Nefarious

C94 - Forbidden Ground

I sat staring blankly out into the air, with my hands folded and resting on my lap. Alex didn't move closer this time, he kept his distance in silence. He crossed his arms, waiting for me to react to his words. "Something's wrong with me, Alex," I said calmly. His facial expression turned worried as he carefully stepped closer. I quickly got up and it made him take a step back. My eyebrows were slightly narrowed and my eyesight aimed at him. "No matter how many lies, truths, and bad things I hear about you... I still can't get myself to hate you. I should've been terrified of you after all the things I've learned to know, but I'm not. I'm not scared of you, Alex," I said, my voice lowering.

As soon as Alex realized what I'd said, his face softened, allowing his mouth to naturally open. "You don't want to end this?" he asked. "Feelings are confusing so I'll make this decision without them. No, I don't want this to end," I answered. He let out a sigh of relief. "Bad or good, vampire or human, I don't care. I care about you for who you are to me, and you've been nothing but what I've wished for," I said. "I've left you several times, used you, lied to you," he mentioned, shaking his head in confusion. "I know many relationships less healthy than ours. You're telling me your secrets one by one, that's all I ask for," I answered. He doesn't rush over to me quicker than what's normal for humans very often, but he did now. "Oh, but you haven't heard the worst one yet," he said, breathing down my face. "Nevertheless, I won't leave you," I answered, my voice slightly lowering. He hit the wall behind me, causing a loud thud before he moved away from it. He stressfully ran his hand through his hair and let out a loud sigh. "What are you so angry about?" I questioned. "Maybe Jace is right! Maybe I've manipulated you through all these years, made you fall in love with a fake version of me," he blurted out. "I reacted negatively recently, doubting our whole relationship, but I figured I was wrong. Jace had nothing to do with my decision, and you for sure haven't manipulated me. After all, I made this decision after staying with Hayden and the others," I told him. He was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands: "I just don't want my past to repeat itself." "Your past?" I frowned. "I don't want you to end up like my ex."

As much as I wanted for Alex to tell me about his apparent ex, he refused to. He'd been so open with me today, but I assume he reached his secret-telling limit. "Think we should keep quiet, or?" Xavier suddenly whispered to Jace. "Do you guys ever knock?" I asked. "Do you ever shut up?" Jace raised his eyebrows. I didn't notice what they currently looked like before I took the time to actually look at them. I'd just cast a quick glance at them in the entrance, but now I couldn't take my eyes away from them. They both had several bruises in different colours, a couple of claw marks and some bite marks. "Who did that to you?" I stammered. "They did it to each other," Alex said. "Huh?" I frowned. "We practised something," Xavier clarified. "You know, you should try it with Alex sometime," Jace said with a mischievous facial expression. "I would never do that," Alex declined immediately. "Right, you're not adventurous enough," Jace rolled his eyes. "Are they high or something?" I whispered to Alex. "No, they're just wicked and strange-" Alex started. A wide grin spread across Jace's face at Alex's sudden stop. "Not important... They do it as a way to handle any form for pain caused by enemies, and to practise their skills," Alex explained. "You're right, that is pretty crazy," I said.

I know I'm not the type to be utterly rebellious and brave, but I felt too tempted to dig into Jace's secretive room. I knew he wasn't staying in Xavier's room at nights, even though they're dating. His room is upstairs somewhere, a forbidden place for me to go, as I've heard. Alex's room was initially upstairs as well, but once he figured I was gonna stay with him for a while, he had to move to his reserve room. Knowing how nice his reserve room is though, his main room must be astonishing.

Moving towards the stairs of the castle was easy, facing the vampires, on the other hand, that was a challenge. They were all insanely creepy and intimidating with their fangs and hostile hissing. One of them had blood dripping from his mouth, making me feel both disgusted and threatened. However, I knew he would probably be more tempted to feed on other humans than me, his soon-to-become leader's girlfriend. I had to wait to walk up the final stairs because of some vampires that were chatting nonsense as they made their way down. Their dark glares sent a weird feeling rushing through my body, luckily, they didn't stop walking when they reached me. I carefully placed my hand on the staircase rail as an attempt to keep steady on the way up. The staircase was huge and made out of shining, black marble. It was shining to the point where it looked newly washed and slippery, but it wasn't, thankfully.

It looked much different at the highest floor level of the castle. Downstairs there were red runners on the floor, but they weren't as nice as the ones up here were. Up here the red colour was much darker, and the decorations were shining gold. Beautifully detailed golden roses were hanging on the walls, but no pictures. Some of the roses had initials of people living in the castle, I knew because I saw Alex's name on one of them. In old aged cursive letters, his full name had been carved into the shining gold rose. Beside his rose hung Jace's and two others who I assumed were Alex's parents. The four roses were about the same size, standing out from all the smaller ones.

I studied the upstairs, it was looking very royal and neat. However, the mesmerizing surroundings made me forget that I was walking on the forbidden ground, therefore I was shocked to hear voices approaching me. "Shit," I cursed under my breath. Impulsively, I entered the first room I could find. The door shut silently behind me, muting the conversation that the strangers were having outside. I was now able to breathe without risking anyone hearing it. There was a lock on the door, however, as much as I wanted to lock it, I feared someone would hear the lock clicking.

I was fascinated by the choice of colours for this particular room. Royal blue and silver dominated the room, making it appear relatively fancy and elegant. My curiosity drew me towards the closet with a lock on it. I looked down at it, seeing it was already opened. "Well, that's weird?" I frowned. Removing the lock carefully, I opened the closet hesitatingly. Tons of letters, books, and clothes rambled out, falling to the floor. "Not as neat inside here as the room, I see," I chuckled weakly. The clothes had formed weirdly after staying in the closet for too long, I could see by the lines that went across the hoodies. "This certainly can't be Alex's room," I said, shaking my head. I quickly looked through the envelopes but found it too time craving to read the letters inside. After fiddling with all the envelopes, I rushed to get the clothes back into the closet along with them. The reason why was that my interest had moved to something else - a book at the back of the closet. I grabbed ahold of the book, closing the closet. I moved closer to the bed with slow steps, wiping away some excess dust off of the front side of the book. There were carved uneven letters into the leather cover of the book, spelling out the name 'Jayden'. Right after reading the final letter, I heard the door open and before I managed to turn around completely, I was pushed forwards, falling onto the bed behind me.