Alanna's POV
Demetri got up and began to disappear into the darkness, presumably assuming that I would follow him.
I did.
The first thing that should have sprung to mind when I found out who Dean is was how, why and what the fuck? But, none of those things did. I think it was because I was still caught up in the moment or maybe it was the shock of finding out that your foster brother had killed more people than you could count with both hands.
Despite all of that I still should have asked for answers, but then again who would I have asked? It’s not like Daniel would tell me and Aria was too delusional to answer even the simplest of things so Demetri was my only option.
I followed him through the backstreets which spiralled of the road leading up to the mental home. I would ask where we were going but he didn’t seem like a very talkative person right now, as he wasn’t talking to me like he had been a few minutes ago. He used to be a chatter box but it seemed like all this had sucked all life out of him but who was I to judge? I bet I was a completely different person when he first knew me. Hell, I bet he was probably thinking the exact same thing about me as I was about him.
He stopped abruptly which caused me to collide with his back. I groaned and rubbed my head, that being the major sore spot, and reprimanded myself for not looking where I was going.
Demetri just scowled. “Don’t do that again.”
I just nodded meekly not finding much use for words.
He started walking again; his strides were long and fast making it almost impossible for me to keep up with him. I started moving in a jog and moved as fast as my little legs could carry me. I glanced around and realised that we were at a park of some sorts. To be honest it was more like a field with a slide in it.
Demetri had stopped once again and the dim light from the lampposts highlighted his features and I noticed for the first time how haunted his eyes were. Any fool would only be able to guess what he’d been through and I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to know, but I knew I had to find out.
He sat down on a nearby bench and I followed even though his eyes didn’t stray to mine just yet. We sat there in a tense silence for a few moments.
“After you left things got complicated.” Demetri started to say his voice a dead monotone.
“Father,” He chuckled darkly at the name. “Or Adrian as I now like to call him, didn’t like it. He hated that your mother had taken you back, he couldn’t stand that someone had taken you away from him. Some one that he said didn’t deserve you. Daniel and I were happy that you were gone because even though you didn’t understand it quite yet we knew what the sick fucker was doing was wrong-,” His voice broke a tiny bit.
“Demetri-,” I started.
He shook his head and continued. “Anyway the abuse started to get worse. Not that kind of abuse but it was getting more physical like knives to the skin, more punches that kind of thing. So when I was ten we all made a plan to get out of there. It was a stupid plan really,” He smiled from the memory. “We just literally made a plan to get out of the house not what we were going to do when we got out there, where we were going to get shelter, food, clothes. . .”
He trailed off and his expression hardened. “But we were young and naïve and off into the night we went. We managed to escape Adrian without a problem but he was going to be the least of our worries. After we began waking we soon become cold, tired and hungry and at that point Daniel had become almost like our team leader so when he suggested that we lay down for the night we did just that. The oldest of us was Eli and he was only 12 at the time so how were we supposed to know what type of people go prowling the streets at night?”
He whispered the last part almost to himself and I hated in what direction this story was going. “There was a gang, the most stereotypical drug dealer gang that you will ever encounter in your life. Most of them were Mexican and they all had big black tattoos covering their forearm; I still have nightmares about them. They cornered us and asked us what we were doing on the streets all alone and that we should come with them and they’d give us anything we ever wished for, which at that time wasn’t much. Eli told us not to go but Daniel over ruled him, even then, and we followed him like the idiot children we were.”
“You were just children Demi,” The old nickname slipped out of my mouth without my permission but if he minded it he didn’t say anything.
“So we got there and the haven we were expecting wasn’t what we thought it was. It was just a drugs den with hookers, needles and the smell of sweat forever lingering in the atmosphere; sometimes I think I can still smell it. He told us that this was our new home to which we all simply nodded as where else were we going to go? Our parents’ house? It’s not like any of them gave a fuck about what happened to any of us, is it?”
I shook my head. “I’m glad you didn’t have an epiphany or some shit and end up thinking your mother was a good person.” He scoffed.
I smiled bitterly. “I know she wasn’t. Nothing would ever change that she couldn’t change.”
He smiled back but there was nothing genuine about either of the smiles which graced our faces. “Anyways I didn’t know at the time what those peoples genuine intention were but now looking back on it how could I have missed it? There were going to use us. Bleed us dry until we have nothing left to give, not literally of course, but mentally. They recruited us from an early age saying stuff about how we were going to turn out to be the best fighters because we were born for this life. They said that the best part about us was that nobody was even trying to find us,” He cracked a finger. “But that’s foster care for you.”
A sly smirk came over his face and it was something about the distant, almost diabolical, glint in his eyes that made me shudder. “Unfortunately for them, things didn’t turn out exactly like they hoped. As you can imagine Daniel wasn’t up for being someone else’s puppet forever so he took action . . . by killing the leader when he was thirteen.”
A quiet gasp escaped my lips. “Seriously?”
