The Worst Kind of Wonderful

Chapter TWENTY ONE

✖️The Worst Kind of Wonderful✖️

"Half the joy of life

is in little things taken on the run...

but let us keep our hearts young

and our eyes open that nothing

worth our while shall escape us."

-Victor Cherbuliez

Chapter Twenty One~

Do you ever feel like a time bomb? Ignoring your own unreadable countdown to the day when you either self destruct or crumble into the person everyone else wants you to be? My whole life I couldn't hear the ticking, I was deaf to it, and then along came Alexander with his bright eyes and allergy to trust. Along came Xander with the pieces to a puzzle I'd thought I'd already solved.

He was a trip, really: a slave to his ways who was just starting to break free the same way I'd been, but he was my kind of perfect. He was my kind of wonderful and I could see it in his eyes when he gave me with that look of hardened innocence, I knew he felt it too. And now, as I half ran, half fell, down the stairs to Hell I began to hate it. I began to hate the bond because it hurt him in ways I never brought myself to think about before.

"Benjamin?" I whispered, my voice mauled by a sob that coated my throat but never quite surfaced. The jail still smelled of rot and lost hope and that stiff sourness wouldn't let me go, the ceiling was still riddled with lanterns and lamps and torches to light those treacherous steps, but I could only process his distant presence like a barely-noticeable beacon in the dark.

Down the hall: those echoing steps, I heard the voice. His voice. "Mia!" He cried like a last word.

"Keep your voice down, they don't know I'm here." I whispered with a ferocity that cut the terror from my tone.

"There's something wrong with Lacy!" He spit the words like vomit.

"Okay, I'm letting you out." I soothed, ignoring the meaning beside those rancid words as I approached his cage. There was rust and decay and lost love and hope. I couldn't breathe or think under the weight of his prison.

"Finally someone with half a brain to think with." He tried to contain his erratic emotions with words that were meant to be funny, they sunk like stones meant to float. "Do you have a plan?"

"Two actually: we could bolt now and have everyone on the hunt for us but save ourselves from trying to be discrete, or hide you until an opportune moment arises then leave."

"Where?"

"Wherever you lead us: to Lacy. But first to Alexander."

"Alexander?"

"He's a friend and he's in serious danger." I was crying now, like a lost child, as I fumbled with the key to Ben's release bloodied fingers, cut on silver, slipping over metal.

"If your friend is in danger..." He paused and I knew instantly that what he was about to say would wreak havoc on him emotionally. "If your friend is in danger we should wait." Relief washed over me. If Benjamin of all people could think rationally about this, then I could too. I had too. Iron key scraped against silver lock, the precious metal occasionally brushing and burning my fingers but eventually I found success and heard that sweet, euphoric click. The door swung open with a moan that had been trapped, only now escaping after years of nothing.

"I think that's wise." I breathed at his silence. The door was open now. There was only empty space between us and he eyed it like fearsome beast, caught in headlights. Was this thing before him, this freedom, to be a source of terror or was it his prey?