16. Emmett
CHAPTER 16
Emmett
I t’s safe to say, I didn’t mean for that to happen at all.
By the time my mind caught up with my body, I had Angel already on my lap, snug and warm in my embrace as if she belonged there.
I wasn’t prepared for the way she just…fit.
I didn’t like the way her warmth made the thing in my chest almost seize up as it strained to cozy up next to her.
But then again, this, having her listen to it…it does something to me.
Don’t break.
Don’t break.
Don’t fucking break.
In the span of a few days, I’ve done this twice already, as if I’m a glutton for punishment.
And what’s even worse is the way she starts out shy but as a single groan stretches into a beat, she gingerly presses her ear over my chest, listening to my shit heart.
A heart that will croak right damn now if I prolong the way her soft body keeps pressing into my chest.
“You remember the three minutes?” she whispers.
“I’ll never forget.”
Three minutes of her and I, soaking each other in, appreciating what’s about to be dead and synching our heartbeats to each other.
Three minutes of torture.
Three minutes that I wish I could prolong…because I want my heartbeat to catch up with hers, but that will never be possible.
She’s out of my reach. I accepted that a long time ago.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t be selfish and steal these moments for myself.
“When was your last exam?” she suddenly whispers.
Figures she’d ask this.
She’s currently faced with a tight predicament where she won’t be able to wiggle herself out of, but here she is, asking me about my doctor’s appointments.
“A while ago,” I gruffly mutter. Apparently there’s now something lodged in my throat.
“How long?” she presses, her body starting to tense up.
“Not sure.”
“Emmett!”
“I’ve been busy.”
She falls silent.
I don’t lie. None of the things I tell this girl are a lie.
I have been busy.
It has been a while since I met my team of doctors. It’s not like they’re going to tell me something new.
I already know my fate and better yet, I’ve accepted it.
“You’ve been busy finding ways to get back at me,” she mutters with annoyance yet her head is still snuggled up against my chest.
For some reason, I press the button to recline the large seat back and then hold her much more comfortably.
“What are you doing?” she whispers in a breathless voice that makes something in me stand up at attention.
“Getting comfortable.”
When the seat is all the way back, I hold her to me.
For a moment we both grow still. So still, we can probably hear the pilots talking in their cockpit.
At first, Angel lies like a piece of wood in my arms, but I just wait.
This is not the first time we’ve been in this position, where I hold her and she somehow, insanely eases the pain in my chest just by her nearness.
Then she shifts, getting more comfortable until we’re practically fused together.
In that moment, a feeling I’ve done all I can to chase away and destroy suddenly rushes over me and settles squarely in my chest.
But I immediately dismiss it.
Another thing about this position, this is the only time we dismiss the rest of the world.
It just sort of happened after she turned thirteen and I was unable to reconcile the mess in my head… the mess being her.
“Why have you been hiding from me?” I suddenly ask. I already have an idea. After all, I had that tidbit of info tortured out of a man.
“I’m not hiding.”
“Angel.”
“Emmett, you already know why.”
“Because I rejected you?”
A silent wince escapes her lips and then she tries to pull away, but I’m not having it.
“You must think this is very amusing, huh?” she seethes.
“I’m not laughing.”
“Do you ever?”
“Of the many things wrong with me, laughing at you is the one thing I’d end entire civilizations for.”
She grows still at my words, then she looks up at me.
“Stop that.”
I fall silent, seeing the emotions that swim in her eyes.
“I guess if you’ve been watching me all these years, you already know what I’ve been up to then,” she says softly.
It’s not a question. She knows I know.
“I thought you’d give up,” I state to which I earn a glare, but I don’t care. “You should’ve given up.”
She tilts her head to the left, studying me. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“But I didn’t, what does that mean for you?”
I smile.
Angel is perceptive. She knows how to connect the dots and how to navigate my intentions from my actions, a thing no one can do expertly. Not even the people I’ve called friends for most of my life.
“Why do you think I’ll have any benefit in your journey to finally being accepted?”
“For the sake of a more productive conversation, do your best not to treat me like a game.”
At this, I laugh.
She glares even more intensely.
“You’ve grown claws,” I mutter as I try not shift the seat. I have to stay still.
“And sharp teeth.”
“Again, I’d pay good money…” I mutter, watching her.
