HER || 18+ (Monsters #2) || Sequel to THEM

72

"A heart is made mature by darkness and art."

- Antonio Machado
. . .

Olivia Woods

I lay alone in the bed. I had woken up like this. Ashton was gone from my side.

I cuddled a pillow to my chest, turned onto my stomach, and closed my eyes.

He just left the bed, Olivia. It's about ten in the morning. He needs to work.

I needed to get my emotions in check. Getting hurt over tiny things which were now different would just ruin things again.

But...wasn't it Sunday?

It was.

I sat up, throwing the pillow away. The room was slightly lit by the sunlight trying to push through the dark curtains. I looked around, trying to commit the light and its shades to my memory. It looked pretty enough to paint.

I got out of bed and fixed myself up a bit in the washroom before stepping out.

"What does that even mean?"

I heard a familiar, feminine voice ask. Gianna.

This wasn't going to be good.

The voice was coming from a room nearby, which I knew was Ashton's office.

"You know English, do you not, Gianna? I am not marrying Mabel."

"Ashton, you cannot seriously believe Olivia won't leave again." Her voice got softer. "She doesn't know how it works in the mafia. She doesn't have the same values. She doesn't care about you the way you need."

I looked down at my hands which were trembling slightly. I cared about them. She was wrong.

"I don't care," Ashton's voice was steel. "I don't care, Gianna. She can rip me apart, and I still won't leave her. It is as simple as that. The mafia will go on - greedy people like you will make sure of that. A million Creeds are running around."

She can rip me apart. But I wouldn't do that. Didn't he know that?

"She will ruin us all," Gianna said. "She will ruin you, Ashton. People with good intentions can still mess everything up. Keep her, if you have to, but keep her at a distance. Don't give too much of yourself away."

"It's too late for that, Grandma," he said quietly. "And it's too late for you to teach me things, especially when I was to be taught, I was dying in a fucking cell. So why don't you just go the fuck away before I put a bullet in you?"

I took a few steps back, slipping back into Ashton's room as Gianna walked out of the office.

She turned and walked towards me, I tried to hide but her eyes were fast. She was a Creed, after all. Nothing could be hidden.

She paused in front of me, eyes taking me in. For the first time, there was no utter disgust on her face or fake politeness, now there was only blankness.

"Miss Woods," she said. "Do not ruin them. They will always want to burn everything down, and they'll say it's for you, but it will be because it's in our blood to want to destroy." She stepped closer, holding my eyes. "Take yourself out of their heart, before the mafia swallows them whole."

And she walked away.

Ashton was standing near the door of his office.

He looked at me, at my bare legs covered with just shorts and the giant t-shirt I was wearing. He didn't say a word for a while.