🎵...WHEN YOU'RE IN THE HALF LIGHT, IT IS NOT YOU I SEE,
AND YOU'LL LIVE A HALF LIFE, YOU ONLY SHOW HALF TO ME...🎵
***
OLIVIA
The very first time I remember bleeding was when I jumped from a treehouse to save my little brother's fall.
I can still remember the panic, the hopelessness I felt when I realized that he was going to fall from that high and might not survive. The seven-year-old me jumped without thinking. And she bled like no other.
Fourteen stitches to knees and a concussion. My brother, Elliot Oliver Becker thought that it was his fault and cried night after nights beside me. For years he didn't leave my side, afraid of me getting possibly hurt. Mom called me irresponsible and a brat, dad just...well daddy didn't come home even after a month passed from the accident. I thought that's what it was. That I was never going to experience such pain ever again.
Then I joined the law.
I got shot, punched, stabbed, tortured.
Elliot and I drifted apart. He got busy handling family business with dad. He started to hold on to every word mom said. Even the one where she disagreed with me. Especially me wanting to become an agent.
I don't want you hurt, Ela.
Don't do this.
This is your trauma talking.
He didn't even realize when his sister wasn't Ela anymore. He didn't feel the mocking tone in our mother's voice every time she talked to me. He didn't know me. Not really. When I became Agent Becker. When I became a heartless woman who enjoys pain and pleasure.
This doesn't suit you. This isn't you, sis.
I forgot what worried about your own safety is. I signed myself up for missions even Devon wouldn't approve. And I thought about how dying would feel like. Sometimes I thought maybe it will be like walking into a black hole with no light. Or maybe all I will see is light.
Anything was better than feeling this.
I didn't hope to feel the sudden buzz in my ears. I didn't mean to feel him behind me as I saw the blood dripping down from my open mouth, tired of getting air in my system. I didn't mean to feel the part darkness that consumed me. And then I definitely didn't want to hear disgruntled voices blending into each other. I didn't intend to feel hands all over me.
Hot.
Like molten lava has been dropped all over me. Is that how it feels like to be dead? Then I didn't want to die. It was too painful to be just walking into heaven or hell. I hear more voices, then a...shock?
"She's not responding, fuck!"
I am. I am responding. I am screaming to get out of this hell. I'm fucking terrified that I will be stuck in this place forever. I am tired of running around trying to find the door to escape. More voices fill into the void place but only one sticks to me.
"I'm so fucking sorry."
Sorry?
Why would anyone be sorry?
Just open your eyes. One part of me screams. Just try.
I want to. All I have to do is try. And it almost works. Almost. Right before even that voice vanishes leaving me to wail inside a hell I was never going to escape from...
***
Pain.
White blinded pain erupts in me when I am shaken awake. No, not shaken. Sounds. Sounds of someone's beating heart. Fear mingles with uncertainty when I feel something in my vein. Where am I?
Apparently panic doesn't have a place in my mind cause the moment my eyes open, I close them fast. The ceiling doesn't match the headquarter nor my home. It's dark and foreboding. It matches my feelings.
I am still in the clubhouse.
That fact should make me cringe. I should be afraid. I should march back to that arrogant man and ask for a rematch. But I do none of them. Reaper somehow knocked me unconscious. But this isn't a normal knockout. I have been knocked out before. They never felt this bad, painful as if someone is ripping my throat out. Something is wrong. But what?
I wait for someone to explain what happened. To start walking. But the moment, I try to stand up, I stagger right into the bed. There's an IV hooking in my wrist.
Footsteps approach, too loud to be a woman's. I glance up and stop myself to not let out a gasp. It reveals a face too beaten to call normal. Too torn up. Too...emotional.
Too different than the man I met in the cage.
A million questions swim by but he doesn't say a thing. He only stares at me with...regret?
"W-Wh..at-" I desperately need water. My voice breaks too many times to pronounce a word. He moves quickly towards the table for a second and only then I notice a glass of water in his hands. My fingers curl instantly when he brings it to my mouth and the water goes down my throat, ending the uncomfortable feeling of dryness immediately. Leaving the glass in the table again, his gaze steers away from me.
"You're awake." He says, his back stiff with tension.
I do my best to not sound offended. "Yeah, I guess."
He turns back with determination. For what though? The thought crosses my mind and I almost think that he wouldn't say anything else but he's already starting to talk. "Doc was afraid that it will take some days for you to wake up. He has left some pills in here if you feel pain. Do you feel any pain now?"
"No. I don't." I slump against the bed in worry. "But you said a few days. I should have been waking up in a few hours if not one."
His Grey eyes nail me to the bed when he laughs. A laugh I am struggling to ignore. The throttle sound in them makes me admit that I am not the only one reacted badly by them.
"Y-You think I knocked you out and won fair?" Is that not the case? His face doesn't say that much at least. He frowns and shakes his head. "I didn't. It's been three days since the fight. I tried to tap and thought you'd fight back. But when I looked at you, you were bleeding all over the ground. There was blood coming from your ears, nose, and mouth. I got so fucking scared."
I think he didn't mean to say me that. Maybe he remembers that or maybe he just doesn't fucking care.
"Your blood was black. It was so abnormal. One minute all the Serpents were yelling for a fight, the next they were asking for what the fuck happened. What could I say them, huh? That I knocked someone to death?" His eyes narrow in anger. "Doc took you here. Vixen was pissed enough to take it out on me."
The beating.
His swollen eyes.
He nods understanding the hitch in my breath. "I fucking deserved it. Doc couldn't wake you up and when you didn't wake up after an hour or two, he did tests on you. Turned out someone gave you a small dose of defined arsenic that will only make you weak and bleed badly. And they succeeded. Before you lost consciousness, you puked a lot of blood out, then your body just went into shock. I hit hard...that was just the cherry on top."
What?
It's not him that drives me to stand up but the fact that someone tried to poison me knowing I had a fight today. Where did I even got arsenic? My mind searches the last few days and I know that it can't come from food cause Lena makes food in front of me and only then I eat. And it's not like me to mingle with someone I don't know for them to drop it in my drink. So if I had clever enemies here, I have to do something. Like right now.
"I took care of it, sweetheart." He gives me a tired smile. I want to curse at him. Give him hell for what happened. But he's already walking out...no, he's walking past the table to come to the bed. Only when he's nestled against my back, that I can feel my breathing come up in pants. He wasn't supposed to be in bed with me. He should have run away. He needs to-
"You need sleep, rest. I won't do anything." I was a fool if he was to believe him. What to say he wasn't the one to poison me for winning? What to say I wasn't doing a mistake by letting him in my bed?
But I'm already past that when I can hear his breathing slow down, indicating that he's asleep. I should take a nap too. I should look out for the person who tried to hurt me. But that person is least of my worries when Reaper unconsciously tugs me harder into his body and I know that he's becoming an obstacle in my life. Quickly.
Whether I like it or not...