Stitches and Scars

CHAPTER 1: RUNNING Rain hit like bullets, I didn’t feel them, I couldn’t. Not over the way my chest was caving in, ribs cracking with every gasping sob. 'I never loved you, Aria. You were convenient.' I felt the stinging sensation in my chest as Alex’s words played on loop. Three years. Three years I’d believed him, I never had a reason to doubt him. I showed him real love, and I thought what we had was real. It was....I still believe it, I hope this is just a nightmare. It has to be, this is too much for me. "No, this can't be true, please," I sobbed hardly as the denial tore out of me, "God if you are actually real, hear me out, I love him, I do love Alex" My heel caught on a crack in the sidewalk. I went down hard, knees scraping the hard concrete, the pain I felt was nothing compared to the pain Alex carved In my chest with those four words. I used my palm to rub my chest, maybe that would help with the pain. 'I never loved you' The sobs rip out of me before I can stop it. The girl who believed in forever just died right here on the asphalt, under a street light that buzzes like a dying fly. My fists pounding the concrete like I could beat the truth out of it. 'Convenient' I laugh. It sounds broken, I press my forehead to the cold, wet road and scream into it until my throat bleeds. Until the sound turns into hiccups, until the hiccups turn into silence. The rain keeps coming. It plasters my hair to my face, turns my white blouse see-through, turns my mascara into war paint. I should move, get up, find shelter. I can’t. Grief is a weight, Alex’s betrayal is an anchor, and I’m drowning on dry land. Somehow, I drag myself to the old oak tree with roots that break the sidewalk. The kind of tree kids carve hearts into. I curl into the base of it, knees to my chest, back against bark that scrapes through my soaked shirt. The rain is lighter here, filtered through leaves. Just close your eyes, just for a minute. Just make it stop. My body’s shaking from cold, from shock. From three years realizing I was a joke. 'You were convenient.' The last thing I think before exhaustion drags me under. 'Maybe if I sleep long enough, I won’t wake up. And then the world goes black. ~~~~~ Ryker It rolls off him in waves. Not anger. Not yet. Control. The kind that suffocates. The kind that makes the air heavier. His eyes are grey, but there’s no light in them. Storm clouds before the kill. Flat, empty. Except when they land on her, then something ancient and possessive flares, like a match dropped in gasoline. I've killed men for less noise. Burned businesses for interrupting my deals. But I stood there, watching her fall apart on my asphalt, feeling something ugly unfurl in my chest. She’s soaked. White blouse plastered to skin, showing every rib as she gasps. Mascara bleeding black down her cheeks like war paint. Hair stuck to her face in wet, dark ropes. And she’s screaming at God. My hands fists against the glass in my hands. She claws at the road like pain is the only thing that makes sense. Her forehead hits concrete. Hard. She doesn’t even flinch. 'Good girl,' something dark purrs in my head. 'Bleed for me.' The thought should disgust me. It doesn’t. It makes my jaw tick. Makes my fingers itch for my gun. Who? Who put that look on her face? Then she crawled. Dragging herself to the oak tree at the curb like a wounded animal going to die alone. She curls up. Knees to chest. Small. Shaking. And goes still. I have been dead inside for a while now. I have never wanted to keep anything. Women are for f*****g. For forgetting. 'Put my cut on a woman? I’d rather put a bullet in my head.' But watching her sleep in the rain, scraped up and hollowed out... Mine The word slams into me, violent and absolute. Not a thought. A claim. My vision goes red at the edges. Someone hurt her. If you die before I get down there, sweetheart, I will burn the whole f*****g city. Eyes like storm, jaws clenched so hard it could crack. I look at what I am. A monster. And I am about to claim my first victim or my first salvation. ~ The elevator’s too slow. I hit the stairwell door with my shoulder and take them. The President of Slade’s Reapers doesn’t run. He makes others run to him. Tonight, I run. She’s still under the oak curled up like roadkill. Like something the world threw away. Her face looks so peaceful, and it ruins me. I stood there under the cold breeze of the night, leather and rain dripping off me, admiring her beauty like it was the first sunrise I’d ever seen. For a second ,one heartbeat, one breath, I think she’s dead. My heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted out, she wasn’t moving. Then I see it, her chest rising. Relief hits me wrong. Not soft, not clean. It hits like rage. Because someone did this to her, someone’s going to bleed for it. I sink to a crouch in front of her, She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch when water drips off my jaw and lands on her face. She got a red scrape on her cheek from bark. The way her fingers are dug into dirt like she was holding on. She looks destroyed. And something ancient and dark in me likes it. Likes that she’s broken. Because broken things don’t run. Broken things need. One arm hooks under her knees, the other locks behind her back, and I stand like she’s made of air and guilt. My arms are built to break jaws, holding her feels wrong, like I’m cradling broken glass. She’s dead weight but still breathing. Bare feet dangle, too small, too cold. Every step I take, the scythe on my back swings with her, wings wrapped around us both now. I carry her like she’s mine to fix. Like the street owes me for every scrape she’s got.