Chapter Fifteen
727 Words
Noah
“Go away.” I sink onto the mattress again, elbows on my knees, rubbing my burning eyes.
“Noah. You don’t understand-“
I interrupt him. “I understand more than enough.”
Damian pushes his way in. He looks older somehow. Wrecked. “She doesn’t know what she’s walked into.”
The laugh that rumbles out of my throat is bitter and humorless. “Then why the hell did you let her?”
He stares straight ahead, dark eyes no longer seeing me. “Because I can’t lose another one.”
A long silence stretches between us. For a while, neither of us speak or move.
“You think I don’t see it?,” I finally ask. “You’ve already chosen her.”
“You’re wrong.” Damien’s voice is husky. “You always were.”
“Was I?”
He’s gone before I can say another word. The closing door echoes like a gunshot.
I bury my face in my hands again. She means nothing.
But I can still smell her perfume- faint traces of vanilla and lilac - on my clothes from catching up with her in the hallway earlier.
Sienna.
I want to save her from the same fate as Elena.
And I want her - fiercely. Unforgivably.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I whisper.
But I’m no longer sure if I’m talking to her, or Damien, or Elena’s memory.
Sometime during the night, I fall asleep. I sleep for hours, dreamless and sound. I wake as dawn begins to break - cold, silver light flooding the house.
I scrub my hands over my face and my eyes, and get up and head to the window.
The storm passed sometime in the middle of the night. Sienna stands in the middle of the garden, barefoot, staring up at the morning sky.
Damien is nowhere in sight.
For a moment, my breath catches. My pulse stutters. Something about her - the way the sunrise touches her hair, revealing its red highlights. The way she looks both lost and defiant, chin raised as though challenging the world itself - it’s all too familiar.
Just like Elena.
“No,” I mutter. I grip the window frame and shove the thought back down.
I turn around, but even as I do - I know the truth.
Whatever started last night hasn’t ended.
It’s waking up again, coming back to life.
The same dangerous pull that destroyed before.
I’d truly thought the storm had passed, that it was over and behind us.
But I was wrong; it had only changed its name.
— ### —
Sienna
I don’t know where Damien went after he walked away last night, left to follow Noah.
I don’t know what transpired between them.
What was said. What happened.
All I know is this: he didn’t return to our bedroom. I spent the night alone, doubt and questions my only companions.
I barely slept, waking when something unnamed pulled me out of jangled dreams and finding the space next to me still crisp and untouched. Empty. My new life - life as Damien’s wife - seeming unreal.
I don’t think. I just move.
Out of bed.
Down the hallway. Past doors that feel like locked secrets.
Past the room I know - somehow - is his.
Noah’s.
I hesitate there. But only for a moment. Then I keep walking.
The air changes as soon as I reach the back stairs.
It’s cooler. Quieter.
Somehow safer.
I quickly step outside.
The garden is washed in early morning sunlight, silver and pale, most of the world not awake yet.
My thin nightgown offers little protection against the chill and I wrap my arms around myself. My bare feet become cold and damp on the grass.
But I don’t go back.
Not yet.
Because out here.. I feel like I can finally breathe.
I stand there for a moment, until I feel a shift in the air.
I turn without thinking. Noah stands a couple of feet away, watching me.
For just a moment, something flickers across his face.
Not surprise.
Not anger.
Something much deeper. Something haunted.
“You remind me of her,” he says before he can stop himself.
“Noah.” I meet his blue gaze. Hold it steady. “Who was she? Who was Elena?”
- Writer
