Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗞ai sat with his back pressed to the drywall, legs tucked underneath his body. One hand numbly ran across the undersides of his blue Converse, much too lost in thought to care that his shoes were on the bed, while the other absentmindedly flipped a butterfly knife around his knuckles.
His eyes, fully equipped with weighted bags that exceeded twenty pounds, mounted to the plain, white wall that stood erected on the other side of his childhood bedroom. Just a door and a foot of hallway between him and the room that held memories of the person promised to him since birth—a wall separating the same oxygen he currently inhaled in a different flavor.
Three weeks ago his life came to a screeching halt.
Everything he thought he knew about life flipped inside out, turned upside down, leaving its jumbled remains to crash down. A shower curtain made of silk dreams and faux desires dropped around him as if he were standing in the center of a bubble that suddenly went pop.
Decisions forced his mind to spiral; actions led him to spend half a night in county jail.
Stupid.
It was So. Stupid.
The look of his parent's knowing faces from behind bars was ingrained in his head.
He hadn't expected it—he truly convinced himself that after growing up under their turned-out umbrella of disgrace and disappointment, he could've come prepared. He thought his inevitable consequences would leave him half-dead, not buried fucking alive.
Surprise to no one, he was wrong.
As always, Malakhi Alveréz would choose the path of no return—the path dimly lit by a series of what-ifs and confusions, rather than the perfectly paved, brightly lightened route.
Agent M03578, report to the Medical Wing. Agent M03578, report to the Medical Wing.
Kai's eyes peeled themselves a millimeter off their pointed gaze as his ears tuned into the speakers in his rooms, as well as the ones that lined the exterior. Under normal circumstances, a soldier was to report to the head counsel the moment his or her identification number was announced—but his life, his choices, and his ass firmly planted to this bed were anything but normal.
This had been the fifth summons in the last twenty minutes—he would reap the repercussions at a later date; preferably one of his own choosing.
He hated catering to his parent's needs.
Ignoring it as planned, he inched over just enough to withdraw his phone from his back pocket. As his fingers grazed the mix of plastic and glass, reality found its way to steer his controls, forcing him up and out of the hole in his heart.
After he was bailed out, and after a lengthy screaming match in front of the entire station, he was dragged out of the country, coerced to continue existing in his wonderful home country, the UK. While the AAC had always been special to him, the longer his stay here extended, the more every detail reminded him that he used to walk the halls with a mirror.
