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“I’m sorry them monsters did this to you. They took Eli, but don't worry.” Her palm flattens on my cheek, determination shining in her sparkling blue eyes. “I won’t allow them to take you, too.”
“I’m hurt you don’t remember me.” Knox pouts like a child who’s been deprived of his favourite toy. “Remember you?” I ask. “Yeah. You ought to remember me after —” “Knox.” The warning in Dad’s tone is loud and clear. Knox shrugs and goes back to scrolling through his phone. Okay. That’s weird. Super weird.
No wonder he’s chosen to be a monster. In his warped logic, being a monster is better than being a weak mess.
Knox and Teal are the first ones Ma hurt. Aiden and I aren’t the only survivors.
“Where were we? Right. When are you coming back, Ellie? I need my dose of you like I need weed.” “Did you just compare me to weed?” “Hey! Weed is cool. It relaxes you and makes you happy.”
My monster is all tall, powerful, and beautiful. My monster is Aiden King.
“I don’t give promises I don’t keep. You’re the one who does that over and over again. I told you loving me is a one-way road. I told you not to say the fucking words if you didn’t mean them.” I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. “I meant those words. I love you, Aiden, but I also love myself enough to walk away from you.”
Mum used to say that when you’re free, time flies by, but it becomes long when you’re trapped. I didn’t understand her back then, but now I do. Time is weird that way. Time is endless and short all at once.
“Hey, Grey Eyes.” “Hmm?” I watch her twinkling eyes as she chews. Some of the chocolate sticks to her upper lip. “When I grow up, I’m gonna buy you a bucket of Maltesers.” “Why?” “Because Dad says you have to buy gifts for the one you marry.” “Marry?” I whisper.
“Promise you’ll marry me.” She holds out her pinkie. I curl mine around hers. “I promise.”
She’s all mine with a capital M. And now, she’s back. This time, only death would do us part.
I have to decide if I’m the type of person who locks children up to torture them like Ma or the type who sets them free like Dad. Death or life. Darkness or hope. As I wrap my arms around Aunt, I know exactly who I want to be.
“Love is for losers,” Teal deadpans.
Now, I’ll do whatever it takes to be accepted by her. If it means letting everything go, then so fucking be it.
“Run and I’ll chase. Hide and I’ll conquer.” He places a chaste kiss on the corner of my mouth. “Time to make your move, sweetheart.”
“It’s fun!” Knox smirks. “Think about it. Don’t you like the clashing of powers? This is like Game of Thrones without the dragons.”
“I don’t remember my dreams,” I tell the boy with grey eyes. He pinches my cheek. “I’ll dream for the both of us.” “Promise?” “Promise, Elsa.”
Since we were children and even now, Aiden’s features only light up when I’m around. You’re the only thing who breaks the endless vicious cycle.
“There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about you. Every time I manage to sleep, I dream of you. You were my obsession since we were kids, but now it’s way fucking worse. I don’t know how I managed to spend eight years without you in my life when now I suffocate if I don’t see you for hours.” My eyes fill with tears. “Aiden…” “Choose me, Elsa. Choose us.”
“My intentions towards your daughter are simple,” I say with the calmest, most determined voice I can manage. “She’s mine.”
“I couldn’t care less about families clashing. I’ve already taken a side and it’s Elsa’s.”
Only it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory of when Aiden got the scar on his forearm. Raw emotions creep under my skin like creatures from the night, rough and mysterious. The tattoos. His arrow tattoos are inspired by what I drew back then.
I didn’t know how much I needed Aiden in my life until he was gone.
“Do you mean… I have to marry Ronan?”
Squealing, I hold on to his back with both hands. “W-what are you doing, Aiden?” “I’m kidnapping you, sweetheart. It’s been long overdue.”
“Tell me what happened that night,” I murmur. “That night?” “The night of the fire. The night I lost you.” I blow out a shaky breath. “I want to hear it from you.”
“While you look so much like her, you don’t have her empty gaze or her haunting voice. As long as you have this spark in your eyes, I’ll always recognise you as my Elsa.”
His voice. It’s him. The one who told my ma she doesn’t deserve this life and that it’ll end today. The one who’s currently burning my ma inside. The one who’s taking Daddy away like heaven took away Eli. The one without emotions as he does it all. Uncle Agnus.
He’s the one behind the fire and the one who killed my mother. Well, she shot herself, but she wasn’t dead yet. He burned the mansion down while knowing she was in it.
“I can’t calm down! He killed Ma, Aiden!” “She shot herself,” he grinds out, holding on to patience he doesn’t own. “She wanted to die.” “Just because you wanted her to die doesn’t mean she wanted to die.”
“Agnus is like me,” he emphasises every word. “He’s just like me.” The realisation hits me like an eruption of a volcano. “He wants to protect my dad.” “Exactly.” I gasp. “Do you think he has feelings for him? Is he... gay?” “Could be. Could be not.”
Elsa will never know this, but it was because of Abby’s neglect that Eli drowned. She removed his swimming jacket and asked him to go into the water. She told him to be free. She confessed all that to me at his funeral.
“The fucker was so high that he got her hair colour wrong. Astor saw me fiddle with the ropes and he thought I was binding her when I was actually unbinding her and saving her from Nash’s crazy kink. See? I can be a gentleman when I want to ruin something.” Aiden and Cole never had a threesome. I was being all green with jealousy over an imaginary person. “Who was she, anyway?” I ask. He smirks. “Nash’s damnation.” Nash’s damnation.
If we never find a way out of here I’ll die happy knowing I’m with the person I love the most. The boy I loved since I was seven.
“Your passion, your darkness, your fire, and even your damn stubbornness. I find all of them sexy and there isn’t a thing I would change about you. So yes, everything.”
“You were a child and loved your mother.” “Do you think love gives you the right to compromise?” “I don’t know. Do you?” “Sometimes, yes.”
I was always the shadow to her darkest desires and I thought I was fine with that. Turns out, I’m a selfish bastard who wants it all. Both her light and her darkness. Her best and her worst. Her everything.
I know because I’ve been studying the shit out of it since I learnt of her illness. That’s why I’ve been even stricter than her aunt about her special food. I brought her water with the highest concentration of minerals because I read it’s good. I’ve been watching her while she runs, looking for tiny clues about her breathing.
Villains are simply people who go after what they want even if it means walking all over the crowd.
Like an Italian politician once said, it’s better to be feared than loved. Fear brings efficiency and gets things done. Love is for masochistic fools. I was in love once. It’s irrational and out of control.
“What I feel for you isn’t only love, obsession, or addiction. It’s all of those and more. Do you know what that means, sweetheart? It means I can’t live without you, so don’t you fucking dare leave me.”
Someone is waiting for me. And I have a promise to keep.
I’m beginning to learn Cole only shows the tip of the iceberg to the world. There’s a whole lot of secrecy and darkness underneath the surface. I can only imagine what it feels like to be
“You’re the best gift I’ve ever been given, my queen.” “And you’re mine, my king.”
