Her Rejection's Revenge

CHAPTER TWENTY: MIND’S MADE UP

Things at Neverland was becoming more and more difficult to manage as newcomers were coming in more frequently. Miriam and I were diligently helping with the wounded werewolves while Ajax joined the warrior pack. He was determined to become stronger despite the obvious difficulties and I admired him for that.

Miriam kept teasing me about Ajax, pushing me in his direction and I either responded with malevolent glares or I simply ignored her. After that moment of weakness in his arms, I avoided him like plague. That was my motto – stay clear away from the tiniest bit of emotional entanglement.

One positive outcome of our busy schedule was that I’d lost track of the count since Braxton and Beatrice’s wedding. At nights, I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillows. I no longer dreamt of their smiling faces floating in front of my eyes which was some sort of relief.

However, I was working so hard that I could barely stand on my feet. Miriam was worried about me if the continuous lengthy glances she sent in my direction were any indication, but she knew better than to say anything.

The last straw happened when I was stitching up a patient’s wounds and the exhaustion became so daunting that I swayed with the fatigue. My body crumbled over the table behind me sending the medical tray flying in the air with the tools landing in dangerous positions.

“Alright, that’s it!” Dr. Kapadia said by lifting me up. “Can somebody take her to her room right now please?”

Strong hands immediately took me from the doctor’s, and I was still too light-headed to notice who it was. A familiar scent teased my nostrils, and I knew it was Ajax without even opening my eyes. My whole body went rigid under his arms as I tried to struggle to stand but he kept me firmly in place.

I pried one eye open as he continued to saunter in the dorm’s direction and stopped only outside my door. Even inside the room he didn’t let me stand up but deposited me on my bed with utmost care. So much fondness that made me want to cry again. But once was enough. I was not a wimp who would cry at the first display of gentleness.

“You should rest,” he murmured quietly as he sat on the edge of the bed without looking at me. Had I managed to make him loathe me as well? I crawled into myself like a ball trying to offer myself some comfort.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” he asked after a lengthy silence which suggested that he was weighing his words carefully.

“No,” I answered honestly. I valued the life that the Moon Goddess had given me and was using it to help others instead. So ending it was not something which had crossed my mind.

He gave me a succinct nod. “Well, you’re doing a good job out of it. If you go on at this pace, you will die of exhaustion.”

I snorted, or at least I tried to, but it ended in a yawn. “You’re exaggerating.”

He didn’t say anything, just gave me another of his prolonged intense look which made me want to crawl further inside my shell. “Sleep,” he ordered in a brisk voice, and I promptly closed my eyes. Sweet abyss took over immediately and I was grateful to have avoided the conversation with him.

However, my joy was short-lived for when I opened my eyes, Ajax was still sitting on the edge of the bed watching me. It was a little creepy and I tried to dilute the tension by stretching my body on the bed to remove the cramps as I averted my eyes. It was going to be impossible for me to avoid him forever, at some point I would have to face the tune.

“Hey sleepyhead,” Ajax greeted, and my eyes flew to his face to find a grim determination etched on every muscle of his face. I resisted a grimace. I was not going to dodge the conversation that he had in mind.

“Hey yourself,” I replied myself playing the game despite myself. I was turning into such a facetious person that I hated with all my might. Self-preservation, however, was teaching me that pretense was important for my survival. “You’re still here?”

“What happened to you?” he asked without preamble today. He’d tried to broach the subject in the past, and I’d always managed to sidestep the subject by turning into another one. Today, it seemed, his patience had reached its limits.

“What do you mean? I was tired and I needed a good sleep. Oh my gosh, have I slept that long?” I exclaimed whimsically as I glanced at the clock. With renewed determination, I flung the sheet aside ready to jump off and escape the room if needed.

A clamp on my wrists me held me immobile and dismay filled me. It was clear that he’d never bought my excuses or flippancy but had been given me the space that he thought I needed.

“Enough of that farce, Zelda. Look at me!” he commanded in harsh tones. And I did by dropping the mask. I held nothing back as my eyes held a gunmetal sordid look of a cadaver. He sucked in a breath as I unleashed all the pain free without reprieve.

With the faintest pressure, his thumb brushed against my cheek to caress my skin as if he was aware of how his touch revolted me. Any man’s touch revolted me. I stood still frightened to move as his feathery flick roamed over my face with reverent gentleness.

“Who did that to you, Zee? Who destroyed you?” he asked in a strangled voice that reflected some of my distress.

I winced away from him at his words, shutting him off as memories assailed me. Memories that I had somehow managed to douse with excess work during the past days. They all came back with a vengeance, and I would have staggered under the force had I not been still sitting on the bed.

“Let’s not go there,” I warned with a note of steel in my voice.

“Why not? Since you’re letting your past define your future, then let’s revisit it. Let’s discuss what happened there that was so horrendous that you lost your wolf and your ability to connect with humans!”

