Alec placed a hand on the small of my back, guiding me back out into the oblivious crowd.

His touch sent a ripple effect through my brain, which immediately sped up my heart rate. I glanced over my shoulder to see a small smirk on his face. Prick.

He handed a ticket to the valet and I wondered if Heidi had planned for my departure to be with Alec all along. She'd flirted with the valet upon our arrival and I was sure I saw the kid quickly scrawl his number onto the back of the very card Alec passed over. I wasn't sure whether I should be impressed or embarrassed at the possibility.

We stood in silence in front of the club, on the verge of an awkward silence. Which was odd. I would've thought I'd be pulling my hair out if I'd ever had to experience what happened inside. But I wasn't and I didn't. We just stood there. Facing forward. Not saying anything.

What do you say in this moment anyways? A fist bump? An obnoxious 'we showed him!' Or exactly what we were doing now? Nothing. As if it hadn't happened, as if what we had done was insignificant. As it were nothing.

Alec shrugged off his jacket and placed it over my shoulders and I allowed him to help me put my arms through. All at once, I was hit with something calming and overwhelming, in a really pleasant way. Jesus Christ. It smelled like Alec. I flinched, trying to get the thought out of my system as the car pulled up with a swerve. The valet, clearly making the most of his quick thrill in the million dollar car.

"I'm not cold?" I asked Alec in confusion. He was well aware of my inability to feel the cold and despite the whipping of the wind around us, I was unbothered and unaware of the element's affect on my body. Still, he zipped it up halfway.

"That is not why —" I raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed. "It will help lessen your...scent inside the car."

I swallowed, nodding. He avoided eye contact with me. Yet, his hand returned to my back, — under the jacket, and I could feel the pressure on my bare skin; And I think I had a 2 second mini stroke as a result just as the valet opened the passenger door of the car.

I recovered quickly enough as the valet reached out to hand us the keys. Automatically, I responded and interrupted his hand-off to Alec. I looked down at the keys and could feel a grin growing on my cheeks. I'd never really driven much before. If I could just —

Apparently, Alec noticed my reaction and before I could even open my mouth, he cut in, "absolutely not."

I stuck my tongue out at him, to which he rolled his eyes and the valet hid a laugh at our routine. Alec guided me in to the sleek black Bugatti, slipped the valet a well-hidden tip, and patiently closed my door. It had hardly shut before he was sitting in the driver's seat beside me.

"How will the others get back?"

I didn't get a response until he took off from zero to thirty and I was thrust forward. His arm reached out to stop me from hitting anything except his marble-like body. I'm not sure which would be worse, but I feel like the glovebox would've left less of a bruise. He pulled off to the side of the road and demanded, "seatbelt." I wordlessly mimicked him as I turned away to do as he asked.

"Saw that."

Most of the ride back had been silent as Alec refused to respond to anything I said with more than one word. Somebody got grumpy quickly. With one hand on the wheel, I couldn't help but imagine him in a perfume commercial. The windows were only slightly open, but the wind whipped through his hair, as black as the night sky outside. He ran his free hand through it and I had to look away as my heartbeat betrayed me again.

I rested my arm on the middle console and rested my chin in my palm, staring out at the road ahead. I bit back the urge to ask my travel partner the one question I actually wanted him to answer. He'd yet to give any details about where he'd been for the last several days. Not that I needed to know, but my curiosity was driven by a more base desire.

Once we were out of the city and on the empty roads, Alec decided to change his career path and star in a real life version of the Fast and Furious movies. He pushed the car to a speed that I'm sure would make even professional race car drivers ill.

He glanced at me, probably double checking that my seatbelt was still on, as I rolled down the window and stuck my head out a few times. He may have even laughed when I shouted out the only Italian word I thought I remembered, which was strawberry; "fragola!" If he did, it was drowned out by the wind quickly suffocating me. The concept was unlikely, I convinced myself.

He was, however, forced to slow down after I'd tried to sit in the open window of the car door.

"What are — are you insane?" He barked as he pulled me back in. Though he'd slowed down, he was instantly fuming and the road was no longer his main concern. His hand was gripping my wrist, as if, if he let go, I'd try it again. I could feel myself get a little smaller, like when a child does something stupid, like run in front of a car or something. They knew it was wrong, so when they were caught they still felt guilty about it and the whole time the parent was yelling at them, they just sort of sat there, slowly tearing up but still thinking 'yeah, I did bad'. Of course, my father supported me jumping in front of cars for the insurance money when I was a kid, so I'm improvising on a normal childhood experience.

"But they do it in movies." He removed his hand from my wrist and forced himself to concentrate his anger on the steering wheel.

"Are you naive or do you simply lack the basic intelligence required to consider your own safety?"

