Previously on MPC
'The gang stumble upon a website and Xanthe decides to track down the girl responsible - with the help of Jax, only to discover it's a trap to lure her in by her mother.
Who kidnaps Xanthe - which is now like her fourth kidnapping, smh.
Enjoy, everybody.'
(Sorry for updating so late...I don't have a good excuse lmao)
*~*~*~*~*
Chapter 62
I wake up to the smell of dank cloth and the dripping of water. My back is against a brick wall covered in graffiti, and there's a single light bulb hung from the ceiling, swinging gently to the wind.
"Good, you're awake," A voice says, and I look to my right, seeing Samantha, the blue-haired girl, stood beside the exit door, with a bat in her hand.
"Do you guys not have guns?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. She smiles fakely.
"Sorry if we don't all belong to rich gangs like you," Her falsetto tone snaps at me. I smirk.
"What am I doing here? Where's my mom?" I question as I get up, walking up to her and looking her down.
Pretty tough for someone so short.
"None of your business. She said she'll come to you."
I walk closer, practically nose to nose as I glare at her freckled face, almost forcing her to move out the way. I see her swallow as she clenches her jaw but ends up moving to the side anyway.
"That's what I thought," I mutter, grabbing the door handle and pulling it open.
Too bad I don't have my gun, could've just killed her.
And then I remember Arsen's words.
I'm his assassin now. I can't kill unless I have his permission.
Damnit.
"She'll find you, you know," Samantha says from behind me. I turn to her and smile sweetly.
"Suck your dad," I flip her off and turn, walking away quickly since I haven't mastered the art of defending myself from a baseball bat...yet.
I quickly hurry up the steps, but a throat being cleared stops me.
"Where are you going, Xanthe?" Mom's voice calls out. I turn to look at her.
There she stands, tall and arrogant. A woman without an impulse.
I'm so not proud to call her my mother.
"I'm going home. A place you never gave to me."
She rolls her eyes. "Here we go again."
"I'm sorry if you were given love and a proper home growing up, mother. I'm sorry if I was just some experiment to you and dad, and I'm sorry if you all ended up turning me and my sister against each other. I could go on."
"Xanthe, what I'm about to say right now will not matter to you in any days to come. I'm dying. And you probably don't care."
"What are you asking for? Reclamation?" I scoff. She raises an eyebrow.
"I'm asking for redemption."
I pause, not expecting that.
"How?" I question, confused.
"Let me take Xena away from you. I'll let you sit back and relax knowing you haven't done anything to your sister."
Mom walks closer to me, her heels clicking to the drip of water coming from somewhere behind me.
I think about her offer, but something holds me back.
"What are you going to do to her?" I ask. She shakes her head.
"Not to her, Mi Hija, for her. I'll take her to the police, give her in, let her serve her time and then she'll come out a changed person. I won't let her know about your whereabouts, and I'll take her far away."
Mom's firm tone almost makes me want to believe her.
"Why should I trust you now? You could've told me this before," I voice my thoughts. Mom just shakes her head.
"Mi Hija, sooner or later, you'll be older. And the day will come, where you'll regret every choice you have ever made since the day you joined Killahead. You're nineteen, and only now do I notice a beautiful young woman stood in front of me. The only thing standing in the way of you and your sanity is your past."
I watch her as she comes closer to me, cupping my face in her hands and comfortingly stroking my cheeks.
"Let go, Mi Hija. The past won't do you any good."
I don't even notice the single tear drop down my cheek. Mom wipes it away, and for the first time in a long time, I notice the sweet look in her dark eyes and a genuine smile on her poisonous lips.
"When did you find out you were dying?" I whisper.
"A week ago. I was at a small meeting with our relatives in Spain. We discussed that it would be best Xena was sent to your uncle's prison in Madrid. She'll be well taken care of and he'll keep an eye on her."
I swallow. "Why does it feel like you're lying, mom?"
She takes a step back.
"Because you've been taught not to trust."
How could everything all of a sudden become better in just a second? This wasn't right. Mom was dying, and Xena was being sent away, and yet, it still felt like so many problems were standing in the way.
"Is that why you tricked me into coming here?" I ask. She smiles.
"You're a smart girl, cariño, you figure it out. We both know you wouldn't have listened if I called you and demanded to see you."
I nod, agreeing wholeheartedly.
My mother was dying. She is dying, and after what feels like ages, I finally realized that death was more valuable than anything.
She holds out her hand, the gun in her hand mocking me. I furrow my eyebrows.
"No."
Mom smiles. "I don't want to go through the pain, Mi Hija. Do it. Kill me now, and get it over with."
It didn't feel right killing somebody who wanted it. There wasn't any point to that.
"No, mom." I shake my head. "I can't kill without his permission."
