Well, HI THERE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE? I'm wondering how you all are because I live a very disgraceful lifestyle. You know, no discipline to update and write and sleep and eat and just little things like that. Nothing life threatening, just...I graduated high school! Whoop whoop! It's not an enormous accomplishment but I'm glad to be done. Really glad.
ANYWHO, how about a new chapter? Eh? EH?!
Enjoy. :)
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Chapter 15: On His Terms
"Hold on, hold on. Dead? Like double dead? Or just dead?"
"Aaron."
"Because dead dead means six feet under or something normal like that. Dead means they're walking around somewhere trying to kill other survivors."
"Most likely the first one, possibly the second."
"What is that supposed to mean? You don't just declare that your parents are dead and then say, 'well, maybe not, Aaron, I just think so.'" He threw in a shrug for effect.
"I didn't say that. Most likely and possibly imply a majority. A lot of my belief is placed on those assumptions. Most likely they're 'double dead', and possibly dead and trying to kill survivors."
"Scarlett. With you, they aren't assumptions. Extremely reasonable guesses maybe, but not assumptions. Talk to me. Just talk, period."
"I have nothing to talk about."
"You and I both know that's not true. I'm asking you to tell me-"
"I'm telling you no."
Aaron turned away from me and started rifling through cabinets.
"Of course you are."
I could see the countertop being covered with vegetables and pasta boxes.
"Because confiding in me would be catastrophic."
Why do you have to be so stubborn? If he wants to know stuff about you, you should at least try to let him know that stuff!
Here we go.
I mean, really, it took you long enough to admit that you thought he was a rugged beauty, but now you don't even want to try and tell him about yourself?
I never wanted to tell him anything about myself. Whatever he knows is because I haven't managed to develop an off button for Victorian's mouth.
He's just asking you to talk to him.
I sighed and opened my mouth.
"My father was a Navy rear admiral and my mother was a cardiologist. Top of the line fields for a top of the line couple. No one could tell them Hell had finally frozen over if they didn't want to hear it."
Aaron chuckled.
"Especially my father. When I was recruited for the experiment, it was supposed to be something that I would have had control over. Being in the Marines meant I had managed to get out from under my parents' thumb for a second. Just for a second."
"Is that where your problem with authority comes from?"
I cocked an eyebrow at Aaron. What problem with authority?
"It's been made extremely clear, verbally or not, that you don't like to be commanded by anyone. Ever."
"You've known me all of less than seven days. You don't have an ounce of an idea as to what I have a problem with."
"Again, with this whole time thing, huh?" Aaron set fettuccine to boil.
"Look, I don't have a problem with authority. I have a problem with liars, and I have an even bigger problem with the fact that my parents were liars."
I wasn't stopping now. He wanted to know why I hated them? Why I spoke of them in past tense?
"I killed them."
His back was to me now, but his arms stopped moving around the stove. "You killed them," he said.
I gave a quick nod of my head.
"The parental Blakes don't walk the earth anymore...because of their youngest?"
He continued to stare at me but I said nothing. I had no idea where he was going with the repetition.
"I don't believe that," he said quickly as he rebooted and dug through cabinets.
I scoffed. "It's fortunate that nothing actually relies on you believing it, then."
He turned around and cut me a look that clearly told me he wasn't buying it. Even if there was nothing to be bought.
"Please. You saying that your parents are dead is a cop-out of an answer as much as it is a lie."
"And you rationalized that, how?"
"No rationalization. It's a gut feeling."
"Oh, that's something you can rely on completely."
"I could rely on facts if you would just give me some."
I stared at him. Big Guy just didn't get it.
"Aaron, I've told you about my life and previous aspirations. I've told you about things I had no idea were my favorite things. I've told you about Blythe. I didn't even want to give you those. I can't just continue to spew the inner workings of my mind to you."
