for my father and I, but we have to return home."

"Your house doesn't exist. It burned down to the ground."

Oh fuck. Life, give me something more! Are you trying to utterly destroy me? What exactly have I done to deserve it?

"You are currently inside of the Death Mansion, I know, it is a weird name, but Kid and the Thompson sisters are willing to take you two in until you have sort out everything with the insurance company and gotten your own place." The man grabs my hand again and gently tugs me back so I'm lying down on the bed again. I might as well rest if I and my father can't go anywhere. "I know you must have gone through hell inside of the Star*Clan's building, but I need to know what happened there in order to help you."

He doesn't pull his hand away from mine and quite frankly, I don't mind. His hand is much larger than mine and so warm. It makes my stomach tingle. "Help me? How can you help me?"

"The Star*Clan aren't gone, I need to know what they wanted from you and what they did to you. I need to know in order to protect you properly from them―"

"No!" I exclaim and shake my head. "You don't need to do anything, this is insane! Monsters don't exist! I just want to go home with my dad! I just want to forget about everything!"

The man squeezes my hand. "Unfortunately you can forget this. You might have been able to forget about us and your true past, but you can't run away from who you truly are. You and your father can't get away from this. Your father is actually doing well adapting to this life style, he is doing everything he can in order to be of use to you."

His eyes. They are so red and so soft and those sharp teeth that poke out from his lips. His appearance can't be natural, but yet, they look so real.

"Exactly what is my father doing?"

"He is currently mastering his wavelength. The trauma from the Star*Clan must have activated his Meister powers. He came out as the Doctor type of Meister. Tsubaki is currently trying to help him as well as she can in order to help him become a better Meister."

Tsubaki. I have heard that name before.

I have no clue what this guy is talking about. Everything sounds gibberish if you ask me.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I think back to when the alarm went off and he came inside of my cell and saved me. "Why did you save me? Why are you here?"

The man flinches and his lip stiffen. A sharp tooth bites down into his lower lip and his hand squeezes mine tightly. "Do you really want to know? The truth will shock you."

The truth?

"I'm not sure, but I do want to know what your motive was for saving me was. I want to know why you are here beside me when I have no clue who you are."

He nods and leans closer to me, his eyes gazing into mine with such intensity. "I saved you because we are an item, well, the night before you disappeared you actually broke up with me for the stupidest reason ever." He squeezes my hand harder and his face comes closer to mine. "I saved you because you mean the world to me and I'm not ever going to let you go." Why is my head hurting and my heart racing? "I saved you because I'm inevitably and unconditionally in love with you."

I gasp loudly and clutch my head. My back aches as a massive pain assaults my head as images flash before my eyes.

Hiro…

Tsubaki…

Black*Star…

Kim…

And most importantly, Soul… oh Soul… my love…

Soul cups my cheeks and looks so worried at me, his thumbs gently stroking my cheeks as he whispers words of love into my ear. He doesn't even mind me yelping and gasping in pain. His fingers snake under my hands and gently massages my temples. I'm feeling so much at the same time, pleasure, hurt, anger, sadness, hatred, love, and all of those feelings I don't know the name of.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know if I want to cry, laugh, fight or kiss Soul, so I end up crying in pain even though the images stopped and the pain slowly reduced.

"Maka…" He whispers my name into my ear while he gently massages my temples. "Are you alright?"

I don't even know what to say, am I okay? I don't know. I'm so mad and confused. I'm so mad at Soul for being around Kim and at the same time I'm so happy he is here, but at the same time I just want to choke him for making that deal with Stein. Oh, what the heck am I going to do?

Why don't you show him how much he hurt you then?

I didn't have to decide since my hands did it for me. My hands grip Soul's neck as I tighten my grip around it.

"You jerk! How could you hurt me like that! You chose Kim over me! I bet you even slept with her! How could you do such a thing to me! Why would you play with my heart like this you inconsiderate b―"

Soul doesn't bother with trying to remove my hands from his neck, instead he put his index finger on my lips and stares into my eyes.

The gesture shocks me so I lighten my grip on his throat.

