Compelled ( 2nd book in the Forced Series)

Chapter 22

VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ.

I found out a couple of weeks ago that both Forced and Compelled were being uploaded on another website without my permission. I am all for sharing the stories but it disturbs me that my work could be taken and published without my permission on a website I know nothing about; and that by displaying my story the website managers are making money from advertisement. I am seriously considering taking down the stories and stop writing on free sites because if this can happen then I wonder about the safety of my work. I tried contacting the Wattpad team about it and I will try again but I just wanted to say this.

It's disturbing, to say the least . Please do NOT rewrite, publish or translate my stories, or anyone else's, without explicit permission.
**********************

~unedited~

"Here come the regrets. Here comes the; I wish I hadn't done it, I wish I hadn't said it, I wish that I could take it all back." – Here Come the Regrets by Epik High ft. Lee Hi

Chapter 22

Van regretted everything the minute they occurred. He regretted bringing the entire problem up, he regretted muttering his parting words and most of all he regretted leaving the minute he slammed the door of their black land cruiser and speed off down the road with only one thing on his mind; his favourite choice of poison, whisky.

His restless hands tapped aimlessly on the steering wheel, his guilt about leaving and driving eating away at him; all of which he ignored with the help of his death wish to consume the mind numbing stuff he was craving and hoping would take away his issues. Issues, he knew, would still be waiting for him when he came down from his high; if he came down from his high.

Immediately Van cursed at himself for even thinking that way. Of course he would come down. He knew he couldn't – and wouldn't – do that to Hazel. He had no plans to run away from her, he just needed to clear his head before they said or did anything that they would never be able to take back.

Like what he said when he left.

But that was why he was here, Van reasoned, to clear his head. Van pulled the tumbler of whisky the bartender had set down over two minutes before towards him, tilting it so that the tan liquid and melting ice cubes sloshed against the glass as he peered down into it.

Like any other night, neither the smell, look nor taste of the stuff made him feel any explicit way. He drank it for the burn going down his throat, and for the weightlessness. The whisky afforded him a hazy space in which he could be free of conscious thought and decisions; a commodity he could not have when he was stone cold sober and stewing on his list of a few thousand regrets.

And so Van turned the chilled glass to his head and swallowed what would be his second glass in one gulp. He replaced the tumbler to the bar top in a not too gentle manner and nestled his head in between his folded arms so that his forehead pressed on the cool surface.

Van mentally added to his list of regrets; he regretted drinking that first glass, and the second and the third that did not even approached the point of making him tipsy. So he ordered another, and sat staring at it, wondering if the fourth try would be the lucky number. When Zash lowered beside him he had just reached out to wrap his fingers around it. Zash snatched it from him, touching the glass to his lips and swallowing quickly before Van could form words.

He stared at his best friend for a moment, then finally muttered, "How did you find me?"

Zash eyed him reproachfully, shaking his head as if to rid himself of a thought and answered in an even tone, "Magic."