SALT #2
It turns out that, wanting to earn money for a luxury vacation, he accepted an offer from a friend to carry a suitcase full of drugs across the border.
Since he had no prior convictions, the chances of being stopped and searched seemed slim.
Unfortunately, luck was not on his side that day.
Among the border protection officers at the checkpoint was a purple alpha, and he sniffed out the drugs with his super-strong sense of smell.
As Roman tells the story, Evan says at one point, "If we had known each other back then, I would have talked you out of it. That was madness. People can seriously fuck up their lives that way."
Roman lowers his head, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face. "It really did sound good, and the money was big…"
Bashir, who has been listening closely, adds in a firm tone, "I would have tried to stop you too. Dealers look for suckers for jobs like that. It rarely works!"
Roman keeps his head down, scratching at his food with his fork, clearly feeling uncomfortable.
For some reason, the way both alphas reacted together irritates me.
"What is it with you, patronizing alphas?" I blurt out. "It’s not your life, so don’t judge. You weren’t in his shoes."
Yeah, it's pretty obvious why it bothers me. It’s me who feels judged and patronized by proxy.
Everyone turns to look at me, clearly surprised at my tone, and I usually stay silent at dinner. But now suddenly it all just spills out of me.
"This attitude pisses me off so much! Eliano is exactly the same. He blocked my plan to escape the island and get revenge on my brother’s killer. You have no clue what we’re dealing with, and yet you want to decide for us!"
A heavy silence continues, all eyes on me. I have never told anyone here about my circumstances before. Though they surely heard gossip about my Alpha Slayer past.
Bashir finally speaks, calm and firm.
"Eliano did the best thing he could. For an alpha, a partner’s safety will always come first. Revenge will always come second. He acted according to his instincts."
Evan nods in agreement.
"He was afraid of losing you. That shows how committed he was to you. You have to understand that his loyalty is first to you and your safety, not to your dead brother, even if that brother means everything to you."
A fierce surge of anger rises in me. Why are they defending him? They don’t understand a thing.
"You have no idea what my relationship with my brother was like! How much he meant to me. What he sacrificed for me. And his murderer is still walking free…"
"You are right, we do not know," Bashir says. "But as alphas, we see things differently. Our priorities come from our nature. Eliano simply could not have acted any other way."
"I think he could have," I snap. "He could have helped me, for example!"
"And then what? What future would you two have had?" Bashir replies sharply. "No future at all. That is not how alphas think, Salt. Caring for a partner’s safety is hardwired into us. It is not something you can just turn off easily. And Eliano is twenty! His instincts are even stronger."
Part of me is already gearing up for round two of my speech about how they should mind their own fucking business.
But another part, the one that kind of agrees with Eliano’s approach, knows that the whole plan was basically a self-destructive mission and that it could have ended with me dead, or with both of us as outlaws and fugitives. That voice is quieter, but it’s there.
Salt, think about what they are saying. There is something to it.
In any case, I wouldn’t be myself without throwing in a little attitude. So I stand up with a sassy scowl and make a point of walking away from their table.
They need to understand that they don’t get to dictate how I live my life.
To be fair, my sulking doesn’t last long.
By the very next day, I’m back at their table, acting like nothing happened. Bashir and Evan take it in stride, classic alphas who don’t overthink emotional flare-ups. Fred and Roman, however, exchange faintly amused looks. Whatever, assholes. I can live with that.
The third week feels like the next stage of purgatory.
I have already gone through three stages of grief over my situation: denial, anger, bargaining. Now it is time for depression. Will acceptance come after that?
Yep, so I lie on my bed and sob.
Just sob!
I guess this is how my mind is trying to cope with what happened.
That I’ll never get revenge on Tanner. No matter how badly I want it, there’s not much I can do anymore.
Escape isn’t realistic. But what really gets me is that, on top of everything, I pushed Eliano away and ruined my chance at a great relationship.
That fucking, proud bastard.
I remember what he said, so vividly…
"I never beg!"
I scream out these words and throw the pillow across the room.
"You should beg, asshole! You should be back on your knees!"
Then I pant for a few minutes and numbly stare at the first page of the album Hugh prepared for us.
