Running from Fate

HIM

I don’t know what just happened but my car is upside down, I can feel the blood running down my face and it’s hard to breathe. Suddenly something or someone is ripping the door off of my car and pulling me out. I feel like I’m drifting in and out but I hear him say “Your okay Ari, I’m here, your going to be okay.” When I wake up my vision is a bit blurry but I catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. He’s so tall, dark hair and looks so familiar. “Your awake sleeping beauty, Dr. Winston put a few stitches in for you and cleaned you up, I’m so glad your okay that car came out of no where” as I blink my eyes a few more times to try to adjust to the lighting in this room I notice I’m in a regular bed, in a house, this isn’t a hospital. Then I look up and put the voice to the face and realize it’s Jeremey. He’s been gone for almost a year now and here is standing in this room with me telling me what happened to me.

“What am I doing HERE, where is here, where’s my mom, is Ben okay? Is my dad really dead? What’s going on Jeremey, can I have my phone please I need to let my mom know I’m okay, something bad has happened” I say. He kind of just stares at me for a minute and begins to talk, but then it hits me. “Your him aren’t you, your who Ben and dad were talking about, you’ve been in the family since we moved here, your who they were trying to protect me from” I say. He sits down on the side of the bed and leans towards me as he begins to explain his side of things. “You’ve been promised to me since before you were born, you were always meant to be mine. Always. When your family left Cedar Springs they were running from my grandfather and father. They had never met my mother, or myself they didn’t know who we were as the deal was made before my father was even born. Our family is a powerful family with wealth and abilities that most do not have, your great great great grandfather promised his first born female blood heir would marry into our family, a member of the closest age and tie our lineage together again. You were the first female born in almost a 100 years. Your father had no knowledge of this deal and the history with our families when they selected to have you, specifically a girl. Once your parents had you your great grandfather let everyone know of what was to come. When you were ten we met at Cedar Springs Spring festival. I didn’t know who you were and obviously had no interest in you being you were five years younger than me, but I felt the need to protect you. I told my father of the girl I met at the festival and he told me about our families oath to each other. The next thing I know I’m being shipped off to live with my mom in Shady Brook, and soon after your family moved in as well. I always felt the need to protect you and be around you and help your family with anything they needed. Ben and I became close, he was almost like my brother. Until one night while we were in collage my father called and he answered and found out who I was. I had to leave to prepare for what my family had planned, and I’m assuming he came home to be with your family as well. I never wanted to hurt you, I never WANT to hurt you, but you are rightfully mine.” he said.

I just sat there almost speechless trying to take all of this in, “powers, abilities, like supernatural powers or power due to having money. I’m rightfully his? What does this all mean, my heads spinning I don’t feel good I think I’m going to be sick.” I though to myself. Jeremy quickly jumps up and gets me a cold wash cloth, and puts a trash can beside the bed almost as if he could hear my thoughts. He comes back and sits beside me and tries to put his hand on my hand but I jerk away, instantly remembering the time that Blake saw a friend put his hand on mine while we were talking about my grandmother passing and he hit me for it when we got in the car to go home. Jeremey looks at me as if he’s angry but not with me necessarily but as if he relived that memory with me. “He was your boyfriend, and he hit you?! What else did he do to you? Did your parents know about this? Is that where the bruises came from that Dr. Winston found that weren’t consistent with the wreck?” He can read my mind, this isn’t possible. Has he always been able to do this? “No, I couldn’t until you were of age, it’s just the way the coven works, when we are tied to one another and our souls are destine, once the youngest is of age we gain the ability to read each other” he says. “Jeremey this is all too much, I had the worst night and I don’t feel good. I just want to go home, please just let me go home. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, I won’t run, I’ll come back I promise just please..”

He leans into me to kiss my forehead and it’s almost like a electricity flows through me, a feeling I once felt before when I was sixteen and he grabbed my arm so I didn’t walk out in front of a car that I didn’t see coming. I know he felt it too because he smiled as he pulled away. “Jer, please. If you won’t let me go, at least let me call her and tell her I’m okay. I know she has to be worried sick” He hands me my phone and as I’m about to call my mom messages from Blake pop up. ‘I’m sorry, please come back let’s celebrate you today and make it right’ ‘Elle please, I’m begging you I’m sorry I’ll make it right I didn’t mean last night I’ll fix it, I’ll fix me’ ‘Arielle I f*****g swear if you don’t answer me I’ll find you and you don’t want me to find you, you think last night was bad’ I gasp remembering last night and drop my phone, tears start to run down my face and Jeremey is instantly at my side, holding me. As I’m sobbing I find myself apologizing to him for crying and being upset the last thing I want is him mad at me too and hurting my family. He pulls away from me a little and puts his hand under my chin, tilts my face towards his to look into his eyes and says “I would never hurt anyone who you love, my family may be a lot of things but I didn’t kill your father, or hurt your brother, we are trying to get to the bottom of this now, but that wasn’t us. Yes, your family ran with you, but you were always near me and no matter what I would’ve found my way to you. Someone else is involved and put a hit on your family, we will find out who. I will never hurt you, I promise” I remember when I was twelve I was riding my scooter and some older kid threw a stick out and made me fall and stole my scooter. Jeremey chased him down and hit him once, made him apologize and cleaned up my cuts before mom got home. He told me how he would always be there to protect me and help when people were cruel. The thought made me smile a little but I could feel Jeremey breathe as if the memory frustrated him. The same kid that picked on me that day was Blake, I never remembered it until that moment. I fell asleep wrapped in his arms as if it was the safest place I had ever been.

