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But running his eyes over it, Alaric gets even angrier and I ask, “Why are you mad, Alaric?”
His nostrils flare. “I’m fucking mad, Poe, because my rules are no good.”
“What?”
“My rules,” he says through his teeth, “are bullshit. My rules don’t protect you. Because the only rule, the only fucking law, I should’ve laid down was not that you don’t look at boys but that boys don’t look at you.”
I twist my fists in his shirt. “But that’s… How can I do that? How can I make that happen?”
“You can’t, can you?” I know it’s a rhetorical question but I can’t help but shake my head and he continues, “So then there’s only one solution, isn’t there?”
“W-what?”
His eyes harden cruelly. “That I hide you from them. That I throw you in a dungeon somewhere and fucking lock you up.”
“But I don’t —”
“And since I don’t have a fucking dungeon, I’m going to lock you up in your bedroom.” He straightens up then. “So you’re coming home with me right now.”
My heart is pounding and pounding. “What, no. Alaric, wait. I…”
“Let’s go.”
“No, but… You can’t.” I look into his dark, dark, mean eyes. As mean as his fingers on my arm. “I know you can’t. I know you won’t.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He grinds his teeth, his features sharp, dangerous. “Well, let’s see what I can and can’t do.” Then he bends down slightly. “Besides, it’s not as if you can run anywhere, can you? Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You gave up that chance when you decided to stay here and finish summer school the right fucking way.”
With that parting comment, he turns around and starts walking.
With me in tow.
He’s dragging me by my arm, pulling me, making me jog after him. And even though I’m wearing flats, I’m no match for his forceful pushing and pulling and so I stumble. And I keep stumbling and stuttering all the way to Alaric’s car across the street.
At which point, he lets go of me to open the door before grabbing me again and depositing me inside. And in a flash, we’re off. We’re driving away and I swear in a flash again, we’re back at the mansion.
I don’t remember the drive at all even though I just took it myself. I also don’t remember him dragging me out of the car and into the mansion. And then all the way up to my room, through the grand foyer and up the stairs and down the hallway.
All I know is that I’m standing inside my room and Alaric is at the threshold.
I know that he’s watching me with so much anger and fire that I’m burning.
I’m burning and crying and pining for him even though he’s only a few feet away. And then he’s closing the door and when I can only see a sliver of him through the opening, I whisper, “Alaric, please.”
But he doesn’t hear me, or even if he does, he doesn’t care. Because the door thuds closed and I’m alone.
Locked up and trapped.
And he’s gone.
He left me here.
I can’t believe it. I can’t.
He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t lock me up. Not now. Not after everything that we’ve gone through and all the progress that we’ve made. He wouldn’t revert back to his old ways.
So I watch the door with anticipation. I watch it hoping that it will open.
That he’ll come back.
But when minutes and maybe even hours pass without the door opening, my heart cracks.
And I begin to sob and then I’m running away from it, from the door.
I go as far as possible from it like it’s an animal, vicious and merciless. When I reach the window on the far wall, I slide down and bury my face in my knees, sobbing and whispering, “Alaric, please come b-back.”
For seconds after that, I can only hear my own sobbing, my own cries and whimpers.
But then I hear a click.
It’s the loudest sound in all the ruckus.
And my head snaps up.
The door is open and there he is.
The devil. The tyrant who locked me up.
Only he’s back as the man I’ve come to crave. He’s back as my guardian.
Our eyes clash and lock from across the space.
Chest heaving, he enters the room and on trembling limbs, I come to my feet.
Without taking his glittering eyes off me, he closes the door behind himself and I lose all my breaths.
And then he does something that brings all my breaths slamming back into my body. That gives me wings so I can fly.
He opens his arms, his big and muscular and safe guardian arms, and I take flight.
I run across the room and jump into them.
The first thing I feel is his arms closing around me.
His arms plastering me to his powerhouse of a body and grounding me.
His arms tightening around my small, shuddering frame and instantly filling me with all the warmth and protection.
