REAPER (SERPENT'S MC: BOOK 3)

Chapter 9

🎵...WHEN YOU'RE IN THE HALF LIGHT, IT IS NOT YOU I SEE,

AND YOU'LL LIVE A HALF LIFE, YOU ONLY SHOW HALF TO ME...🎵 

***

OLIVIA

The very first time I remember bleeding was when I jumped from a treehouse to save my little brother's fall.

I can still remember the panic, the hopelessness I felt when I realized that he was going to fall from that high and might not survive. The seven-year-old me jumped without thinking. And she bled like no other. 

Fourteen stitches to knees and a concussion. My brother, Elliot Oliver Becker thought that it was his fault and cried night after nights beside me. For years he didn't leave my side, afraid of me getting possibly hurt. Mom called me irresponsible and a brat, dad just...well daddy didn't come home even after a month passed from the accident. I thought that's what it was. That I was never going to experience such pain ever again.

Then I joined the law. 

I got shot, punched, stabbed, tortured. 

Elliot and I drifted apart. He got busy handling family business with dad. He started to hold on to every word mom said. Even the one where she disagreed with me. Especially me wanting to become an agent.

I don't want you hurt, Ela. 

Don't do this. 

This is your trauma talking.

He didn't even realize when his sister wasn't Ela anymore. He didn't feel the mocking tone in our mother's voice every time she talked to me. He didn't know me. Not really. When I became Agent Becker. When I became a heartless woman who enjoys pain and pleasure. 

This doesn't suit you. This isn't you, sis.

I forgot what worried about your own safety is. I signed myself up for missions even Devon wouldn't approve. And I thought about how dying would feel like. Sometimes I thought maybe it will be like walking into a black hole with no light. Or maybe all I will see is light. 

Anything was better than feeling this.

I didn't hope to feel the sudden buzz in my ears. I didn't mean to feel him behind me as I saw the blood dripping down from my open mouth, tired of getting air in my system. I didn't mean to feel the part darkness that consumed me. And then I definitely didn't want to hear disgruntled voices blending into each other. I didn't intend to feel hands all over me. 

Hot.

Like molten lava has been dropped all over me. Is that how it feels like to be dead? Then I didn't want to die. It was too painful to be just walking into heaven or hell. I hear more voices, then a...shock? 

"She's not responding, fuck!"

I am. I am responding. I am screaming to get out of this hell. I'm fucking terrified that I will be stuck in this place forever. I am tired of running around trying to find the door to escape. More voices fill into the void place but only one sticks to me.

"I'm so fucking sorry."

Sorry?

Why would anyone be sorry? 

Just open your eyes. One part of me screams. Just try.

I want to. All I have to do is try. And it almost works. Almost. Right before even that voice vanishes leaving me to wail inside a hell I was never going to escape from...

***

Pain.

White blinded pain erupts in me when I am shaken awake. No, not shaken. Sounds. Sounds of someone's beating heart. Fear mingles with uncertainty when I feel something in my vein. Where am I?