ARI“You are my mate, no?”“Am I?” I cock my head to the side. “Are you finally accepting me when you have all but rejected me since the moment we were fated?”He doesn’t seem to have expected that, a frown forming on his brows. “You know what I mean.”“Do I? Zade, you and I will never be. Yes, we have kissed, yes you were my first in terms of it. But that doesn’t mean anything to me. To me, you will remain the jerk who forcibly kissed me and destroyed the absolute joy of kissing for the first time.”“Aren’t you taking this-““No,” I cut him off. “I am stating things as they are. I kissed you yesterday and I admit, it was good. But that could be because you are my mate and our chemistry is meant to be there. I know why I am feeling the way I am feeling about you.“But you don’t like me, no you actually hate me.”His eyes flash and he purses his lips in a thin line. “Good to know that you have finally got that little fact.”“I have. You promised to make my life a living hell, remember?
ARI“Oh, I feel awful,” I moan as I rub my chest. “This really sucks.”“Get yourself a new crush. No, maybe explore and just be free about the whole thing.”“How? My whole world and focus point seems to be on one person and I can't move on past that.”“Try to, it won't be easy but it will help. Go out and mingle with other people outside this school.”“We are in the middle of nowhere,” I gesture around us.“Not really, we are at the centre of a very hot point. Miles away, there is a town and it is very active. Maybe if you take this as a trial, you will do well when we go back to the academy.”“And at the academy, all I will meet are more students.”“No dummy, outside the academy. In the city, and surrounding towns … you might even take vacations and travel too. Your world is your oyster. Live a little.”Live a little … can I do that?…A solo hunt.Not for boys, or for even eating but for myself.I wanted to go out with the girls but Mimi said it would be good if I started alone at f
ARIEyes are on me as I make my way to my seat.Today, unlike the past few days, it's snowing heavily. I am ready to go back to the academy, back to my own dorm and space. This place is beautiful, but I have had enough of being in close quarters with certain people.Here, you feel like you are so close and being watched all the time. There isn't enough space for all of us, even though this is a large resort enough to fit twice the group and remain more than comfortable.I guess I am just tired of the scrutiny because the whole class is now staring at me like they have never seen me.I don’t even bother to acknowledge the stares, just zipping my puffer jacket to my chin and then pocketing my hands, and eyes at the teacher.Today it's all about communal. Relationships. Cohesiveness.Everything that will remind me that I am unwanted and I am not part of the pack.“Don’t be so gloomy, we are stuck together.”Max shoulder bumps me on my side and I nod, briefly looking at her before I look
ARII might have done something that I shouldn’t have done.Not yet, at least.Here I am, out in the open facing my duel opponent, Olivia.I didn’t know it would come to this; a duel. When I told her that I could beat her, well, I didn’t know that could be termed as a challenge and an invitation for a duel.I knew I had fallen into some sort of trap when she had only smirked and told me to meet her outside where there was plenty of space to prove that ‘little’ theory correct.Max had stiffened next to me and Zade… well. It's his girlfriend and his fated mate dueling, indeed he could have said something.Anything.He didn’t and he isn't going to, not when he is acting like this whole thing is an inconvenience for him and acting all nonchalant. I want him to go, or do something but he isn't, he is just here, listening to Olivia talk where they are all gathered.The legacies.There aren't any other people around, as the other group is out somewhere doing their assigned tasks it's just us
ARII see white behind my eyes when she throws me on the ground with my back, I think my back might snap in two.Breathing is heavy, I think my lungs are punctured.Something heavy presses on my chest, and I feel like I am choking. I cough up painfully, and something travels on my mouth corners.I think someone is screaming and shouting, and then the pressure is gone.“Ari,” someone is shaking my shoulders. “come on, don’t pass out on me, Ari? Ari!”Max. Max is here.“I don’t think you are allowed to be a part of the duel unless you want penalties.”“And you think killing her is going to be a fair match for you?!”“get out now while I am being nice to you. This is between me and her.”“no more, the duel is over, she is down.”“no, the duel is over when I say it's over.”“This is insane! Zade, come on, don’t you see she is killing her?!”“get out now max, I know I can take you too. If you don’t want me to hurt your friend any longer, step away.”I try getting up but my whole body is in
ZADE“How is she?”Max is furious. She can't even look at me, and I know she would shout and even hit me, but she can't. But I know why, I didn’t do well, and this time, even a cruel person like me understands why I shouldn’t have done what I did.It's not what I did; it's more like what I didn’t do.I watched Olivia being beaten and humiliated like she was nothing. All legacies were there as we watched, not batting an eye even as Olivia tried to choke her and drown her in her blood.I didn’t do anything, not even try to stop the duel that was very unbalanced and unfair, all in the name of wanting to remain impartial. If I showed Olivia that I cared about her, then she would have been I trouble.But … what trouble? She was already going through hell in her hands. Does it go darker or worse than what she got? No.I was juts a shitty person, a cold person like she has told me over and over again.“You don’t have the right to ask me that.”I don’t, but it feels like the right thing to do
ARI“Who are you texting?”I slide my phone into my pocket, just as Max sits next to me on the bench. “Oh, no one.”“It looked serious.”“It wasn’t.” Just my new dad, telling him I might be taking his offers after all. All the things he has been trying to offer me I am finally saying yes to them.Mr. Parker is elated, judging from the numerous thumbs-up emojis he has sent back. He has told me that I will be ready when I get back to school in a few days.I am over this boot camp.“Come on, let's join the others.” I don’t want to but Max takes my hand and we start walking to one of the rooms we will be spending the day in, getting close and all.They are all in, seated at the round table. The room is designed as a circle, to help with the cohesiveness of the people in something about how buildings have different frequencies depending on their structures.I don’t pay anyone attention, not as I put on my earpods and sit by the window, away from them, and take out a book I brought. I have