He glanced at me before turning his eyes back to the scene before him. “Seriously. You may or may not believe this but that was the best thing Daniel could have done for us at the time. It showed everyone his dominance and that meant that we were safe. It wasn’t until a few years later that Daniel returned back and began to show his power by ordering people around and getting the one thing he had always wanted. Adrian’s, or ‘fathers’, lifeless body at his feet.”
This was a lot of information for me to process. Daniel was thirteen when he first killed someone? It was then that with gut wrenching reality that I realised I still cared for him. He killed my boyfriend and my sister and yet I still cared for him.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I hate him, yes. I despise him for everything he’s done to me, and to countless other people, and yet I still have these thoughts which say that I should never give up on him. Maybe I was as crazy as him.
The one question that I’d be dying to ask all along still remained unanswered.
“Why Mel?”
Demetri’s face hardened. “I don’t know why he killed her,” His voice was a montone. “When we first took you when you were fourteen, Daniel was only 16 but he was the most heartless person I had ever had the displeasure of knowing. He did horrible things Alanna and as bad as it sounds the rest of us kind of just went along with it; we didn’t really have any other options. He spent a lot of time trying to locate you and your sister and when he finally did it was like a plug had been pulled and he was happy.”
I scoffed. “Sure he was.”
“He was,” He persisted. “But there was one thing neither of us had thought of – neither of you knowing who we were. I was shocked at first that you didn’t too. Daniel and I were bitter and that caused us to do horrible . . . things. When I realised that we were overreacting, I decided to tell Mel who we were. I thought that she would be accepting but she was complete opposite saying that we were monsters and we deserved to rot in hell, maybe she was right.”
“You don’t-,”
He cut me off straight away. “She begged me and Daniel not to tell you, saying that you had enough on your plate as it was and she didn’t want to add to that. She begged so much that Daniel agreed, though I reckon if he knew what she had said about us he wouldn’t have, but he agreed. Therefore we treated you like any other new recruit; training, kidnapping others and all for one purpose which was to kill that son of a bitch. Eventually he found out what she said about him and he held an intense dislike for her ever since then, causing multiple arguments and I believe that was when he started cutting you.”
He swallowed and for the first time stared into my eyes whilst he was talking. “I’m – umm I’m sorry I didn’t stop that,” He stuttered. “I wasn’t the person I am now back then; believe me it took a pretty major event for me to see sense.”
“But you did and in the end I guess that’s all that matters.” I told him honestly; being too tired with life to hold any more grudges.
“You’re too forgiving for your own good,” He muttered. “So he had a grudge against her and when you ran away again I think he thought she was the cause of it. So . . . he killed her. Admittedly, I’ve never seen her body or anything of the sort, but one day she was there and the next she wasn’t. You weren’t the direct cause of her death. But I think he killed her because of you.”
I swallowed; Demetri was never one to sugar coat things. I’d always figured as much but believing something and having those beliefs confirmed are two completely different feelings. One made you feel like you’d jumped off a wall and the other felt like you’d jumped out of a plane which was thousands of feet up in the air.
Both of which, you’re just waiting for the fall.
Demetri had on an emotionless mask of indifference; his face showing no kind of emotion at all. His brow was slightly furrowed and I couldn’t just accept that he was as emotionless as he came across.
“Do you still live with them then?” I asked.
He nodded. “Of course.”
“You just said you didn’t agree with him though-,”
He looked frustrated. “No. I said I didn’t agree with what he thought of you. I never said I didn’t agree with anything else he’s done.”
“So you agree with him killing Greg then?”
His expression still didn’t change. “Yep.”
I stood up abruptly. “Screw you!”
I began to walk away but his harsh grip on my arm began to drag me back. “Get off!”
His grip only tightened. “Shut up!”
I tried to yank myself out of his grasp but he’d got the exact same training as me, which meant that I was at a disadvantage simply because I was a girl.
“Where are we going?” I asked beginning to get more than a little panicked.
“The one place I should have taken you as soon as I saw you Anna,” He began. “We’re going to Daniel.”
Struggling further made it more difficult for him but he managed to restrain me by clamping both arms over my shoulders, leaving only my legs free. I went for the obvious place and as soon as I tried a hand squeezed hard on my arm making me cry out in pain.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because that’s the best place for you!” He shouted. “He won’t hurt you like Adrian or Zayn will.”
“Zayn didn’t hurt me at all! Daniels been hurting me for ages!”
He stopped but kept me in place with his arms. “Did Zayn even hesitate to kill you when he found out who you were?”
“Maybe not but-,”
A harsh slap was delivered my way. The blow was fast but that didn’t make it hurt less. My cheek began to throb painfully and I knew there would be a nice bruise forming along my jaw tomorrow. His hands had loosened enough which allowed me to step aware from him and get a good look at his face.
He was shocked.
He was staring down at his hands as if they were aliens, as if they did slap me and not him. “Alanna I’m sorry-,”
He began scuttling away back into the dark, hopeless place that was otherwise known as Daniels mansion.
I didn’t even bother to leave when he had finally disappeared. Staying put, I simply pondered how my life had turned into nothing but a sea of endless disappointment and pain.