It was a low blow, but he didn't seem to care as his ruby eyes scanned my body, crashing into my eyes. The glare he gave me before turning back reprimanded my behaviour all on its own.

My attempt at a circus act had taken his last straw and cut it into tiny little pieces. Whatever had been bothering him since we left the club was clearly more important to him than he was willing to admit. It was as if he refused to talk about what was really on his mind and decided to take his anger out on me. Well, it was more like me sitting, growing inattentive in the car and him playing through a one-sided mean girl conversation. Which, I didn't mind for a very simple reason.

As targeted as his words were, the comments felt empty. They were harsh, but, they were nothing new to what we'd argued about before. Nothing unique that he nor I hadn't already thrown in the other's face. And it was all true. Plus, all his ranting gave me enough time to come up with the perfect comeback, but I was brought back as he faltered.

"You are reckless - careless! Constantly exposing yourself to dangers you refuse to accept." His jaw locked and even from my side view, his eyes made him seem...lost? He was almost like a pitiful puppy...and I recognised that look. I think I knew where his strained anger was coming from.

Just as that discovery came to me, I forgot my comeback.

As if he'd made a simultaneous, but different, discovery of his own, he grew softer. His grip on the steering wheel loosened as he stared ahead, steely eyed and determined. Alec grunted out in a rough voice, almost as if he didn't want me to hear him but, he needed an answer. "How are you still alive?"

He stopped talking and I wasn't sure if he was done or if he were waiting for my response. What I did know — or thought I knew, was the reason he had blown up so suddenly. I considered my theory that he hadn't let our moment in the club go; The wounded puppy eyes and the fiercely stubborn attitude that gripped his body were my clues. So, pushing aside the worry that I was simply being self-centred, I struggled to think of a solid explanation for the question he wanted to ask. After all, I had chosen the bad guy, a stranger, over him.

"I thought he liked me." I mumbled and a low growl came from Alec's chest, telling me that I'd hit the nerve intended. "And you were being mean." Once I started I couldn't stop, feeling the need to make up for a decision that became a mistake, through no fault of my own. "Like you always are. And he was…nice."

"You should have listened to me."

The nuns had always taught me to 'turn the other cheek' and I was beginning to learn the difference between standing up for myself and being the bigger person. And yet…

"I get it. You were right, I was wrong. Is that what you want to hear?" I huffed and stared pointedly out my window.

He said nothing, but I could feel the car begin to slow down as if he were too focused on our conversation to drive at the same time.

I attacked again, facing away from him but wanting to make my own point. "You underestimate me."

"I believe you underestimate your importance..." I turned my head sharply back around to him before he clarified, "...to Aro. You're no use to him dead. And you're welcome."

I took a deep breath, a small shock of guilt hitting me as he did technically help me and I was raised to be annoyingly polite. However, I refused to back down. "I am grateful for your help. But, I didn't need saving."

He spoke slowly, but vehemently and there was an irrationality in it that scared me. Where Alec was involved, I recognised the same senseless gluttony in myself that he displayed at that very moment. "I will always save you."

We'd come to a complete stop in the middle of the blackened road. I was speechless for a time, the sincerity in his eyes striking me as he purposefully met mine. My chest ached as if I were starved of the unwavering, steadfast, patience that bore into my soul. Something entirely impossible, but that seemed all too real. His own eyes, ravenous and all too enticing. My mind became my heart, the two tormenting each other, obsessed with the power of total control. I was in a trance. I couldn't speak, couldn't move, but I didn't want to. I blinked and my heart rate increased tenfold, but my mind won out and I was finally able to break eye contact with him.

A blanket of silence passed over us again and I could feel his gaze still on me. I stared down at my hands, folded on my lap. After a minute, he put the car back into drive and we were soon speeding down the road once more.

I crossed my arms, stating as if to defend myself, "I was gonna punch him."

He gave a mocking laugh, though his voice lacked the viciousness it held previously. "Did you learn self-defence from a votary?" The old-fashioned term for nuns dated him, though I hardly acknowledged it.

Instead, I shook my head, raising it to stare through the windshield again. "No. My dad."

He grew quiet again. "I did not give you my condolences for your father." No, he'd been too busy making sure I didn't fall apart. We didn't dare look at each other again, but I blinked and that seemed to be enough. "Had I known the Masters' plan, I might have..." he trailed off, both of us knowing there was nothing he could've done even if he knew. The loyalty the twins displayed to the Volturi, particularly to Aro, was that of a parent to children relationship. They were the perfect children, following all the rules— be obedient, speak only when spoken to, don't question the adults.

"Isn't that what you guys do? Violence, torture…murder."

"The Masters believe in reparation and punishment as deterrents, as well as teaching tools." His face grew dark for a moment, "Jane and I know it well." This was the closest to a negative reaction I had ever seen one of the twins reveal about their father figure. He didn't dwell on the idea long and I picked up the conversation faster than he expected.

