Forever Hers | 18+

C h a p t e r 10

When that failed and he just held onto my elbow instead, I moved to slap him, snapping whatever collectedness he had left inside.

Alec moved as fast as a viper as he tugged me onto my back on the bed, pinning my left wrist beside my head as he hovered over my seething body.

I could tell he was battling between shouting at me and just leaving entirely, but what he actually chose to do was so much worse.

"Oh, so now you throw a fit just because you're ready to finally talk. Fine." He glared, even as he looked down at how close his lips were to mine as he spoke. "You should feel sorry for yourself because the Madelyn I know would have never let herself get to the state you're in now." He says, holding me down as my hips try to buck him away from me.

When my struggle ended with me nearly kissing him from how close he hovered, I stilled, not needing that kind of complication right now.

It had to have been a few hours since I last passed out, but Alec didn't seem like he'd slept at all during that time. He did, however, seem to have the time to smoke, something I wanted to reprimand him for.

At least turning the attention on him would avert just how close he was getting to a topic he shouldn't be diving into.

"You should feel sorry for yourself, because if you could see the condition your feet are in underneath those bandages, I would hope to see you horrified, because I am. You should be scared at how little concern you seem to have at the fact you were shot and have torn your stitches at least three different times now and haven't bothered to take care of yourself."

"Alec, stop." I say, twisting my head away as he shoots up off of me, letting go of my hand and trying to cover up the fact that like me, he was shaking with a lot more than just anger.

He didn't make me look at him, but I did it anyways, sitting back up and awkwardly trying to fix the too loose hoodie overtop of my body.

"What, you don't want me to tell you about the fact that you look sick right now? You have cuts on the insides of your hands from where your nails dig into when you're stressed or scared. You're telling me I have no right to care about you when you were kidnapped a year ago with no news as to whether you were dead or alive? No right to find you better clothes because the sight of your blood makes me nauseous because that means you were hurt in the first place?"

I shook as he spoke, each word tearing deeper and deeper into wounds that had been reopened in a matter of seconds from how he was looking at me alone.

I didn't know what to say as my chest rose and fell faster and faster, shaking my head back and forth because that's all I could do.

I hated him for keeping me here when I couldn't do anything but listen, wishing things would've just gone how I'd planned.

Nina was safe now, and she hadn't been harmed for a single second that it took to get her out of the Keep and into one of the many beds in this place.

They should have let me go, but they didn't. Now that I was here, what purpose did I have when there was nothing left for me?

"Let me go." I sniffled, my senses on even higher alert as Caleb knocked softly at the door, a plate of food in his hand and a conflicted expression across his face. "I don't care which one of you assholes does it. Get this handcuff off of me." I demand, righting myself and using it as a distraction to the tears that threatened to spill.

I had no intentions of acknowledging what Alec had just said to me, or how true I knew it was.

My methods are what have kept me alive up until now. He didn't get to criticize me when I could smell hints of tobacco all over his body.