Alpha's Angel

Chapter Forty Four

I tried to breath the fresh air into my lungs, letting it cool my burning airways. I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down. The wind whipped my hair around my face as I stood facing out to the forest, unable to confront the people in that house. 

It felt that everything was pushing down on my shoulders, the pressure building up unbearably, making me sink into the ground. At every moment, something new happened. I couldn't just be in peace, be happy for more than five minutes without something else springing up in my face. 

"They say once you meet someone, you never truly forget them" The voice behind made me jump back around. Abdo stood on the steps, leaning against the house. He was smiling as he gazed into the tree line.  Always smiling. "I imagine you wish that wasn't true"

I looked at his face. Really looked at him, trying see if there was anything that would tell me I had it wrong. But there was nothing. 

"Cat go your tongue?" I couldn't look away, his face like window into the past. It was like looking at a ghost. He looked back from the trees, his eyes so dark, I could see my reflection in them. I could feel the questions beginning to swell in my chest, but none of them seemed to break their way out. 

I closed my mouth that I only just realised was hanging slightly open, probably from the shock, as turned away. It was too much to look at him. 

For a moment neither of us spoke. The silence communicating more than words possibly could. 

Both of knew that neither us really wanted to speak. To verbalise what we both were reflecting on, would be admitting what we trying to deny. Trauma that kept resurfacing despite how deep we buried it. 

"I forgot about the hounds." I bit my lip shaking my head. Seeing him had brought it back to me. Like a light shed on something that had been hiding in the dark, forgotten about. 

The Hounds. His own personal guard dogs, if not that, then His own form of entertainment.

"It seems you have forgotten a lot" 

"I remember you" 

Abdo had been the best. Another of his favourites I suppose. 

Hounds battle for their place, essentially gladiators, fighting for their right to live. They were thrown into the ring against each other; the more dead the better. Some would be starved for weeks, so they were weak but all the more savage, driven by insane hunger. Others would be pumped with something unknown until their eyes glazed over and they lost control, losing anything that chained them to reality. 

I would watch. Watching but never really seeing. Stood by His side, still and silent, trying my best to distance myself from my surroundings. He would gaze down into the pit with unwavering cold eyes,  like the people below bored him as they ripped into another flesh. Mutilating each other until they no longer resembled anything living. 

His guests would cheer and clap, their mouth brimming with food and spit, till it fell onto their chest as they hollered when their preferred fighter landed a blow. They banged on the glass that separated us from them, as though the animals inside needed more reason to fight harder other than saving their own life. 

Abdo would never lose. It was death to enter the pit with him. 

"As I did you, as soon as I saw you again. Your face, not the one you are showing now but the one you hide, is forever seared into my memory" Abdo clenched his jaw, smiling so hard his teeth looked as though they would shatter.

Once I made a mistake. 

I had accidentally came back into the room, back from wherever my mind had taken me; ripped from pleasant nothing and pushed back into reality. I tried to get out again, but I couldn't stop looking. I couldn't stop seeing. The colours of crimson that splashed up against the glass, the smells of rich food and death twisting towards me the sound of laughter and screams coming together into a chorus that made my blood chill. 

His hand was resting on my thigh as it usually did, his grip firm and unwavering. I remained as still as possible, using everything in my power to push aside the urge to break down. The silver around my neck feeling tighter and tighter with each breath I took. 

My breaths were short as I watched a delirious girl stumble into ring, splashing puddles of blood as she stumbled. Her eyes were clouded. Her mind wasn't there. 

Her skin shifted, her body failing to transform in order to protect itself. She stood there, her legs wobbling trying to keep themselves up. Her pointed ears perked up as something moved in a darkened corner. Something flicked its tail out of the darkness, terrorising her with its presence. 

I blinked back tears, knowing all too well what would happen next. But one slipped past me, landing on his hand. He looked down, observing the small drop that had landed on his hand. Raising it up to his face, he inspected it, watching it run past his fingers, until it fell once more, landing on my lap. 

Then like a serpent, his hand jutted out, catching my jaw in a deathly grip, with the smallest amount of pressure added able to shatter my bones. He directed my gaze towards the pit, which I had subconsciously looked away from. I closed my eyes, unable to bear it as the girl back against the wall, crying uncontrollably as she accepted her death. 

"Watch" He squeezed tighter. I hesitated. Another mistake. 

From then everything happened in seconds. 

The girl's heart was torn out by whatever beast had been preying on her. 

I was dragged from my chair, pulled across the floor by the chain attached to my neck. I clawed fruitlessly at my closing airways, as blind spots induced my vision. The feeling of lush carpet under me turned to rough stone, my skin scrapped bare on my thighs. 

My collar ripped from my throat, and something shoved down my gullet, I was left gasping for air. Then there was nothing. Silence. I waited, splayed out on the ground, listening to the sound of my own strangled breaths. I could only wait. 

The  scrapping of metal doors, the hammering of paws, and the howls of delirious animals sliced through the air.  They entered all once, too fast for me to count. They rushed in. My demon took over- 

"I wasn't there" His voice snapped me out of that downward spiral.

"What?"

"I wasn't in the pit" 

"All the hounds were" 

"Aside from me" 

"H-how? Why?" I was shaking. I could feel myself losing it. 

"They kept me aside."  Then out of nowhere he began to laugh uncontrollably, doubling over. "I- I" he was chocking on his own laughter. "I was too good to be slaughtered with the rest" He was hysterical, his eyes rolling back, as his pearly teeth shone up at me. 

 "You're sick" I spat, turning away to go back in the house. He was just trying to get in my head, trying  make me crack so I would be like him. So I'd lose my sanity. 

His hand caught my arm, holding me back. " You are sick. Everyone in that place was poisoned, by venom that has no cure. You think you fool me." His orange eyes glimmered, his pupils dilated. "I know what is inside your head. The pain you hide, does not hide from me. I see it in you, and it is festering." 

I pulled myself away, rushing past the eavesdropping people in the kitchen, upstairs. 

I just needed time to breathe. 

OOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOOOOO

Side note// Woah, in comparison to several months that was a quick update

If anyone can suggest me an easy read that will make me cry insert title here -> 

lockdown has made me  emotionally constipated and i need something to get it out 

Anyway

Comment and vote 

xoxox 

-Shay