"He was all I had left. My father." Alec sighed quietly, and his hand returned to my thigh. The touch initiated the usual response in me, but it also provided the familiarity of comfort and I yearned to join my hand with his. He spoke before I could properly talk myself in or out of it.

"What about your nuns?"

I turned away, shame reverberating through me. "They lied to me." It was childish, but I was adamantly against a return to my former life. I'd never go back, even if I wasn't being held captive in a vampire "castle". It would feel false, knowing what I knew now. I needed to start over.

"Why?"

Now that I know what happened to my dad, "it might've been the difference between my father living or dying. I can't..." I'd never get over how they hid something that was so obviously important to me.

He shook his head and clarified his question, "why did they lie to you?"

"Does it matter?" I bit back. His expression didn't change as he watched the road, however, unaffected by my outburst.

He didn't challenge me, although I could see the words on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he favoured a gentler question, "don't you miss them?"

"I'll never see them again." The bitter taste in my mouth from the mere thought escaped through my words. We'd reached the bottom of the city, the streetlights shining brightly and guiding our way through the tunnels and darkness. "Best to leave things where they are. For their own safety." He knew I was referring to our previous conversation and that we'd come around full circle. In an alternative approach, Alec's thumb began to innocently move back and forth as if to provide the comfort he couldn't through words.

As we pulled up to the castle's open parking garages, I leaned forward in my seat. "I miss the stars," I whispered. The sky was so full of the bright balls of light that I found it hard to find my favourite constellations. Never before had I been so close to the stars and seen so many all at once. My view disappeared as Alec slowly pulled the car in.

I felt kind of bad for the turn of our conversation. So, I tried to make a joke to change the somber mood that had settled over us. "Maybe I'll just carry some pepper spray next time. No bodyguard needed." My joke failed and Alec's reaction was a clear indication that I should never go into comedy.

The engine turned off. His hand still rested on my thigh, inches from my knee. My words caused him to tense up, and I could feel the change from the very tip of his fingers and up through his arms. He stated darkly, "there will not be a next time."

"What are you on about?"

"It is too dangerous for you to leave the castle, again."

I scoffed, speaking before thinking. "Dangerous? The only time I've actually been hurt in the last few weeks has been inside this castle and because of you."

And we were having such a nice moment. Whoops. At least we went a short while without raising our voices or throwing our frustrations on each other. In fact, we'd been almost civil. More than civil. We'd been, dare I say…friendly.

He took a deep breath, as if trying to not lose control twice in one night. I pondered the possibility that I wasn't the only one that found friendliness more comforting than harsh tones and raised voices. If only he wasn't so darn rude. Exhibit A: "It is not up for debate."

"Maybe it should be. I bet we'd yell at each other a lot less if you just used your freaking words." Communication is supposed to be the key.

"Don't be a smart ass."

I mimicked him again, repeating him words back to him as overtly childish and immature as I could. "Don't be a smart ass." So much for communication.

A deep growl ripped from his chest, "I swear to god, Saffiya—"

I blinked and he was gone. The driver's door shut and I jumped as he reappeared to open my door in exactly the same second. He was putting no effort into moving at a human speed, undoing my seatbelt and helping me out before I'd processed each action. As I stepped out, he slipped an arm under my knees and the other behind my shoulders, picking me up into his arms. I didn't have time to tell him to cut it out before we were whipped through the castle.

I was dropped gently, but not carefully onto a bed. I angrily pushed myself up and came face to face with Alec.

He was standing at the edge of the bed and my knees were inches from touching the fabric of his pants. I found it hard to breathe as I lifted my chin up, inches from his. I worried that he would hear my heart beat increasing before I scolded myself because obviously, he was probably constantly aware of it. I needed to get a handle on the devil-may-care behaviour of the organ. Maybe use a dimmer light switch but always keep the beats per minute on the lowest possible setting. Not only was it a traitor, but its' dramatic reactions to Alec's existence were basically risking my life by reminding the vampires of my current level on the food chain.

I visibly gulped and tried to avoid a repeat of our earlier staring contest when it became clear that he was not aiming for that.

No. His eyes were on my lips, which barely parted with an intake of breath as I realized this.

His eyes flickered to mine.

And the way he looked at me…

I was so screwed.

~•~•~•~

As always, thank you to everyone for the comments, votes, and reads. Your comments are basically my obsession. I laugh, I tear up, and I get more and more inspired to keep writing with every one.

I realized I had to post this chapter before I over-wrote it. You know how, sometimes you work on something and it's not your best work so you feel the need to apologise for it? That would describe this chapter for me, but I really really hope you all still enjoy it! Flaws and all. After all, that is what rewrites are for! Or at least that's what I keep telling myself ;)

With nerves and adoration,

Ro