Chapter Thirty-One The Reckoning #3
I make myself look at her, look her in the eyes, “I’ve been wanting to kill myself since I found out. I didn’t want to live a life where I was only meant to be a backup. Extra. Only important if an organ was needed. No one deserves to live like that. And then I met the guys and—”
“They gave you a reason to live.” She finishes, taking the words I didn’t want to say out of my mouth. Knowing that me admitting out loud that I need someone isn’t easy.
“Yeah. They did.”
Her hand reaches forward, pushing my hair out of my face, running her fingers through my dark locks.
“I’m glad you met them. I’m glad you’re alive, Alistair.”
Something happened inside of me in that moment.
All these dark clouds herded over me and it began to pour rain. Rain that fell hard and fast over the inside of my chest, wetting an organ that I thought had shriveled up and died.
My heart was a desert. Deserted, dry, without nurture or care. Nothing but sand and blistering heat. And it had just started raining for the first time in my life. The beating no longer felt painful, but smooth, the way it was always meant to beat.
“When I first saw you at that party,” I pause, not sure how to explain what I’m feeling, “You made me feel alive. You excited me. You electrified me in a way no one had before.”
The way she stood in the middle of that dance floor, surrounded by people, smoke falling in front of her face and the flashing lights only giving me pieces of her face. Even through all that, I could still see her clearly.
Her hands rub circles into my chest coaxing the words from my throat, “And tonight, when I saw you in that chair all I could think about was the last things I’d said to you.
How I let my past dictate how I felt about you.
I’ve never been so fucking—” I tightened my hold, “scared and I hated it. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. I refuse to feel that way again.”
And I meant that. I was never going to feel that again. I wouldn’t let her be put in that position.
“We can’t predict the future, Alistair. And it’s okay to be afraid of that. Being scared doesn’t make you weak, letting it stop you does.”
I thought about that.
How she was the definition of that statement. Even though I’d put her through hell mentally. I’d scared her, she never stopped fighting me. Never let it stop her from moving forward.
“I will tear through the sky, rip heavens gates apart if that’s what it takes to prevent you from being at risk again. They will have to raise hell to stop me from protecting you. You understand?”
She nods, looking up at me, eyes coated with exhaustion. I pull her closer to my body, curling my arms around her so that her head is resting on my chest.
“Get some sleep, Little Thief.”
“What does this mean, you know, for us? I don’t want to be that girl who wants the label, but I just need to know what I mean to you.” Her lips move across my bare skin as she talks, distracting me for a moment.
I won’t lie to her and I hope at the end of this, she’ll be able to accept that.
“I don’t know what any of this means if I’m being honest, Briar.
I’m not sure how to describe how when I’m around you my heart feels like it’s beating for the first time or you make me feel alive.
” My eyebrows furrow as I continue, “I’m not sure how to take any of that, what that means for you, for me, for us. ”
And that was the hardest part.
How was I supposed to know what love felt like when I’d never been shown it? When I’d never been taught how to receive or give it? My version of caring for others was beating up Rook when he needed to hurt, helping Thatcher skin a deer, and letting Silas shoot pop cans out of my hands.
That wasn’t enough for Briar, she deserved more.
“But I do know, I’m obsessed with the way you feel pressed against me.
The way your lip curls when you’re angry makes me want to piss you off just so I can see it.
I’m constantly angry when I hear other people make you laugh, it makes me want to hurt them, because for a moment they were making you happy and I want that job. ”
She smiles against my skin as I continue.
“And right now, I could stay here for a lifetime just feeling your heartbeat rise. I’m not sure what I can give you, but whatever is left of me, whatever I have, it’s yours, for as long as you want it.”
And I meant it. Every word. Even though I wasn’t sure if I’d just made a huge mistake by laying out my cards so openly.
There is a beat of silence before I feel her lips against my skin in a gentle kiss,
“And if I want it forever?”
“Then it’s forever, Little Thief.”
“That sounds an awful lot like love, Alistair Caldwell.”
Pins poke my skin, like a full body numbness that overcomes me. The waves of peace settle into my shoulders and the euphoria that comes with being next to her sucks me in.
No killing. No history. No psycho brothers. Just me, a guy who would do anything to keep this girl next to him.
“It’s something.” I mumble, pressing my lips into the top of her head and inhaling deeply, filling my lungs with her scent.
“Then that’s all that matters. That’s all I need.” She whispers, “the rest is just fluff anyway,” I glance down at my initials adorning her finger, pissed I put it on the middle one and not the one directly to the left.
“Whatever you have to give, I want all of it. All the dark, all the scary. I want it. Forever.”
Just like that, the shadow child learned that you don’t have to step into the light to find happiness. You just need to find the person willing to step into the gray area.
“It’s yours. Every warped part of me. It’s yours, Little Thief. I hope you like playing in the shadows, we will be staying here for a while.”