ZADEShe has changed.It's in the way she is talking and interacting with others, or lack thereof.It's in the way I can't seem to be getting under her skin anymore. Even the way she is looking at me nowadays, like she can see me but not really. As if she is looking right through me. Together and in front of me but not truly with me.It's annoying me.We are back to the academy, thank hells for that because I couldn’t take more of that camp any more. I dont want to be around her, so close yet so far away and I don’t know how to even fix it.She was starting to look at me differently, too. It started as wariness, then to fear and then to something akin to … familiarity. Comfortable.But now it’s something I hadn’t seen from her before. She is looking at me like I don’t matter at al. she can see me and in her mind, I simply don’t matter, don’t hold anything of importance for her to regard me as anything but someone who she has to deal with in the specific moment I am with her.I don’t l
ZADEEverything should have gotten better.No, everything should have changed once I decided not to let my dislike for silvers get in the way of me making amends to her. But she has been avoiding me and acting like I don’t exist at all.I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind before but now? now she is all I see. Now she is the epitome of my existence.She is posing a challenge and that is to ignore me and treat me like I am inviscible. Like we are not bonded and I cant sometimes fele her when she hasn’t blocked me out.Like I cant feel her so close to me like we are sharing the same skin, breathing the same air. We are intertwined, I am wearing her mark on my skin, and she is wearing mine, a sign that we are meant to be together, wheter we like it or not.I haven't liked it for a long time and I hated her some more for it. But even then, when I was swimming in my denial, I knew that my life would never be the same once she busted in.She is not someone you simply forget or even
ARII learnt how to drive when I was thirteen.My mother was so sick in the middle of the night, and it was the month we had to stay in a cabin away from towns and civilisations because she feared that the ones we had been running away from had caught up to us.I still don’t have a driver’s license, but I am a decent driver.The car, too, is so good and so sexy that I can't help the laugh that bubbles out of my throat. When I told Mr. Parker that I needed a car to get out of school like other students, he told me he already had one for me.It was a gift that he didn't think I would like but bought anyway. He is … thoughtful and trying to fill in my father's role.I appreciate that.I run my hands on the steering wheel, smiling so widely my cheeks are aching.A black mustang; sporty, sexy, just how I love it. The interior is all dark red and leather too, that new smell making my norse itch and I giggle as I start it, gearing as I speed out of the gate.Weeks ago I couldn’t get out of t
ARII am a girl that is broken.I have tried not to let it consume me, and when it was too much for me, I have tried containing it so that it won't consume those around me.Life for me has not been easy. It has been an endless darkness that threatens to twist me and fold me, shatter every new vine, every bone I form, and render me helpless, weak all my life.You can say I have tried not to let it show that I am drowning and just how broken and damaged I am. My mother can't tell you that I have been dead; she thinks I am fine.How can she know when my one purpose in life was to ensure that she never once realized the truth about me?But I am tired of keeping the darkness away. I am tired of carrying it like it weighs nothing, when it's only I who knows the truth about it—about the weight. I have been dead for a long time, just floating in the world.I have had to be with nothing, be nothing that it has infused in my blood, in my psyche. If you are nothing, if you don’t know anything, t
ARI“Are you sure you're okay?”“I am,” I take Max’s hand. “I promise if I feel any discomfort pain, I will tell you immediately.”She laughs. “You better.”“Okay, Mom,” I roll my eyes as I get off the bed. I have been cooped up here for some reason, but I have had enough.“I am just taking care of you, I feel partly responsible for this.” She isn't looking at me, head bowed in guilt.“You have no reason to. You aren't the one who pushed me off the roof,” I shrug. “I was a little reckless too, going up there in the middle of the night to meet with the same girl who beat me to death a few days earlier.”“Why did you?”I sigh, leaning on the small closet in the room where my clothes have been put. “I wanted to get it over with? I knew we had to talk at some point, so getting that out of the way … and I was curious what she wanted to say.”She frowns, obviously disagreeing with my choices. I can't blame her, I mean, look where it got me. "What did she want?”“She wanted me to stay away f
ZADEI get to my room, feeling like I am about to lose it, only to find …“I have been waiting for you.”Olivia. Naked in my bed, waiting for me.“I knew we had to talk alone,” she kneels on the bed.My strides are quick as I reach over to the bed and clamp my fingers around her neck, making her gasp and look up at me with wide eyes, confusion, and then terror reflecting in her eyes.“I told you I don’t allow anyone in my bed.” I don’t feel a thing, not even as she starts to scratch my hand, trying to get me to let her go.“I thought I made myself clear when I told you that me amd you are done. Why don’t you get through that your little skull?”I squeeze tighter, all the mindache that has been assaulting me since I got away from that hospital room, finally zeroing in on the girl in front of me. Maybe she should die.Would Silvers forgive me if I killed her? Would she see this as a good form of apology? Will it be enough?Olivia starts to lose consciousness, the fight leaving her body.