When I woke up Jeremey wasn’t in the room, I’m still feeling a little weak and my head hurts but I managed to get out of bed. I walk down the hallway and down the stair case to find him in the kitchen on the phone, he’s speaking with my mom. “Michelle, I promise I’m going to protect her at all cost, she is mine, she is meant for me and you know this. Whatever that boy thinks is his he is wrong, there’s nothing his family can do to us that we can’t handle. How did you not notice the a***e, this was happening all while she was there and you were so worried about me taking her and harming her that you let some boyfriend beat and possibly r**e her for a year. I will take care of her now, give us a few days and you and Ben can come and see her, but she’s not leaving here until Blake has been dealt with accordingly. I don’t care who or what his family is, this isn’t going to stand once my father finds out” I feel my heart starting to race, did he say r**e, was that a thing? I feel like I’m falling to the floor as Jeremey catches me. I can feel myself starting to cry but I hold it back. I’m so scared to feel or think afraid of what he will think of my emotions and thoughts I just try to block it all out. Jeremey scoops me up and carry’s me into his sitting room, he puts me down in the bay window facing the water. I watch as the waves rush in and out and quickly realize we’re somewhere at the beach, this isn’t the Shady Brook. This house, this place it looks so familiar almost like a dream I’ve had before but I can’t place it. As I start to ask some man in a suit steps in to tell Jeremey his father is on the phone. He steps out of the room and I see my phone on the desk beside window. I grab it to call my mom.

“I’m fine, bruised up a bit and sore, but I’m fine. He hasn’t done anything to me except had a doctor put in a few stitches and cleaned me up” I say as she asks a million questions. “Just, just be careful we don’t know what his plans are, this could all be some ploy to get you to fall for him. They could’ve paid Blake to do these things to you to make him seem like the hero that swoops in and saves you, we don’t know. Just please be careful Ari, we love you and we will find out what’s going on. Why didn’t you tell anyone about the issues you were having with Blake? We would’ve helped you, even with his family we would’ve helped you sweetie you know your everything to us” she said. I sat there quietly as she everything she had to say, but ended the call with “I’ll be okay mom, I love you, tell Ben I love him too, please.” But the truth is I don’t know anything, what she said could be true. Jeremey basically kidn*pped me at this point and refusing to let me go home, he could’ve paid Blake and his family off. I don’t know anything about any of this and it hurts, my heart hurts. I’m so confused and scared. I go to my messages to see if anyone else has messaged. Novie has called a few times, and messaged to apologize for falling asleep before Blake did. How did everyone else see how possessive and controlling he was but my parents ignored it? How could they not see it and brush it off as if they didn’t see the marks and bruises, how I flinched when someone lifted their hand? There’s more messages from Blake, I opened them to see what else he had to stay. My heart starts to race again and I can feel Jeremey enter the room.

“Elle, no matter what he says, no matter what he does he will never be able to keep you from me. Your MINE. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you or show you this but you are mine. I don’t care what deal your families have made to each other, your mine. I had you first. I HAD you first. Your father promised you to me himself. I could have you to do with you as I pleased as long as I kept you from him. You will marry me, nothing and no one can keep you from me, this oath is the one that matters.” What the hell is going on, why would my father promise me to someone else to keep me from someone else I was promised to, why the f**k did my family promise me to someone to begin with. I’m crying uncontrollably at this point. My own father let my boyfriend a***e me to keep me from someone else he didn’t want to keep an oath with. Jeremey is at my side at this point and picks me up to hold me. I try to push away just so I can be in my own thoughts for a minute but he pulls me in closer.

“We didn’t know your father had made a deal with another coven to keep you from me. Had I known I would’ve been back sooner and protected you from all of this. I’m not here to force you into marriage, love or anything like that. I’m here to protect you and make you see that you can be happy with me and I’ll never hurt you. Yes you were promised to me, my family but I’m not going to force this on you. I’ve always told my family this and my father understands it as he’s never wanted to harm you either. You were promised to be for your ancestors actions, not those of your own. Your great great uncle accidentally killed my great great aunt. She was the only female my family had had in decades, and they were set to marry to tie our lines together to strengthen our powers. Your mother and father choose to have you, they did gender selection through IVF to give them a daughter not knowing the fate that you would have. But as time had passed my grandfather reached out to your father to let him know of our families oath. Your father agreed at first, hence our first meeting at the spring festival that year. But something happened and he ran, you all disappeared so he thought. Then as you got older he made a new oath with Blake’s family to marry you off to him and join their lines. They are from new lineage and having someone like you in their family, having their babies would strengthen them greatly. But their promise was you would never know of your own powers and you would do as you were told and be the girlfriend/wife that Blake made you to be. He made this deal with them not realizing you would be treated negatively by Blake, he truly thought that boy loved you and would protect you from the bad he felt was coming for you. Once he realized Blake was hurting you he tried to back out of the deal and it got him killed.”

I couldn’t speak, I just sat there thinking about everything. If I hadn’t been born my family would be fine, they choose to have me not knowing the fate that would come with it. They wanted a little girl so bad that they didn’t realize there would be consequences for making me. All I wanted my whole life was to make my family proud, make them love me the way they did Ben, to one day find a love like my mother and father had for each other. How did I mess things up so badly?