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“I know Stella. I’m pulling in now. I'll be at your door in two minutes or less. Open up.”
I rush out of my room the instant the line goes dead. From the downstairs window, I can see him pull up to the driveway, on his motorcycle no less, and walk towards the front door. My stomach is doing back flips in anticipation.
My uncle is a fucking psychopath and will stop at nothing to get what he wants, not caring who is in his way. What he wants now is me. Shit.
I let Elijah in, and he immediately bends forward to hug me, kissing me tenderly on the head. It feels nice to be comforted right now when so many negative emotions are running through me. He’s one of the few people who knows how truly fucked up I am, and the look in his eyes tells me he understands how badly I’m about to react with anxiety.
This man is every girl's dream. I haven’t been fair to him since we met. The arrangement we made, although he was as much a part of it as I was, is selfish. I have to fix it somehow. I can’t lose him.
Inhaling his scent gives me the push I need to speak. “I need to leave Elijah. I can’t stay and let my friends, my family, get hurt when all he wants is me.”
He groans, pulling away from me only to glare at me with the most intenseare you fucking kidding melook. “Stella, I swear to God if you try to go off on your own, I’ll show you my inner biker, and spank the fuck out of you.” The ends of his lip quirk up in a teasing smirk, and I know he’s only half kidding.
I wink at him, playing along with histhreat. “Don’t threaten me with a good time right now, Elijah. This is serious. Focus. I need to get out. I know you’ll want to come, but I want you to think this through after I explain everything I have decided in the last hour.”
I lay it all out for him, every feeling, every heartbreaking decision. Things he knew about and things he didn’t. I wanted to be clear on what my intentions were, and what I needed from him now that I had my answer from Kai.
Elijah. I don’t deserve him. He is making my every dream come true, every request, and every desire. He’s making it happen.
Elijah. I don’t deserve him. He is making my every dream come true. Every request and desire, he’s making it happen.
After this is all over, I am getting my happy ending. Stephan be damned.
After spilling my guts to the world's most patient man, he tells me we need to go. I pack up the essentials, whatever I still have here anyway, then decide to push my luck just one more time.
“I need a favor before I agree to go with you.” Elijah freezes as he fastens his helmet on me. His expression tells me he knows what I’m about to ask, and he hates the idea. “I need you to take me to Killian’s. I need to do something before we disappear.”
“We do not have time for that Little Dove,” he interjects, but I’ve just about had it with him second guessing me.
“I really don’t give a fuck, Elijah. I can’t just leave. This is something I need to do for him. He deserves to know.”
He sighs, straddling his bike, waiting for me to jump on behind him. “Fine Little Dove, just please hurry the hell up.”
Elijah grabs my wrists and wraps my arms around his waist. I know he’s smiling, yet also frustrated with himself for having to agree with me.
Game on Stephan.
???
Two Weeks Later
I am sick and fucking tired. My body aches, my head is pounding, and my worries and fears make me physically ill. Never in my life would I have imagined this is where I’d end up. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, nowhere to run, no one to turn to. No way out.
I should have expected it, anticipated this is what I was destined for, but regardless of everything that occurred to me, every obstacle, every heartbreaking circumstance, I held onto a sliver of useless hope.
Whether it’s naivety or stupidity, I’m just so fucking tired. Tired of being perceived as this perfect little princess, incapable of doing anything on her own. Constantly viewed as a lost cause, a helpless fool who can’t do anything right, anything for herself. It’s all gotten fucking old. The worst part was I believed that of myself for a while, too. Then I woke the hell up.
I’ve gone through enough shit to earn the respect of the people around me, and I sure as hell have earned the right to make my own fucking choices. No one, especially not the two of them, gets to dictate my life, my feelings, my future.
Stephan Silver can kiss my ass. He will hurt no one I love. Whether they want me or not.
Hiding out in Elijah's cabin was the best thing I could have done. Looking around the cozy space I created with blankets and pillows surrounding me in the living room, I lay back and take a deep breath. It’s pointless though. My hands shake once again, and I know I am going to have to go through this alone. The withdrawals. Ten times worse than the damn panic attacks ever were, and three times as frequent.
These two weeks are the longest I’ve ever gone without those fucking pills my uncle would practically shove down my throat like some science experiment he kept in house. When Elijah put the two together and discovered my uncle was using me as his own personal guinea pig, I didn’t want to believe it. However, after turning on Stephan for hiring those two psychopaths to kidnap Jade and the twins, Kane Dalton confessed that was my uncle’s plan all along. For over a year, he’d been sneaking in doses of Tran-Q along with my actual prescription meds for my panic attacks and anxiety.
It was sickening to discover. To think I still defended him, still tried to justify why he hated me so much, thinking he’d never go as far as irreparably hurting me. The physical pain and beatings, the emotional and verbal abuse, all of that I could stomach, but I never in my life thought he’d be capable of killing me. That’s what could have happened.
The moment I found out what he’d been doing, using me to test out the synthetic drug he produces, masking it as Xanax to cure my severe panic attacks, I knew the man was pure, unfiltered evil. Years of my life dangerously addicted, every day one step closer to ending up just like my mother.
