Tnlock 27- Guilt

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Alek's POV

I still didn't know what was going on, and it was driving me insane. After Chloe said that she couldn't kill him, she was too shaken up to say what had happened, and I didn't want to push her when she was like this. At least there is one positive aspect of all of this. Now that she's been through what the dream was about and avoided death, she shouldn't have the nightmares for a while. She could finally sleep.

There were two things I really didn't understand at the moment. First, if she had a dream about Scarface killing her, why did she keep it from us? She told me the last dream that she had.

Another thing, why did she say she couldn't kill him? Did she reach the point in the fight that she was able to kill him, but hesitated? I wanted nothing more at the moment to question her about what happened when she ran into Scarface, but I had the feeling we should wait a little bit before pressing her on that matter. Whatever happened, really stirred her up, and she needed time to recover from that.

I heard someone knock at the door, so I left Chloe on the couch. She didn't even stir. "Hey Derek," I said as I answered the door. He was over here quicker than I thought he was going to.

"Hey Alek," He looked over to the couch were Chloe was sleeping. "I guess it's been a busy night, hasn't it?"

"Yeah. Want coffee?" Even I was feeling tired at the moment.

"Is that even a question?" Good point. We all drink so much coffee that we were probably singlehandedly funding the coffee place near Chloe's work. "How bad?" He asked after I handed him the coffee, looking over towards Chloe.

"Minor injuries," A twisted ankle, a flesh wound, and bruise's everywhere somehow counted as minor. Frustration boiled. I had to take a deep breath before continuing at a semi normal tone. "But even that shouldn't have happened."

"It shouldn't have," Derek agreed. "But you and Jasmine trained her well enough to fight back. She was able to save her own life. That's something." In response, all I did was shrug. "How about him?"

"A lot more than what happened to Chloe." I didn't really feel in the mood of explaining more.

"What happened in the fight? What did Chloe say about it?"

"She hasn't said anything about it yet."

"You didn't brief her?" He asked, surprised. My mind flashed back to how upset she was when she said "I couldn't kill him." Something I should've talked to her about as soon as she did say that, but her tone, her trembling, frightened body. I just couldn't.

"She went through a lot tonight. She needed to rest first."

"At least she gets that." Derek said looking over at Chloe. "Now that she's lived past Scarface killing her, she won't have that nightmare again. She'll finally be able to rest." She may be able to sleep now, but when would be the next time she would be truly safe?

"Have you heard from Jasmine?" I asked. If I was being honest, I didn't think they would be able to find him. He always has a knack for disappearing when he needs to.

"Not yet, but I'm sure that they're fine."

I heard Chloe thrashing in her sleep again. "She's having another nightmare? So soon?" She was never going to catch a break, I thought as I walked over to the couch to be there when she woke up. A few minutes later of waiting, she shot up in bed, gasping for air. "Chloe?" I said softly. Her face quickly looked over to me, the frightened look in her eyes only slightly dimming as she realized it was just 'another dream'. I cupped her face in my hands. "Another nightmare?"

She shook her head while answering. "Another one? It's the same stupid one that's been haunting me for the past few nights." How could it be the same one? Did she not dream about the attack that happened last night? Wasn't she supposed to dream about all the times she was attacked? I tried to hide the confusion and the terror that was building inside me.

"What is it about?" I prompted her. Maybe she would finally tell me what it was about.

"Nothing," She lied. After the amount of times she told this particular lie, she was starting to sound somewhat believable, but I still knew better. "It's just a stupid dream." Chloe started to sit up.

"You had a rough night." I told her the obvious. "You should rest some more." She had only been asleep for three hours. Derek had fallen asleep in one of the chairs after we had talked for two hours. Jasmine and Mimi weren't even home yet. A text an hour ago from them revealed that they were having troubles locating Scarface.

"I'm fine. Are Mimi and Jasmine home yet?"

"Not yet. They can't find him at the moment."

"What time is it?"

"Only eleven." I answered her when she proceeded to stand up slowly, careful of her ankle. "Are you hungry?" I asked her. She hadn't eaten for over twelve hours.

"No, not really." Chloe answered, making me frown.

"You should really eat something." I protested, expecting more of a fight from Chloe, but instead just getting a slight nod of her head. Ten minutes later, a plate full of eggs and toast with a glass of milk was in front of Chloe. I went and sat at the table with Chloe, making sure she would eat something. At first, she didn't move to eat, but after a few moments she took a small bite of eggs, probably just to make me happy.

I couldn't. The words came to my mind for the hundredth time that night.

The way Chloe described Scarface made it seem like he was hurt, badly. Does that mean that she was winning the fight, but he ran away from her before she could finish him off? Or does that mean she had the opportunity to kill him, but couldn't. More than anything, I wanted to ask about what those words meant, but I had told her that we would talk about it in the morning so she had some time to process.