"I don't see how you could tell me about Blythe," he started, placing chicken into a pan. It sizzled and popped, mimicking the fury I knew was bound to begin tumbling around in my chest.
"And yet, with your parents, you give me absolutely nothing." He lifted a jar and Alfredo sauce poured out, filling the pan and muting the sizzling.
Like placing a band-aid over a bleeding cut.
I shook my head. "That was, and remains, a completely different situation. I care about Blythe."
"So you're telling me that you don't care about your parents?"
"If I answer no, does this interrogation end?"
Aaron stepped away from the stove and stopped in front of me. "If you tell me no, the interrogation intensifies."
"And saying yes produces the same result."
He glanced up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. "Are you asking or telling me?"
"Both."
"Yes. Same result. Scarlett, I'm not badgering just because," he grasped my shoulders as I made moves to step away.
"I'm not. You keep pulling out the same trump card: I haven't known you long enough; I don't know anything about you. But I can't because you haven't told me anything other than how well you can tell time and how harmless you think King Elizabeth is."
"He is harmless. Really." I would have laughed if the situation had called for it.
"Completely beside my point. You want me to stop treating you like I'm attached to you? Like I don't care? Like I don't want to get to know you? Okay."
The weight of his hands left my shoulders and I watched him go back to the stove.
I wasn't going to let him guilt-trip me into this. Blythe was a no-no and he got her in no time flat. There was no way he could have my parents too, no matter how much I despised them. My pride wouldn't let him.
"Somehow, scaling the walls you put up is harder than surviving in the world that we do, Scarlett."
He walked through the kitchen doorway and left.
This wasn't going to be my error. I don't know anything about Aaron; I'm obligated to answer anything he asks?
Well, it's not as if you've tried to get to know him! You don't want to ask questions, and you don't want him to ask questions. You have managed to put yourself in a no-win situation.
I didn't want him to act like he didn't care, though, because then he actually wouldn't.
My body turned the corner of the kitchen and I smacked into Jarvis' chest.
"Ooh, Mademoiselle, apologies, apologies!" he yelled as he steadied me on my feet. "Aaron said ten minutes and I'd be able to eat. I might have broke into a run as I went downstairs."
I waved a hand and shook my head. "Don't worry about it, Jarvis."
"I wouldn't worry about it if Aaron also hadn't stormed right past me. When he asked us to leave you two alone, I assumed it was to better whatever it is the two of you have going on."
All I could do was offer a noncommittal shrug.
"He's agitated, but I take it you already know that."
I nodded.
"He's up in his suite. Probably punching something." Jarvis gave me a long look and went into the kitchen.
"They're exactly alike," I muttered. Only Jarvis hadn't managed to frustrate me on all ends of the spectrum.
Standing in front of Aaron's door again just proved how tightly wound the tension was between he and I. One minute we were killing zombies and, the next, wanting to kill one another.
I turned the knob and opened the door with no warning. Aaron was laying on his back, hands perched under his head like he hadn't a care in the world.
He opened one eye and glanced at me before shutting it back. "What do you need?"
A different predicament. My sister back in my life. Space from your Van Shackle life invasion.
"That's a good question..." I moved into the room and closed the door.
"Scarlett-"
"I don't know anything about you. And I keep giving and giving tidbits about myself. More than tidbits."
"You haven't asked me anything about myself, Miss Lieutenant."
See!
"Honestly, anything you ask, I'll spill. But something tells me that you don't really want to know anything."
"Of course I want to learn things about you, but I don't want to force myself to do that. It won't matter!" I blurted out. "Genuine curiosity matters. You possess that."
Aaron was sitting up now, staring at me.
"Two of the superiors were my parents. I'm sure they had that orchestrated purposefully," I said quietly. "The first horde attack happened the day I was dropped off. That's why there was a car."
"Right, and now you're here."
My fists twitched at the memories. "My parents couldn't stand me. Not really. When I was younger, my father was much nicer. Comforting. My mother was...my mother. Constantly a floor of eggshells that I walked on. "
More often than not, I felt she was the floor and not a mother.
