t a y l o r
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Sometimes you have to stop being scared and just go for it. Either it will work out, or it won't. That's life.
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I fucking believed her.
She made me believe her.
What. A. Dick.
I couldn't ignore the way she made me feel, as though my stomach was constantly aflame. Tiny sparks igniting my skin.
She's fire.
And I guess I was always destined to get burned.
Her parents.
I can understand siblings, they get under anyone's skin. But parents? No matter what they do, they made you you.
She was right when she said I don't know nothing about her.
I really don't.
Just when I thought I had her somewhat figured out, she goes and sends me back to the start all again.
"ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING ME?!"
I flinch as she storms into my room, a baseball bat in her hand and a bag in the other.
"You trashed my room?" She screams, raising her eyebrows in question. She drops the bag. "Guess I'll have to return the favor."
I stay silent, at least until she begins smashing shit up.
What the fuck are you doing?!" I shout back at her, backing away from her as my mirror crashes to the ground and glass goes everywhere. "You're fucking crazy."
"You're right, I am crazy. But you know what else? I don't give a fuck." The bat swings again, this time hitting, and destroying, my bedside table.
"Stop it!"
"You ruined my room. You ruined my stuff. Stuff from my childhood, shit that meant stuff to me." The closet follows next. "Karma's a motherfucking bitch."
"You need to calm dow-"
"No! You need to stay in your fucking lane and stop involving yourself in my business. You wanna know something? Fucking ask me." She pointed the bat at me now, a sharp and dangerous collision between a fire and an ocean appeared in her irises.
"Then calm down, I didn't touch your room." Hesitation appears in her gaze at my words, "It was Devil."
She turns her head on me, the realisation hurting her. Astrid's voice breaks, "None of you know shit."
"Why'd you kill them?" I ask, despite secretly knowing I wouldn't receive an answer.
She just moves to sit on my bed.
I think for a moment, considering what could get me the most answers. "What was your childhood like?"
She paused for a second. "Suffocating."
My brows furrow, "That's an unusual choice of words."
"I never had a choice in what I had to do." She said, still not looking at me. "I had to make sacrifices and do things I didn't want to, all so I could survive. I was put in impossible situations, faced with the most unlikely of things."
"You're not the sort of person who does things they don't agree with." I say lightly, knowing that she wasn't one to give in easy.
I mean, no one's ever come into my room with a baseball bat before.
"I'm not." She shrugs, failing to act nonchalant. "Life's a lot harder when you're forced to do things you don't agree with."
Ah, don't I know.
"Devil didn't mean to hurt you, Arry." I tell her, because I felt like I owed it to Devil and myself. She'd built a good relationship with him, one that Devil didn't allow to happen as often as we'd like.
He keeps himself to himself. I remember Dylan literally forcing him into a friendship, and Alexi's persistence.
Friendship with Devil Keller didn't come easy, so imagine everyone's surprise when the new girl managed to connect with him.
"He's hurt. He'd never admit it but he'd do anything to see his parents again, even if it was for just a few seconds. The fact that you killed yours shocked all of us, especially as none of us see a logical reason of why."
"I don't care if you're hurt. You can't judge me when you've killed a shit load of people. It's not fair." She trails off, shaking her head.
"I can't do this." My voice breaks, I hold my head in my hands.
She's taken aback. Probably assuming, like all the others, I experience little to no emotion.
I might be a gangster, but I am still human.
People know me for my callousness. My ability to switch off all traces of humanity.
But reputations are made from the streets, not from the people who know me.
"Excuse you?"
"I can't do this, I'm sorry. I thought I could, but I can't."
"Because I killed my Mom and Dad?"
"It's not just that, is it?" Her head tilted to the side, "You're scared."
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I don't answer her. I blink, diverting my gaze away.
She stands up suddenly and stalks towards me until she was finally directly in front of my face.
"What are you so afraid of?!" Her words bleed with hurt and confusion, and my body aches with the desire to hold her. I fight it off.
"You." I breathe out.
"Me?" She says, shocked.
"You. Me. This. Us. It's scares me." I admit quietly. "I shouldn't like you."
"Do you not think it scares me?!" Her eyes widen at my words, lacing her own with disbelief. "How can we ever face the fear unless we try it?"
"I....I.."
She silences me, gripping my shirt, pulling me down and pressing my lips against hers. She tasted like vodka and mint combined together, but I wasn't complaining and neither was she. My hand unconsciously found its way into her hair as our lips parted and her tongue pushed into my mouth.
She made it hard for me to think.
She was making it hard for me to breathe.
Pulling away slightly, her lips danced gracefully against my skin and my mind got lost in the pure ecstasy that she made me feel.
Her kisses were like fire, leaving marks effortlessly across my skin as she burnt down every wall I had ever formed. Her taste lingers on my lips, the sparks still consuming my entire body.
"You still scared?" Her breath tickles my lips, and my dick hardens on instinct.
Fuck.
I mouth No to her. Our eyes meeting.
Forest Green to Steel Blue.
Ice to Fire.
And with those eyes, those eyes that were currently consumed with desire and passion, she could have easily set the sky on fire, but she chose to burn me instead
***
I walked into the Game Room, instantly catching Dylan's eyes as he attempts to throw Cheetos into a sleeping Devil's mouth while balancing an empty beer can on his forehead.
"I've known you for a whole 2 years and you still don't strike me as a callous criminal."
He cracks a grin at my sentence, taking the can off his head. "Guess that's what makes me so good at it."
"You're the only one who could ever get away with doing that." I nod my head, gesturing towards Devil's cheeto covered form.
"Why do you think he always tries to provoke him?" River cuts in, sitting next to Dylan with Shae tagging along next to him. "He just tries to prove little Devil's a big old softie."
Dylan's eyes stay on my face, analysing my reaction carefully. "What happened with you and Astrid?"
"None of your business." I sit down across for them, cracking my knuckles.
Yet Dylan narrows his eyes at my answer, a knowing glimmer illuminating his iris'. "It's cute that you think anything to do with our darling Third is anything but my business. Now why don't you answer the question? How was it?"
"It was alright." I answer simply, physically stopping my lips from pulling themselves upwards.
Shae threw his fist into the air, a look of delight suddenly etching its way onto his face. "Pay up bitches! I won!"
Complete confusion consumed my entire body once I heard the collective groans of those who had obviously lost echo throughout the house.
"You had a bet?" I raise my eyebrows, "On what?!"
"Whether you and Astrid would spontaneously make out." River replies without hesitation, "Jokes, it was how long it'd take you and Astrid to start speaking again."
"And who bet what?"
"Shae, Xander and Alexi bet two hours. Me, Dylan, Sawyer and Oli bet one day. The others bet two days or more." River huffs, disheartened by Shae's smug expression.
"Bunch of dickheads."