Soul gasps loudly and takes a few deep breathes. "You need to shut your tramp before you blow a vein in your brain." He gently removes my hands from his neck and holds my right hand with his left one. "Nothing happened between Kim and I, I will admit that she has tried to seduce me into liking her again, but I never did anything with her."

See? They did SOMETHING. I bet he licked her pussy clean.

"What. Happened!" I growl through my teeth.

Soul sighs and takes his hand off of my lips, he runs his now free hand through his hair. "She came inside of my room in only a towel, okay. She straddled me naked and forcefully kissed me. The kiss was over before it even begun. I know I didn't do anything wrong because I didn't want it and I never let anything happen. I left the room immediately after that―"

I slap Soul hard across the face. His face whips roughly to the side and a large red mark colors his face. My hand stings from the contact and I look away from Soul. "Leave."

"Maka, l―"

"What is there to listen to?!" I yell with tears in my eyes. "You did do something with her!" Tears trickle down my cheeks and I quickly wipe them away. "You betrayed me and you moved in with her! I know you put your gang before me but that really hurt! You stabbed me in the back and look what happened! I got my eye dug out and my teeth removed! They repeatedly injected me with Kishin venom and kept torturing me until I would tell them something I didn't even remember! Because of your stupid egoistic decision of being with Kim, Hiro is dead and so is my mother!" My voice cracks at the end and I find myself crying uncontrollably. I cover my eyes with my hands as I sob loudly. "Hiro is dead and I lost my mother again!"

Well, my mother had almost kill Hiro before and hurt plenty of my friends, but she was still my mother and I had missed her so much.

"Maka, I know I did a mistake." He whispers and gently cups my face. "I did the wrong thing by making that deal, I hurt you more than I can ever imagine and I know a sorry won't be enough to soothe your pain of the betrayal I did, but I'm damn going to make everything I can in order to make everything right." Soul kisses my forehead and he pulls me into a tender hug. "And I did deserve that slap."

"I'm still mad at you!" No, I'm not. I'm a puddle of sweet mush. Oh, why does Soul make me feel these sweet emotions? These sweet, so sweet emotions. "Just stop." My words say one thing, but my body language certainly tells a different story.

Soul chuckles and he gently rocks me in his arms. "Of course you are." He says with irony dripping from his mouth. "And for your information, Hiro is very much alive."

I pull away from Soul, my eyes wide. "What? He is?! But I saw… I saw him… I saw him die and I saw him inside of the burning house!"

"Lets just say he had a pair of sisters on his side." Soul winks. "Liz and Patty found the house and sensed his soul inside of it and they saved him. They saved him just in time for me and the rest to arrive at your house." His face falls and he gently grabs my hands. "But you were long gone. Kilik tried to track you but you were gone so the only option we had was to save Hiro and hear what he had to say."

I roll my eyes and I cup Soul's face. "Skip that part, I don't want to hear it, at least not now, I want to know something else." Okay, I'm not mad at Soul! I have to admit that.

"What is it?" Soul says and wraps his arms around my waist.

"The deal said that you had to be around Kim at all costs, you haven't been around her and I couldn't see her anywhere at Star*Clan's base. Explain that to me."

Soul smirks wide and he rests his head on my forehead. "I thought you would never ask. As soon as Stein finished treating him, I left the gang. Fortunate for me, all the others followed me, everybody except for Kim and Stein. So the deal is no more." His thumbs gently massage my hips as he leans closer to me. "I don't know why it took so long to make this decision, I knew from the beginning I would end up like this. I should never have made that deal."

"It doesn't matter." My arms slip around his neck and I play with the hair at his nape. "As long as you are here now."

Soul leans down and our lips meet. I had missed this feeling. The taste of spice and mint along with the smooth texture of his lips. His hands hovering over my body while he pulls me close to his chest. I missed him so much, this man, he is the best one there is.

He lean me down on the bed and keeps kissing me. He doesn't make any attempt of going anywhere farther than making out and I'm grateful for that.

We were so completely lost in the moment we didn't even notice when my father walked inside of the room.