For the moment, she was safe. That's what matters.

"You want to know what happened tonight, don't you." Chloe's soft voice broke the silence and pulled me away from my thoughts. I quickly regained focus to look at Chloe, who was currently looking at me. How long had I been thinking? She hadn't eaten much of the eggs, but then again, that didn't say much. Chloe probably didn't have much of an appetite at the moment.

"No," I lied. "We can talk about that later."

"It's easier just to talk to you rather than having to talk to everyone when they get back." Chloe reasoned while pushing the plate of eggs and toast away. She had eaten less than a fourth of what I had made for her. Before I could try to convince her to eat more, she slowly walked over to the couch, limping because of her foot.

"Jasmine told me to run," Chloe began as soon as I sat down on the couch with her. "So I did, but it ended up being a trick. He caught up with me shortly after I left her."

I noticed that Chloe was curled up on the couch, her hands hugging her knees tightly as she refused to make eye contact with me. "He had tackled me to the ground, and after I had thrown him off, I noticed that he was holding a knife so I kicked it away and clawed at his face. I jumped onto the trash bin, thinking maybe I could leap onto the roof, but he yanked me down, so I kicked him in the nose." The bloody nose she had told Jasmine about. "I jumped over him, but landed on my foot wrong." Which explained her fractured ankle. "He started to throw ninja stars, three of them. I managed to dodge those before he tackled me to the ground again." She touched her bruised face as she remembered that particular moment before hugging her knees again.

"Chloe-" I started but she continued, as if I hadn't spoken.

"There was a ninja star next to me, so I quickly grabbed it and rammed it into his stomach and shoved him off of me. It only took him a second to recover before he stood up, and threw the ninja star at me again." It was clear that this time he had hit her. My knuckles were white from clenching them so tightly so I forced myself to take a deep breath and unclench them. "I barely had time to yank it out before he came at me again. So I jump kicked him in the stomach." Chloe had taken a deep breath at this point and hugged her knees tighter.

"This can wait, Chloe." I tried again, not wanting to put Chloe through this, but again, she didn't seem to hear. A single tear escaped her eye and slowly fell down her face.

"When he was recovering from the kick, I shoved him to the ground. There was a sickening crack as his head hit the concrete." I wanted her to look at me, but she continued to stare at the floor. "By the time he got up, I had the knife positioned at his throat. I- I wanted to kill him. I should've killed him, but I couldn't." So I was right? She's so upset about not being able to kill Scarface?

"Chloe," I said louder than the previous times, but she still didn't stir.

"He was right; I am a monster." Anger pulsed through me. I quickly got off the couch and went to kneel in her line of sight, forcing her to look at me. As I predicted, she attempted to look away as soon as she saw me, but I forced her to stay looking at me.

"You are not a monster." I told her firmly.

"I am. I am a horrible monster."

"You are NOT a monster." I said even louder this time. "You are the kindest, most loyal person I had ever known. You were willing to risk your life for a Jackal."

"I wanted to kill him Alek. More than anything." The anger and self-hatred seemed to animate her.

"But you didn't!" I said those words, hoping that they would help.

"That's even worse!" She yelled as she stood up quickly. Our faces were only a foot apart; the anger and hatred was clear upon her face. "I had a chance to protect you! Protect Amy and Paul. Protect Jasmine! And everyone else that Scarface had threatened. To stop you from risking your life every time you protect me!" Guilt. She felt guilty that she didn't kill him.

"That's not your responsibility, Chloe." I said as I tried to hold her hand, but she yanked her hand away.

"I had a chance to keep everyone I loved safe. But I was too weak!"

"Showing mercy is not weak."

"I wasn't showing mercy! He deserves to die for everything that he's done! It would've been justice. BUT I WAS TOO WEAK!" Derek was definitely awake at this point of the argument, but he smartly chose to stay out of it. The tears were starting to pour down Chloe's face, and my temper rose.

"You are not weak for not being a killer Chloe!" I yelled. It was hard to believe that I was having this conversation.

"You would've done it." Chloe didn't phrase it as a question because we both knew that I would've.

"Chloe, that's not-"

"You. Would've. Done. It." She repeated loudly. "Jasmine would've done it."

"We have been raised for this though!" My temper continued to rise. I wasn't mad at her; I was mad at this irrational idea that she had in her head that she was somehow in the wrong for what happened last night. "We have been raised to kill people who are the threat to the Uniter." Those words still didn't seem to help Chloe at all.

"No," She disagreed. "You've both been raised to do the right thing. To protect the people that need to be protected."

"Nobody expects for you to become a killer." I was ready for her to cry, to scream, to continue to argue, for anything but the sarcastic, bitter laugh that came out of her.

