IGNITE

15

Dinner that night was stressful. Before we had sat down he had spent the remainder of the day showing me the house. A four bedroom ranch style. It was gorgeous. And it was hard to contain my excitement but there was just so much going on in my head. I didn't know what to think or do. When we were sitting at the table for a few moments in awkward silence, Axel finally spoke.

"This happened before I knew you, you know that right?" He questioned me. I knew it did. Because he had been with me almost every waking moment ever since but I still felt betrayed. I still felt like he had done something that I could never forgive.

Axel had forgone on extravagance and ordered Chinese. The little white boxes stood in front of us neither of us eating. "I don't know what you want me to do,Len. I'm trying. I get it, Corrine is a major setback in our relationship but I can't marry you next week if you're going to act like I did all of this on purpose. I would never hurt you," he implores.

I'm not sure how to respond. So many things had changed in the 5 months that had passed by. Seasons changed. Two houses burnt. I was poisoned and almost killed. Axel was going to be a dad. My brain couldn't grasp the idea that life moved on even when I did want it too.

Deep down I feel like he's punched me in the stomach. He's not the same Axel I met on my first day of work. He's changed and I'm not sure that I can handle everything that comes after the "I do's."

I'm not the crying type. But I can feel the tears threatening to fall. "What's happening to us?" He asks me. I look up at him. Ever since that stupid party. When he let me go when he should have made me stay I've been treating him like crap. My mind is conflicted shouting at me that he loves me then making me think that he doesn't. That its just a ploy. "I'm going to leave Now" I whisper and I push the chair back from the table.

Axels face turned red.  "This is stupid and you know it Lenna!" He yells at me. He quickly stands and is in front of me. "You need to understand that life is going to be a bitch and is going to throw obstacles at us. But PLEASE I know you've been through a lot you just need to trust me!" He pleads.

I wipe tears from my eyes. Not a crying type my ass. "Ill admit I didn't like the idea of this stupid arranged marriage. You aggravate me to no end. You drive me insane. Half the time I'm with you I want to strangle you because you say stupid things and the other half of the time I want to hold you because you're breaking my heart in two by crying," he explains. He steps closer to me and grabs my wrists pulling me in so I was flush against him. He leans in and kisses me between my eyebrows. My entire body, as usual, ignites in flames and I forget what my hormones are bitching about and I just let myself feel.

"But the second we started planning this god forsaken wedding it got real and so did my feelings. They changed Lenna. They changed from attraction to love in seconds. Completely knocking me for a loop. Head or heels be damned you had me...have me...doing back flips and front flips and handstands. You're all I want and all I need." He tells me. I can feel my heart in my chest skip beats. I remember asking myself what idiot willingly falls in live and just then I realized I found my answer. The idiot that willingly falls in love is that idiot that can't live a single second without their other half. The idiot that willingly falls in love is the idiot that likes the flow of their name with their significant others...like a unit...like one person.  The idiot that willingly falls in love is the idiot who forgives every past discrepancy and welcomes with open arms any future mistakes. That idiot is me.

I am his. And he is mine.

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My head hurt. The pain was excruciating. Stealing away my breath. I tried to open my eyes and it took a few tries. They felt as if they were glued shut. When they finally opened nothing was in focus. As if I was looking through a non focused camera lens. I blinked a few times. Trying to clear my vision. And when I did I wished I had just kept my eyes closed.

Rhett was laying next to me. His head propped up on his hand. We were on a bed but whose and where I didn't know. "You're hard to kill you know that?" He asked smiling. "Valerie was sure that the arsenic would have been enough. I mean we injected you with it for gods sake. But you're just to stubborn to die" he snapped.

I tried to move but my body felt as if it was trapped in ice. Frozen. "You see Lenna, you've been in my way for quite some time now. You've been innocently playing cat and mouse with people you don't want to play that game with. Dominic is ruthless...much like myself but Valerie is smart and Paige...dear cute little Paige...she the real Oscar Winner. pretending to be your friend. When her wish is just like all of ours. We want you dead. You are of no use to us alive!" He cries out as he suddenly flips himself so he's straddling my hips.

I can't speak. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. A dream? An overly active stimulation response of my worst nightmare. Or maybe....maybe this wasn't exactly a dream.

I look around the room...horrible yellow shag carpets fill the room. Paige was horrible with interior design. "I loved you once you know," Rhett told me running his finger from my temple down the left side of my face down my neck and around the outline of my breast. "I gave you the option to be with me. I begged and pleaded and demanded you to be with me. But you refused and your refusal is what ignited this...this feeling!" He scowls at me. "Its an odd thing...you not talking...are you even in there or are you dead already?" He asks. He leans his for head down so its touching mine and I shiver but he doesn't make a notion that he feels it.

"We have this all planned out you know," he says as he runs his lips across mine. "Kill you...blame it on Axel. And Dominic gets control of both companies. Maybe he will marry that stingy sister of yours...make Val his secret mistress and Paige and I the top dogs. I can see it now. After your death and Axels incarceration...both Sheridan and Filmore will just give up. Sheridan will sign over everything in grief...because the precious baby girl died by the hands of a crazy fiancee." He says laughing.

The room started to swirl. "Your lights are fading Len...I can see it in your dull and lifeless eyes. You won't feel a thing after this. Im Granting you a quicker and painless death ...better than the one you really deserve," he tells me, loathing seeping from between clenches teeth. He gets off me and my head pounds. My vision is edged with black.  "Sweet dreams sweetheart," he whispers in my ear and then I wake up screaming.

Axel is out of bed in moments gun drawn. "Why do you have a gun pointed at me!" I screech. This man was crazy! "Why were you screaming!" He demands. "Lower your gun!" I scream at him. "The safety was on" he mutters as he places it back on the bedside table and runs his hands through his hair and then he rubs his ryes. Trying to wipe the sleep from them. "I was dreaming...or well remembering I guess," I admit to him. He looks confused. "Remembering what? You're first time having sex because that scream was horrible...must have been a small and terrifying penis," Axel says. I roll my eyes. What happened to the cute and sentimental man from a few hours before?

"For your information I was remembering what Rhett was telling me...from before the drugs kicked in 100%...its all planned out between Dominic and Valerie and Paige and him. Kill me. Frame you. Well you get it." I say straying off the topic. I didn't want to re-witness what I already saw let alone talk about it. "Dominic doesn't have a mean bone in his body" Axel says. I look at him incredulously. "Are you kidding me? Do you not know who this Valerie person is? She's the one who picked the dosage of the Arsenic they injected me with! She's the real mastermind and your brother is in cohorts with her. I consider that a mean bone!" I snap. "Dom is stupid...but not dumb. He knows the risks he wouldn't be tied to people that could ruin his chance at becoming sole heir," Axel says. "That's the thing," I explain. "He's working with someone who can get rid of us both so he can have what he wants"

Axel looks at me as if he was just then truly understanding what I was saying. Then he frowns. "I need to go to the station," he says suddenly and them he slips on a pair of pants over his briefs...grabs a shirt and his jacket and keys and leaves me in the dark.

Much like I was leaving him.