Angel has indeed grown a spine, that’s true. But for what she’s about to do, that spine won’t do her any good unless it’s tempered the right way.
“Fine, let’s be frank,” I start, clearing my throat a bit. “You have been breaking all sorts of laws, hacking into systems, trying to track down your father, haven’t you?”
She stares at me with a bit of shock.
“I guess your brother assumes you’ve been looking for your mother,” I state, noticing the obvious.
At that, she looks away.
I already know the siblings had a fight.
“Not only that, but Spider refused to bank roll your pipe dreams. He thinks you’re going to NYC for your mother. Which means not only are you broke and stranded, you’re broke, alone, stranded, and in over your head.”
At this, Angel’s shoulders drop as if the weight of the world is suddenly too much for her.
“I didn’t mean to make Samuel angry. It’s just… I need to do this.”
“Then do it,” I tell her to which she finally looks at me head-on.
“Emmett, what do you want?”
“I want to help you.”
She pulls back and deadpans, “Excuse you?”
“I want to help you.”
“Wow,” she says slowly. “I thought The Twilight Zone was a thing of fiction. You’re telling me that after putting on an elaborate show of threatening me, all you want to do is help me?”
Yes. Because by helping you, I’m helping myself.
Angel studies me.
“What does ‘ helping me’ entail?” she questions curiously.
“And here I thought you wouldn’t ask,” I mutter, then reach behind me to the envelope I stashed there, then hand it over to Angel.
“What’s this?” She looks at me suspiciously as she moves to sit up straight on my lap.
“A reminder.”
“Of?”
“Open it.”
She eyes me, then opens the black envelope slowly, as if she’s expecting a bomb. I wait, watching her.
As she starts reading, her body goes rigid.
Her eyes widen.
Then she turns back to look at me, but her hair gets in her face, so I reach up and gently tuck the soft curls behind her ear.
This girl, her face, her eyes, her lips…everything about her is like a punch to the gut but here I am, willing to punish myself over and over again.
“Is this… is this…?” she stutters.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. “Why…?”
“I’m helping you.” She stays silent, waiting. “Well, it means I’ll help you in every way you need me.”
“In exchange for this?” she screeches.
“Is it so absurd?”
“Yes!” she gasps. “My God, Emmett, do you really think I’m going to sign this?”
“I don’t think,” I stare at her. “I already know you’ll sign it.”
“Just like that?”
“Of course,” I shrug. “Don’t you remember? You’re the one who proposed this.”
“We were children!”
“Were we?”
She opens her mouth to retort but then freezes. Then she looks back down at the binding contract in her hand.
“I can’t believe this.”
“And I can’t believe you’ve been keeping quite a lot of information from me, Angel. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
She turns to look at me, watching me, studying me. I wait patiently.
“What information?”
I lean forward to get closer to her. So close that her face is in my grasp. I run my thumb along her jaw and then stare into her eyes to catch her deceit.
“That you remember.”
Surprise flares first in her brown eyes, and then as I expected, a flood of guilt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand, the thing in my chest doing summersaults.
“I…”
“All these years, you’ve been lying to my face, keeping the truth from me that you got your memories back.”
This time, her gasp is audible, the look of utter terror on her face makes me almost laugh, but this is not a laughing matter. It’s never been funny. “Why?”
And this is the fucked-up part about everything.
“Emmett…”
“Why, Angel?”
“I…”
“That hellish night, you witnessed it,” I say each word as if it's being extracted from the depth of my damned soul with a rusty iron hook. “You saw them take my mother away. I saved your life, several times, thinking that you’d come to me the moment you remember but what did you do? You intentionally went out of your way to feign ignorance.”
“No, no, that’s not…”
“Imagine my shock when I found out that it's been years since you recovered your memories but you’ve kept them from me.”
Anger and something dangerously close to disappointment swells up in my chest.
I’ve always known that Angel is not who she appears to be.
I know she hides a lot of herself from everyone, but never did I think she’d do that to me.
“Emmett, you have to understand,” she starts, her voice now hoarse with unshed tears. “I never meant to hurt you…”
“Don’t get it twisted, you didn’t hurt me,” I state. “But I am curious why you never told me.”
“I wanted to tell you so many times, I really did, it’s just…”
She trails into silence, her chest heaving up and down with effort.