ZADE“I did it for you.”Experated sigh, then an eye roll. “I didn’t think you were attached to her like this. Don’t you hate her?”The longer Olivia keeps talking, the angrier I get.“Get out.”She looks at me, surprised. “What?”“Get out.”“You can't be serious,” she huffs, flicking her hair over her shoulder. You can't talk to me like that and tell me to leave just because of her.”I have a feeling if she doesn’t move, I might remove her myself. “I am. Now get out while I am being nice.”She tripped. I am not to blame that she is clumsy! What was I supposed to do when she fell? Jump after her? I called you, that’s enough to show I care.”“you didn’t call me, I found out on my own.” my hands are shaking. I a barely holding myself back from making sure she gets what she has done to ari only worse.“Whatever, all I am saying is, I did it for you. I called you and found you not because of her but for you.”“Olivia.”“You only call me that when you are serious.”“I want you to listen ca
ARII shouldn’t have agreed to come here.I don’t trust her, but I couldn’t ignore the call either. I wonder what she wants to say now that she has called me.The location too is very strange. I mean, who call someone up a frooftop in the middle of the night all in the name of talking?Olivia, that’s who.“I thought you wouldn’t come.” Her voice echoes before I see her. She shows herself from the stone she was leaning against, blending in with the shadows.“I was curious as to what you wanted to say to me.” I try not to show that I am intimidated by her. She did try to kill me, so of course I am wary. I would be a fool if I weren’t.“I suppose you would be,” she chuckles, tilting her head to the side. Her long hair slides off her shoulder, making the angle even more alluring. I still cant see her face, as her back is facing where the moon is illimunating from the sky.Soo, talk,” I shrug, hoping she will start already and I can go back to sleep. Not that I was, but she doesn’t need to
ZADEI don’t move an inch from where I am, exhaling slowly as Olivia sits next to me, shoulder to shoulder. I didn’t hear her coming up.I must have been distracted. Again.“can't sleep?”“When have I ever been able to?”She chuckles, before laying her head on my shoulder. “sorry, I forgot you are an insomniac like me.”When I don’t say anything, she sighs. “Just one of the things we are alike, don’t you agree?”“I guess.” I have been trying to spend less time with her. She must have noticed that he sought me out like this.“You haven’t come to see me for a while. I am starting to think you are ignoring me again.”“I have been busy.”“If its school work, I know you are way ahead and you have already aced the exams even before they are announced.”“I have other duties other than academics.”“I know, I have your full schedule, remember?”Right, I forgot.“Why have you been ignoring me?”“I thought it would be easier if we slowly got out of each other's lives.” Not even my grandpa is sup
ZADEShe has changed.It's in the way she is talking and interacting with others, or lack thereof.It's in the way I can't seem to be getting under her skin anymore. Even the way she is looking at me nowadays, like she can see me but not really. As if she is looking right through me. Together and in front of me but not truly with me.It's annoying me.We are back to the academy, thank hells for that because I couldn’t take more of that camp any more. I dont want to be around her, so close yet so far away and I don’t know how to even fix it.She was starting to look at me differently, too. It started as wariness, then to fear and then to something akin to … familiarity. Comfortable.But now it’s something I hadn’t seen from her before. She is looking at me like I don’t matter at al. she can see me and in her mind, I simply don’t matter, don’t hold anything of importance for her to regard me as anything but someone who she has to deal with in the specific moment I am with her.I don’t l