Eliano ripped out one of the pictures, but the rest is here. I fix my eyes on one where Eliano and I are sitting on the sand, his hand draped over my shoulder.
The fucker!
These two things sway in my mind like a seesaw: "I have no revenge" and "I have no Eliano," tipping first one way, then the other. But after a while, the side with Eliano begins to weigh heavier, and that only deepens my despair.
Whenever I close my eyes, I can feel his relentless kisses. Oh, how often he gave them, and how much I loved it, even though I would never admit it. His soft, warm lips, the tender energy… Fuck!
All lost, ruined!
Each passing day presses down on me more and more.
Then, a strange, deep melancholy takes over. I lie in bed sometimes all day, feeling weak and awful. My body feels different, itchy, as if something physical is changing inside me. I do not understand where it’s coming from, but it all boils down to one thing.
I cannot take this anymore.
The emptiness. The suspension. The absence of him.
Yes. Fuck it.
Let us say it out loud.
It reaches me slowly, painfully, but it reaches me.
With Eliano, I truly had a chance. I liked him a lot, and I was so attracted to him. Those are two foundation stones you can actually build something on. Am I really this angry at him for taking revenge away from me, or is this about something else?
There’s this small empty space, a pause in me…
Something in me gives up.
And then it almost literally smashes into me, like a battering ram, breaking through denial, fog, pretense, and self-deception.
The truth about my ‘escape’.
I remember the three hours I spent in that tree, frozen in that strange paralysis, and I finally allow myself to understand what I refused to see back then.
I could not force myself to go after Tanner because that treacherous part of me had already fixed its gaze on a future, a possible one, the future I could have had with Eliano.
And I did not want to turn back and look at the past I had with Senu. Yeah, by staying on this tree I betrayed my brother for my new, sexy Italian beau.
That decision was already made there, in the swamps, deep inside me.
The rest of my mind just had not caught up yet, still fixated on that damn plan. But the truth is, I had already erased that plan back then.
Sabotaged it.
So the person I was most furious with was myself.
Bashir and Evan are right. If you look at the essence of Eliano’s actions, the core of it all, he did not want anything bad for me.
He wanted me to be safe. He wanted us to be together. And I threw in his face how much I hated him, which was so fucking far from the truth.
◆◆◆
As the third week comes to an end, I catch myself browsing the internet more and more often, typing in different phrases, trying to lead myself to Eliano’s blog.
The thing is, I can’t remember the name of it.
When I check the browser, I see that Eliano had set it to delete history and cookies after every reset, probably to keep himself safe from anyone watching because of the Beta Activation program.
That means I don’t know the exact address. I also don’t have his phone number. Hard to believe, but he never gave it to me. There was no reason to. No one on the island has phones with reception, me included.
So there’s only one shot. I need to find his blog and see if there’s a contact tab, something that might point me to his social media so I can try to reach him.
Eventually, I manage to track down a few blogs with a lot of info about the Ferro family. I know Eliano ran one where he shared plenty of news about his relatives, with thinly veiled hints about their shady business.
The real lead comes when I spot a post on one of those blogs about Beta Activation, a post Eliano had mentioned to me before.
The blog is called The Truth Only I Know, and as I scroll through the entries, they’re mostly about the Ferro family and some high-profile criminal cases, except for the most recent one. Everything fits.
I click on the contact tab. There is only one thing there: a link to a fan page, that can be reached through DM, nothing else.
My only chance.
I stare at the app. So. Am I really to be the first one to plead for reconciliation?
Do I want him back more than I want to cling to my wounded pride? Eliano’s pride is clearly bigger than mine, because he has stayed silent for twenty-three days now.
"I never beg," I mutter under my breath; these were his last words.
In truth, I was the one who told him to get out, so by rights, I should be the one to invite him back, shouldn’t I?
With some hesitation, I click it, but to do that, I first have to log into my own account.
My old account is still online.
There aren’t many photos on it, but the ones that are there show me and Senu, and that triggers a sudden flood of painful emotions.
Me, a fucking traitor, stares back from the screen, posing next to Senu with a silly grin on my face…