“If you’re thinking of a lie right now, don’t bother.”
“The truth is, I was too young back then. I didn’t know the depths of everything then, but now I can help you! I can tell your father what I saw!”
At this, I can’t help but smirk. “Is that your way of trying to get out of the vow?” I gesture toward the contract I’ve had prepared for years. It had been collecting dust and I even believed I’ll never have any use for it, but now the game is different.
“No, I…”
“When I needed you the most, you forgot,” I say, cutting her off. “But now that you’re old enough and you remember everything, I’m pretty sure you remember what I told you I’d do.”
A powerful shudder goes through Angel’s body, so much so that I feel it too.
“What did I promise you?”
“Emmett…”
“What did I promise you, Angel?”
“That…” she stutters. “That one day you’d make me pay.”
“Exactly! But I never did,” I remind her. “In fact, I let you go free all this time, thinking it’s the least I could do. But is that fair? Especially when I’ve practically made sure no one touches you in the past three years?”
I hold her teary gaze silently as the gears shift in her head.
I know her well enough to know that she’s currently calculating, trying to weigh her pros and cons.
But against me, she’ll lose.
“And what will I have to do?” she asks slowly. She already knows the only reason her world hasn’t crumbled and she hasn’t ended up in a filthy prison cell is because of me.
“Nothing,” I shrug, studying her.
“Nothing?” She narrows her eyes at me. “This contract literally has no specific terms!”
“Did we ever specify the terms back then?”
“Well…”
“All you just have to do is just be you.”
Because you are the secret weapon, the ace up my sleeve. An entire kingdom will collapse just because of you, but you don’t know it yet.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she demands, obviously not happy with me.
“Making you feel better is not my goal,” I tell her honestly. “Making you honor the vow is.”
“Yes, we had three terms,” she starts. “The vow would be exclusive?—”
“With the duration of the contract up to me.”
“—with the third term up to me.”
“If you’re thinking of using the third condition to get out of this, then you’ll be very disappointed.”
“Jesus, Emmett, this contract practically means you’ll own me!”
“Yes,” I say simply.
“And for what?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, I’m very much aware that you are not who everyone thinks you are. I know there’s a huge part of your life you have intentionally kept hidden, so you doing this is not sitting well with me.”
This does not surprise me one bit. She was there that night. She saw it all.
“Why are you suddenly suspicious of my offer?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I know you don’t do anything just for the hell of it?”
“Exactly, which is why I want you to pay me back.”
“What?”
“Angel, I have already helped you a lot so far, haven’t I? Keeping the wolves at bay, saving you from all your crimes that I’m sure if they catch you, they will make an example out of you. Do you think I did that for nothing?”
“You did all that just to then help me again to find my father while you benefit nothing?”
“Oh, I guarantee you, Angel, you getting what you want is not nothing to me.”
A powerful shiver moves through her entire body that I feel it myself.
“Is it because you feel sorry for me?” She suddenly snaps and gets up in a rush.
“What?”
“You’ve known all these years how much I’ve been pining over you, wanting you, and then that Christmas you flat-out rejected me, so now what? You’re going to help me because you feel sorry for me?”
Discomfort.
I hate the way that feeling snakes its way into my system, but I can’t look away. Not when her eyes are ablaze with anger…masking the hurt.
“Let me tell you something, asshole! I don’t need your pity! As a matter of fact, I don’t need your help that I’m sure comes with strings and threats! You can go give that to someone else.”
“Are you refusing then?” I ask quietly.
“Yes!” she snaps. “I’m not signing this and I don’t want your help!” She throws the contract in my lap. “Not now, not ever! Stay the hell away from me with that mess!”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You know I’ll never force you to do anything,” I tell her calmly, to which she kind of frowns.
“You won’t force me, so why threaten me in the first place?”
“Angel, I never threatened you. I was just making all the facts of the situation known so that down the line, there won’t be any confusion. You are the one who decided to see it as a threat.”
A beautiful frown appears on her face as she stares at me.
“Confusion?” she echoes, dropping down into her original seat heavily. “What confusion?”
I reach over and help her snap her seat belt on.
Unable to help it, I lean in and watch her closely.
“Just know one thing, you will sign it. But this time, it will be in blood and tears.”