"She emigrated to the United States from Nigeria for the same reason plenty of young adults did: schooling. She had studied biochemistry at Johns Hopkins before proceeding to medical school–and had met my father somewhere along the way. Fast forward some years and you have Blythe and I. In front of others, Vivienne Ikandé-Blake was the ever-expected military wife and mother. Proud of the success of her husband and children. If you locked the doors and drew the blinds, though, you were dealing with someone who never considered anyone else's thoughts or emotions."
"And dear old dad?"
"Abraham Blake was different. While my mother was outwardly explosive and dramatic, my father was cold and calculating. Like the military leader he had chosen to be. If you crossed or insulted him, he would return the favor tenfold."
"I'm guessing he felt that you were someone who fell under either of the two."
I met Aaron's eyes. "I was increasingly disobedient; a loose cannon, and, worst of all, I wasn't Blythe. I could be punished. My assumption is that if I wasn't going to be the daughter they wanted me to be, I would be an offered guinea pig. I was the first soldier tested."
"The injections."
The ponytail I had my hair in wasn't doing me any good. More sweat was gathering at the nape of my neck the angrier I got.
"I had unknowingly walked right back into their domain. Their control. And when I was allowed a field exercise, I took advantage. There was a horde and I was in a car full of people who couldn't defend themselves. A car full of people who believed I would protect them and risk my life for theirs."
I raised my fist and slammed it into the wall.
"So I didn't."
Echoes of anguished cries and gasps rang in my ears.
"You didn't expect them to defend you?"
"I was fighting to protect myself. Not once did I lift a hand to save anyone else."
I remembered my mother yelling my name in fear and helplessness; it was a drastic shift from her standard condescending and discouraging way.
"SCARLETT! PLEASE! THEY'RE COMING! PLEASE!"
She only got louder as I moved further away from her. More desperate.
"Not soon enough, the horde had diffused. I'd let them do whatever they wanted to anyone that wasn't me. Bodies were red with blood and torn apart. My mother was one of them."
She wouldn't control me if she wasn't breathing. She couldn't.
"You didn't kill them, Scarlett. Their blood isn't on your hands." Aaron was trying to reason with me.
"Of course it's not on my hands," I started. "It's on my conscience. I didn't cut them down, yet I made no attempt to the stop the things that did. That makes me responsible, direct blows withstanding."
"Did you find their bodies?" Aaron's eyes were wide with incredulity.
"Whatever was part of Vivienne, yes. Nothing of my father's, though—and it wasn't for a lack of trying. I searched. Hard."
Aaron stood up beside his bed. "Which means?"
I wasn't feeling guilty for wanting to remain Pandora's Box. All the malice and faults that floated around in my bloodstream should be kept out of a world doomed enough.
"As horrible as a father he became, he was brilliant. Staying in an impossibly convenient motel has made the idea of his survival more than a possibility."
I didn't want to speak it into existence because that meant somewhere on the planet, Abraham still had a grip on me.
"The man might live and breathe, Scarlett."
He gestured for me to come to him and opened his arms. I banded my mine around his torso.
"I'm hoping that's not a fact," I responded.
"Could be blissful denial," Aaron chuckled.
"Maybe, but Abraham wasn't someone who did things by accident. Dead or alive, it's on his terms."
"So?" he prompted, moving his hands down to my waist.
"It's likely. I've never met a person as stubborn."
"Pot calling the kettle black, I think, Miss Lieutenant." But he squeezed me anyway.
"Is that enough soul-baring for you? Because I'm not due for anymore familial woes."
Aaron just kissed the top of my head. "Whenever you're ready to ask questions, " he said simply.
"Whenever you're ready."
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I AM BACK AND IS ANYONE ELSE CRYING FROM HAPPINESS?
Keep flossing,
Love,
Swaggerwithwords