“I’m not!” I tried to deny vehemently, although my protest came out hoarse and squeaky.

“No? Isn’t this why you’re running away from me? From what can possibly happen between us? Your past? What’s so bad about it that’s left you so hurt and broken? Let’s get it out once and for all out of the way!”

I licked my dry lips as I opened my mouth in desperate wretchedness to say something. Anything about what had happened. It didn’t come out. Not a single thought was processed in my mind for be to voice it out.

“Come on Zelda! Whatever happened to you does not matter. What matters is that you’re here now alive and thriving. That you are an exceptional human being, even with your wolf dead. Why can’t you see that?”

Grief suffocated me. “I…I…c…can’t!” I stammered panic-stricken.

Ajax’s large shoulders sagged in defeat. “You can’t what? You can’t let go? Or you won’t let go?”

I shook my head as tears stumbled from my eyelids. Again those stupid tears! Was I ever going to be such a pathetic creature who kept tormenting herself about her past? Was Ajax right about me? Was I not ready to let go of my past because it shielded me from further damage?

I reigned in the waterworks with great difficulty and pushed back a strand of my hair impatiently from my face. “It’s not like that. I won’t ever be able to let go of my past. Not like this,” I shouted with my hands flung in the air in total despair, indicating myself as a pathetic failure.

“I am such a pitiful creature that I’m even scared of my own shadow. Everything I’ve done is to please someone who doesn’t give a hoot about me. My dreams, my heart, my life was wrapped so tight up his ass that I didn’t see his betrayal coming. I didn’t see it coming until it was too late.” I was shaking my head as I once again blamed myself for having been too gullible, too naïve.

For still being too weak to consider anything other than silent submission.

“Hey! It’s okay. It happens to the best of us! No need to beat yourself up about it!” he said in a tight voice. “The worst is over now. You can rebuild yourself from the ashes, stronger and in a totally new form.”

I shook my head again before he’d even finished his sentence. “You don’t get it, do you? You’ve never had someone strip you of every inch of your dignity just to fulfill a whim? I lost everything I stood for in that hall right in front of my pack. They declared me unfit for being a Luna, unfit for being a doctor, unfit for being a woman! And I just stood there weeping like an i***t watching her take everything away from me! How can I ever let this go?”

Unsolicited anger washed over me suddenly. “What do you want me to do? Spread my legs for you? Strip naked so that you can f*ck me because this is what will cure me?” I lashed out crudely. “Is this how things happen in books and movies. Well, I’ve got news for you, this is real life. And real-life s*cks!”

“Zelda! Of course this isn’t what I want,” Ajax protested wearily. “I won’t deny being attracted to you or hide the fact that I wished things were different for us. I’m not even going to apologize for feeling like this. But you should know that this is not the way to be. You cannot withdraw from life like this!”

“All I can think of…,” I began in a calmer voice after I’d swallowed the moment of uncertainty. “…is when I would have my pound of flesh. You were wrong into thinking that I got out alive. What you’re seeing…,” I signaled my body with my hands from head to toe. “… is a living corpse. I live only for the day when I would avenge my humiliation and deceit.”

That dark feeling which had started building slowly around my heart like a nascent scourge now consumed me wholly. And for the first time, I welcomed it. It was not a pleasant feeling at all – it was morbid and devastating.

“This will end up being too much for you,” he said in a defeated voice, but I had the feeling he knew it would be wasted.

My vision blurred as I envisaged the prospect of being able to restore faith inside me. I was living in hell, not even living anymore. Life would sift through me with lost opportunities in a dreamless orbit until I avenged my public disgrace.

The only way to get my dignity back was to repeat the same thing to the very people who did that to me. That was the only way I would be able to look at myself in the mirror every morning as I did mundane things like brushing my teeth or combing my hair. That was the only way to survival.

So, I answered him back with indisputable resolution. “No, I’m sorry you feel that way. But the only option I have left is to get revenge on the people who treated me bad. I would never stop using every opportunity that life will throw at me to avenge myself. This is what I live for.”

His turquoise eyes glittered with bewilderment, and I resented the fact that he couldn’t understand the unsatiated craving inside me. “Will you at least give me an opportunity to change your mind?”

Finally, I twisted my hands to free myself from his grasp, for the first-time seeing things clearly. For that, I was grateful for the presence of Ajax in my life. I now understood the reason why he was here. He was an opportunity for me to move on from Braxton’s atrocities had I chosen to. If anyone could have cured me, it would have been the unconventional boy who’d landed in my life out of pure hazard.

But no. He was only here to help me be clear of my future. And my future was only filled with revenge. Deadly revenge.

“I won’t change my mind,” I replied with finally which sent a chill down to his bones as he dropped his hands away from me in resigned capitulation.