Chapter 2

                                                                        ~CIARA'S POV~

He walked towards me with fluid strides and with each step he took, I craned my neck to get a better look at him.

A pointed nose which is cringed in disgust, a pouty lips drawn into a line, two perfectly shaped ears, two enchanting cobalt eyes that bled with hatred and a mop of blond hair on his head which easily made him the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on.

I hadn't realized that he had gotten close to me till I felt his breath on my nose, so minty with a hint of cigar.

"Don't you know it's not nice to stare."

Each word he spoke was more venomous than the last but even his toxic tone couldn't hold my tongue.

"It's not my fault you are so lovely, to look at," I said with what I can only imagine was a sly smile on my face.

Stupid! Why would you say that to him? Why do you still speak when you know what will happen when you do? 

But I couldn't help myself. I can't help the way I speak whenever I'm around him. Just as I can't help the way my stomach flutters whenever he's near me.

He smirked with mischief and resentment swirled in those beautiful orbs. 

A leaf slipped from the window into the confined space, it descended to the ground at a slow pace, its beauty about to get contaminated by the vile floor.

But just as our gentle leaf was about to hit, the unthinkable happened, something so unexpected that I didn't know happened until I felt a choke hold on my neck and the lack of air in my lungs.

He's choking me.

He suspended my frail form in the air and his grip on my neck tightened as the resentment in his eyes deepened, my hands were still held by restraints, meaning there was nothing I could do other than pray to the goddess that he stop his torment.

But he didn't. If anything I'd say, his grip got impossibly tighter and black spots formed in my vision but instead of begging for my life like a normal person in my position, I went ahead and asked another foolish question.

"What did I do to warrant…your hatred?."

His eyes rounded in shock and he stared at my face for the slightest hint of a joke. There was none.

The bewilderment on his face morphed into anger and he released my neck causing me to fall to the ground with a thud.

Stale oxygen forced its way into my lungs and a series of coughs left my lips. But before I could steady my breathing, a sharp pain ran through my abdomen and it took a millisecond for me to realize what had happened.

He kicked me.

He kicked me a second time, then a third and all I could do was quiver on the cold, sticky floor praying to the moon goddess that he would stop his torture.

"Stop…please."

He rained more kicks on me with so much hate glowing in his eyes.

"You want me to stop? How can you have the audacity to ask me to stop when you know what you did? How can you expect me to show mercy when all you have done is cause others pain?"

"You are making a mistake, Noah."

Another wave of pain ran through me and string of blood-soaked coughs left my lips.

"How can you still speak after everything?!" He asked angrily.

"Because I don't know what I did wrong?" was all I could say.

"You took everything from us!"

"And I said it wasn't me?"

"Then who!?"

My lips sealed, unable to answer the question that could free me from the shackles of this cruel fate, but the real question is where would I get the answer from?

"Every time I come here, I always ask you this question, and every time you fail to give me an answer–" He knelt in front of me and held my chin in a vice grip "–the hatred I have for you grows with the breath you take."

"And yet, you made it your mission not to let me die."

His grip on my chin tightened and the death glare he gave me wept with resentment.

"And what makes you think I would want to keep you alive?"

I looked him in the eye and despite the hold he had in me and how bruised my neck was, I held my head up high and said.

"Because the moon goddess gave you so many chances to end my life just as you wanted and yet you chose not to, why is that? You could have left me to die in the hands of your brother or the hands of those animals. I almost fell off a cliff and you still saved me. Why do you profess your hatred and your burning desire to kill if you can't even…"

He pulled me up by my chin and looked me dead in the eye, the hatred I dared to question staring back at me tenfold.

"Listen to me very well, you little worm, I didn't kill you then because an easy death isn't the kind of death a heartless criminal like you deserves. You,  my dear–"  He ran his finger over my face and if it hadn't been from the toxicity that oozed from his pores then I would have leaned into his touch "–deserves the worst kind of death, one  that is filled with so much agony that you would begin to think of all the people you hurt but before I reward you with such a befitting demise, I would first break your soul."

He let go of me and my knees landed on the floor with a thud, pain settled in my knee caps and I hadn't even recovered from the pain I was feeling when I heard the metal door shut and the clanking of keys. 

When I was certain that he was gone, I closed my eyes and focused my ears, trying to pick up the beating heart that even he couldn't hear.

Please stay with me.

Just as I was about to lose all hope, a silver lining dawned over me when I picked up the frail beats I've grown to love and believe in.

Thank you, goddess. 

Fat, heavy tears fell from my orbs and my silent cries turned to plaintive sobs as a sense of relief and pain washed over me.

If I were a number, which number would I be? I asked myself again.

I would be infinity.

I am infinity because of the infinite amount  of pain I've endured. I am infinity because of the infinite amount of injustice gifted to me. And I am infinity because of the number of times I have loved only to cast aside like I'm worth the number zero