Elias

| thirty-eight |

A/N: Will edit for spelling/grammatical errors.

Elias's POV (continued)

I woke up violently in the cold dawn of the morning, I had accidentally fallen asleep by Ambrosia. My flower remained quietly her head resting on a pillow beside me. Adjusting my stiff body, I rolled my shoulders back and squinted in the darkness of the shed. 

I crept outside and locked the door before walking carefully making my way along the dirt path back to the house. Instead of going through the back porch, I made my entrance from the side garage door. I quickly rushed back up into my room and stripped myself of the bloody and torn clothing I had on before rewarding my frozen limbs with the warm water of the shower.

I studied the lines of water carrying Ambrosia's dried blood off from my body and into the metal drain, it was almost hypnotic, and as I finished cleaning myself a hard knock came from the other side of my bedroom door. 

"Hold on," I replied. 

I stepped out of the shower and toweled myself dry before pulling on a new shirt and pants. Daniel pushed open the door as I reached to unlock it and stood in front of me with a suspicious look.  

"You're up early," he announced. 

"Yeah I—," my thoughts swung back and forth as I tried to gather up a reasonable excuse, "—I didn't burn all her stuff."

Daniel licked his dry lips and raised his brows in a nonchalant manner. "Yeah I know, I-I came to help you with the rest, I started the fire already so let's go," Daniel said with a hard nod before turning to walk away. 

I grabbed a jacket that had been flung over one of the chairs in my room before sliding out and following him.  We both entered into Ambrosia's room and my body tensed up profoundly as my mind wandered to the countless times I had been in here. 

From the very beginning of helping her set her bags into the very end of sharing the same bed. I had been so engrossed with these thoughts that I hadn't realized Daniel was staring at me.

"You alright man?" Daniel questioned. 

I only nodded and began to grab some of her things from the floor and shoved them into large black garbage bags that had been set in the corner of the room. The coverup of Ambrosia's "murder" had begun.

After an hour and a half of cleaning Ambrosia's room had been completely cleared of any remnants of her being. If this house wasn't tied to her or her father's name, Ambrosia's existence here would be untraceable. 

 We took everything that belonged to her along with bedsheets, towels, and any handwritten documents of hers. We dragged the bags downstairs and past the kitchen where the maid was preparing breakfast. Dismissing the intolerable groan of my stomach I continued on behind Daniel who led me out from the back patio and along a similar pathway that I had used to get from the shed to the house. 

Daniel diverged off of the path and brought me to a small open field beside the eastern outskirts of the woods where the crackling of his large bonfire had been awaiting us. I admired the amber flames as they licked the air dangerously threatening any living thing in its perimeter. 

Daniel was the first to throw his bag into the flames and wiped his brow gesturing for me to do the same. I replicated his actions without hesitation despite the stinging of disgust and regret of how steady I truly felt about this matter. 

It was if I had done it all before.

"How did you make this fire so quickly?" I asked suddenly.