'"Wow, those lessons are really paying off."' Chloe quoted Mimi from earlier. '"Pretty soon you'll be able to kill him yourself."' She threw the words back at me. For a moment, I didn't know what to say that. I was stuck.

Chloe, thinking the argument was over, started to walk away towards the door. After she was around halfway there, I had collected my thoughts, and ran over to her. I quickly spun her around to face me, and pinned her against the wall.

"I don't care what Mimi said. I don't care what you think and I most certainly do not care about what that Scarface ass thinks because you. Are. All. Wrong." I told her, my voice unraised, but the words were steel. My hands had pinned hers to her side against the wall, while I stood close to her, preventing her from moving. Both of our chests were heaving from the anger. When she tried to move away, I just tightened my grasp. "There is no universe in where what you did was wrong on any level. You are not monstrous for wanting to kill the person that has been after you for months. That has attacked you and the people you love. Hell that even killed you!" When she opened her mouth to speak, I quickly continued to cut her off. "And you are not slightly horrible for not killing him. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean that you are horrible for not protecting us. All it means, is that despite of the horrible situation that you have been dealt with, you have remained compassionate. Good." I released her hands from my grip, but she didn't move. "You believe in solutions other than violence. That's why you're going to be able to unite us all." Tears were falling down her face as she shook her head, but she remained quiet. I pulled her into a hug and allowed her to cry quietly in my arms.

This was unfair. She had done nothing to deserve all of this. The pain, the guilt, everything was completely uncalled for. I tried to push down the anger that was making its way to the surface and concentrate on her. After around five minutes, I started to lead her to my bedroom, expecting for her to protest, but she said nothing.

A few minutes later, she was asleep. "I can see why you wanted to brief her later." Derek said after I had put her on the bed in my room, hoping it would be more comfortable for her.

"How much were you able to put together?" I asked. I wasn't sure when he woke up during the argument, but we were so loud, it was probably sooner than later.

"She hates herself for wanting to kill him, but also hates herself for not killing him." Derek grew up similarly to me and Jasmine. Raised knowing that we would eventually have to kill to protect. Chloe was different. She was just introduced to this lifestyle a few months ago, then found out that she was supposed to save us all.

"I'm sorry we woke you up."

"Yes, because that's the biggest problem that we have." Derek said sarcastically. "Jasmine texted me during…" He trailed off. "They haven't been able to find him, so they're still going to be a while."

At four in the morning, Jasmine and Mimi finally returned back home. "How was it?" Derek asked before going up to Jasmine and pulling her into a hug. Right, they were dating. Well, that's a lose term considering how they were rarely able to go on dates. I hope Valentina didn't know- she would just call it a distraction.

"No luck in finding him. What about you guys? How's Chloe?" Derek and I had agreed to not tell them about the argument that we had if we could help it, but they still needed to know about the dream.

"We have another problem." I told them. "Chloe didn't dream about being attacked by Scarface. Whatever it was about, she had the same dream again tonight. She's still in danger."

"You didn't figure out what it was about?" Mimi asked angrily. "You know how important it is that we have this information. It might be the only way we can protect her from whatever it is."

"You think I don't know that?" I responded angrily. "I tried getting it out of her, but she doesn't want us to know whatever it's about. And unless we tell her why we need to know-"

"Which we're not allowed to do." Mimi interrupted.

"Then I have a feeling she's not going to tell us." I continued as if Mimi hadn't spoken.

"Well we need to find a way then."

"Tonight's been difficult for her." Derek pitched in.

"It would've been a lot simpler if she had just killed Scarface." My blood boiled once Mimi said that.

"Don't say that," Mimi looked surprised at my angry tone. "She's going through enough guilt and pain about that, and she doesn't need any more." My voice was hard.

"Wait," Jasmine pitched in, her voice full of worry. "Is Chloe alright?"

"She's okay," Derek reassured her. "She's just feeling bad about not finishing Scarface off last night." He put it mildly.

"Well she should feel bad about that." Mimi's response angered me. "She had a chance to finally end this thing with him but she didn't."

"It's not her responsibility to kill." I growled harshly. "And you are not going to say anything that will make her feel differently. Do you understand?"

"She's going to have to-"

"Do you understand?" I knew what she was going to say, which is why I stopped her. She was going to have to kill someone eventually, but I didn't want that to be said out loud. It would make it too real.

"Fine, I won't say anything." She surrendered. "But you do realize that you protecting her from this now isn't going to help her in the long run." I didn't say anything in response. Somehow, I knew that she was right, but I was determined to make her wrong.

"Look, now that we have that settled," Jasmine continued. "We still have the issue of not knowing how to protect her."

"Leave it to me." Mimi said. "I think I have an idea."