The Daughter of the Gangleader •UNDER EDITION•

Two Lives and Counting

Scarlet Archer's POV

I would've asked him where he brought me. I would've checked the place out. I would've given two fucks about being alone with him in the middle of the woods. There are many things I'd do with enough energy. The thing I am doing, is to blindly let him take me to a tiny wooden cabin a while from the zone we parked at.

He didn't, not once, let our skins not touch. In the car he kept his hand on my thigh, on the wall he held my hand, and when I hesitate to enter the cottage, he snakes his arm around my waist to push my lower back in as gently as he could. I would've argued.

"It's cold as fuck, I'll fix it in a second," he says, dropping our phones, his keys and the jacket I didn't wanna take in on the couch placed in the middle of the four walls. "Scarlet?"

I snap my head to him, seeing his extended hand as he waits for me like one does for a kid. I lock eyes with him, my ego giving in to the simple fact that I need his warmth. I reach my bloody hand for him, keeping my eyes as far away from it as possible. He pulls me to the other side of the couch, sitting me down on one of the bar stools before he disappears through the door a couple feet away. Coming back, he's holding some fabric and a wet towel. He puts them down on the stool beside me and then disappears again, returning with a glass of water I was too lost to hear. "Hey."

My eyes are burning when I meet his, gravity crushing my chest. "Drink this."

"I don't want to," I swat his hand away, too tired for everything.

"Please."

He lowers the glass, holding it right over my lap and in my sight. I swallow, trying to raise my hands. My already shaking ribs start falling apart when my eyes catch the dried blood on my hands. I swallow again, barely making it because of the lump occupying my whole throat. I suck in a breath, hoping it will blow back the tears in my throat that are trying to push past.

Your three minutes are over, which means somebody has to pay for it.

One drop.

Two drops.

Three drops.

All splattering on my skin, creating a helix nebula of blood that fades the closer to the eye of it that you look.

I swallow.

That's the first time I've heard you say that.

I jump down from the stool, the glass falling out of his grip and completely out of my range of worries. I stumble my way to the bathroom he came from, my whole world becoming an illusion that I can't grasp.

And probably the last.

When my eyes finally find the toilet, I have one second to sigh in relief before I fall over it and fill it with my intestines. I keep my eyes closed, my breathing heavy as I try swallowing down my urges, pushing down his voice.