Rejection on the Alpha #1

34. Cleared Of The Red Smoke

My nose twitches, "That shouldn't matter to you. Your focus is to right the wrongs left in this forsaken place, not to check on me and feign worry." I instruct.

His shoulders slouch, "Okay." He stares at his ring, fiddling with it. I bristle, now he's making me look like the bitch. He made me who I was because of his personality before this. I make a mental note to research just what was in that serum, if it was more than what Kade had described. It's dead silent between us, so I stand and was about to step away when he stands abruptly.

"Please don't go, I—we haven't talked in a while. We don't even need to talk, you're just never...here." He blurts out. Staring at me pleadingly. I glare at him, pointing to just sit back down and leave it alone. He steps forward, I tense where I stand and he stills, seeing it. He lowers back onto the bench seat.

I purse my lips and fold my arms, moving around him, I sit and he straightens. For the longest of time, we say nothing before he moves and drops to his knees in front of me. I roll my lips in and face away when he drops his head on my knee, relaxing. I stare at his bent head.

"I wouldn't blame you if you told me to 'fuck off'." He says to the air around us.

"Do you feel like a puppet in your own skin?" I ask him, ignoring the statement that was targeted at all his wrongdoings with me. I couldn't capture the sincerity in his voice, I'd already known and felt still of what he's done to me. Maybe he's now seeing the cruelty of it, but this was no enemies-to-lovers kind of story, not between him and me. He was a cruel, devilled son of a bitch and I...was a damaged unknown to myself and to the world, but no one, not even me, would ever call me a weak, powerless ruin. I was no virus, I didn't infect the way Martin did before.

He shakes his head against me, "I did when I hurt you." He confesses.

I look at him, "What do you mean?"

He straightens the hem of the dress, "I hated it, it hurt every time I hurt you but I couldn't stop it until that car ride, until I dozed off and it stopped. Everything just stopped and while I felt different the moment we arrived, I had still acted the same, but so much had changed. Felt like the world had lifted off my shoulders and the pain—it was there, but it wasn't repulsed like it use to be. Like I had to reject the pain to show strength." His words made me listen and gosh did I hate to listen to Nicolai Matin Darkling.

My tormentor, the reason for my hatred and yet here he was letting his emotions to settle on the surface of a lone ocean that I'm only now seeing in the clearing of the red smoke that he had over him when I first met him.

With that first rejection.

And everything that came after it.

"Who taught you that?" Who made you the monster you are today?

He had no answer for me on that one, just moved his head back down and I narrow my eyes, "You made yourself that monster before you even met me." I mutter, his eyes and head trail up and before I knew it, he had me caged between his arms, looking down to me. Those silver irises had streaks of black forming out of the pupil like lightning, before they strike red like red smoke in a storm.

I sit up and force his form to straighten too, "I would be extremely careful about what you say or do next—"

He fiercely slams his lips onto mine. A desperate attempt to raise or Elliot some sort of feeling in me. Cupping my cheek, one against the back of my neck. It's a heavy dance, only this time it wasn't dominance from him, it was a faint-hearted boy looking for forgiveness when I couldn't ever give it to him. His hand smooths down my shoulder, my arm, to my waist as he pulls me closer. I pull my lips back as I look up at him, all these months, I still didn't feel it. He presses his forehead to mine, "All I've wanted was for you to just look at me and say yes."