"Turner's?" She questions, tilting her head. I nod in reply. She takes a deep breath and lifts the gun to her head.
"You're going to go to hell, mom," I tell her, my voice dull and in desperate need of emotion.
"I don't mind where I go so long as I see you there, Mi dulce Hija." She smiles and with one last look at me, she pulls the trigger.
I don't know if it's out of confusion or my lack of it, but I don't hear the shot. As loud as it is, I don't hear it.
How long have I wanted her dead? And now she finally is. And I feel nothing.
Nothing's shifted. Her words didn't coax me, and her looks didn't change me. What she said was for her own selfish needs, so that she dies knowing she tried to make amends, and that at least she tried asking for forgiveness, whether I forgive her, or not.
Which I won't.
She doesn't deserve any kind of respite, or mercy.
My mother can rot in hell.
*~*~*~*~*
"Why is she so quiet?" Ameena asks, giving Jax a curious look, who is also more silent than usual.
I wonder what happened with him upstairs, but as soon as I came out, he demanded we go home immediately and when I tried to ask why he shut me out and told me he didn't want to talk about it.
Personally, I don't give a fuck since it isn't my business but seeing him like that just isn't normal for me.
"Why are they both so quiet?" Xander asks, raising an eyebrow at Ameena, who nods with a snort.
"Maybe they had intense sex and mommy caught them," Kade adds in with a chuckle. Noah gives out a fake laugh and glares at Kade, and Xander just shakes his head.
"If that happened, they'd be glowing," He points out.
"Oh yeah," Kade realizes. I roll my eyes, picking up my plate of untouched pizza and stuffing it back into the already-full fridge.
"Can someone get a maid in here? This fridge isn't going to clean itself," Noah grumbles, coming to stand next to me. I snort, and Xander raises an eyebrow.
"Why don't you clean the shit up, Cinderella?"
Noah glares at him. "Because I don't have daddy issues like you, Rapunzel."
Kade bursts out laughing.
"The fuck...that has nothing to do with what either of us was saying. And for the record, Rapunzel didn't have daddy issues. She didn't even know who he was till she was like, what, fifty?" Xander retorts.
This time Ameena bursts out laughing.
"Yeah well, in my opinion, all the fucking princesses had daddy issues," Noah growls. Xander raises his eyebrow.
"Is that why you're so into me?" He sneers.
Noah's jaw clenches and he takes a step towards Xander with a curled fist, but I stop him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Xander, stop encouraging him, and Noah? For God's sake, shut up about princesses," I sigh.
When the fuck was Arsen coming back? Nothing felt right without him.
Almost as if he heard my thoughts, his cold presence entered the kitchen, freezing even the fridge.
His fiery amber eyes find me immediately and my heart gives a little leap inside my chest - that feeling's never gonna get old.
And then he turns and walks out the door.
Ameena shares a worried look with Noah and Xander, and I raise an eyebrow.
"What's wrong?" I question. Noah clears his throat.
"Uh...he gave you the look," He mumbles.
I roll my eyes and follow where Arsen left wondering if it had anything to do with mom and the fact that she...killed herself.
Which doesn't bother me at all.
"Arsen," I say gently as I walk into his room. "Is everything okay?"
He turns to me, his hands typically in his pockets and his eyes spitting fire.
"Did you kill her?"
Already knowing what he meant, I shake my head. "She killed herself."
His eyebrows furrow and then unfurl perfectly, and I think I fall more deeply in love with him than I already was.
My eyes widen, and for a split second so do his.
"What." He demands.
Did I just...did I just admit to myself that I'm in love with him?
Holy shit.
I shake my head, turning around and walking out of the door, slamming it behind me.
Why does it surprise me so much? And why the hell am I so shocked?
I must've known ages ago that I was falling for him, but the fact that I just admitted it...and not to him, but to myself, makes me realize how real it actually is.
I love him.
I fucking love him.
But I don't want to.
A tear falls down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away, rushing down the stairs and walking out of the front door, ignoring Noah's distant call of my name.
Why don't I want to love him? He's not like any other boy I've met.
He's dark and bright at the same time, he's dangerous but safe, he's good but bad, he's like a dim tunnel, but he's also like the light that you see at the end of it.
He's ruined me, but he's fixed me, too. He's given me a home, yet he's taken my real home away from me, too.
What's wrong with me? Why do I want that, but don't at the same time?!
But I don't get to hear the rest of my thoughts argue with each other, because the sound of a loud horn beeping consistently fills my ears, and at the last minute do I realize I'd walked onto the road, and my eyes widen as the car slams into me.
_____________________________________________________
1959 words.
I finally updated.
Finally.
Sorry if I took too long, I literally had no idea how to finish this story.
But don't worry, it's not finished...yet.
I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, cuz half the time I have no idea what I wrote. Lol.
Anyway, yeah, don't forget to...
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