My Beautiful One

14. Condemned to darkness

“Be mine, Amari.”

It felt like time had slowed down.

All along, that was what I had been here for. Sebastian wanted me to be... his.

What kind of person takes someone away from everything they live for and then expects them to love them?

I opened my eyes, seeing their vivid blue-green reflected in Sebastian’s coal black eyes. Most eyes that appear to be black are actually brown when you see them right up close. But Sebastian's eyes were not brown at all, and I was definitely close enough to see it. There was something about those eyes that was just inherently villainous even without that look of fierce determination in them. My eyes no longer looked determined. All the fight had gone out of me the moment Sebastian had me pinned, and I was slowly coming to terms with the hopelessness of my situation.  There was little hope, and I had no energy to fight, so I simply spoke my mind.

“I will never be yours.” I whispered, truth ringing in every syllable. His face was the only thing I could see, like it swallowed up the ceiling and the sky above it. The light from the chandelier above caught Sebastian’s silvery hair, giving him a halo of white light.

I had never seen something that looked more like an angel.

I had never met a person that seemed less like one.

“What did you expect?” I said, “You have erased my hope, and I cannot love you.”

For a while we were both silent. Obviously having sensed my giving up, Sebastian’s grip was no longer tight. I could probably get out of his grasp, and easily at that. But I just didn’t see what good it would do:  this situation would only repeat itself until the day Sebastian died, because he would never lose this appeal for me.

Was it my looks? My immortal body would never change.

Was it my personality? That would last forever.

Was it my questions? They would never end.

I was here to stay and here I would reside forever.

“If you can’t love me then who will?” Asked Sebastian, and for the first time, his facade was down. He no longer wore that mocking smirk or that intimidating posture. The determination had vanished from his eyes, leaving voids of sadness and pain behind.

 He was hurting, and much more so than me.

“Nobody can love a tyrant.” I replied, and then closed my eyes again, blocking everything out. After all that had happened and all that was to come, I couldn’t let some false sense of sympathy creep into my mind. So what if Sebastian was in pain? He had caused me more than my fair share.

He left me not soon after, and I heard his footsteps as I he made his way upstairs. But even when he had gone, I didn’t move. I just lay on the floor and thought.

What would I do with my life now? I finally thought I’d found my purpose, for in the Institute I had found friends, a home, a job... all I had here was a psychotic lover and a head full of questions.

I wish I could just go home. I wish I could see Jace and Clary, laugh, talk... I just wish I-

Snap out of it Amari. A voice growled in my head, and my train of self pitying thought ground to a halt.  Whether there is hope or not, you are not just going to lie here feeling sorry for yourself, and for God’s sake you are not going to start wishing. That isn’t you, and you need to get up and carry on.

“That’s right.” I whispered to myself. Whatever that little pep-talk I had just given myself was, it had definitely given me a better perspective.