I Walk the Line ♤ (gxg)

chapter 20: implode

August's body, once wrapped up in the woman's, was now left cold and empty when Willow suddenly sprang off her, her face aghast as if she had seen a ghost.

August quickly sat up, eyebrows threading in confusion as her chest still heavily rose and fell from the passion she was in a daze from. "What? What's wrong?" Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat as she watched Willow cover her face with her hands, not hearing the girl through the thoughts running rampant in her mind.

"Willow, wha—"

"I can't do it," she interrupted her, her back still halfway turned to her. Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned to face the girl. August could've sworn that for a split second, she saw pools welling the woman's light green eyes. "I can't."

"Willow, what are you—" August began, worried by the mixture of melancholy and anger in the woman's face, but she was cut off yet again.

"I can't be involved with you in this way, August." Her voice was nearly trembling, and to see the woman in such a perturbed state scared the girl who stood from the bed as Willow continued, "I am dangerous, August. Dangerous. You will get killed." Willow kept her voice low, trying to indicate to the girl just how serious she was.

August stared at the woman whose words were partly true. She was dangerous, the most dangerous person she had ever met, in fact. But she couldn't truthfully say that August would certainly, for sure, without a doubt, get killed just because of their involvement. She was still trying to wrap her head around the very definition of their so-called "involvement."

"Willow, no. Everything will be ok—"

"No!" The woman's shout made August jump slightly. Willow could feel her anger boiling within her. She wished the girl would just comply and agree to not get involved with her, but no, she was defying her words again. No one ever refuted the words of Willow. "Everything will not be okay!"

"Will—"

"I am a fucking monster and you are a young girl with your whole life ahead of you that I have put in danger. Nothing is okay because I have to deal with the guilt! And I cannot lay on top of you like that and feel your skin and think the thoughts I was thinking in my head while also being that person." She took a deep breath, her skull pounding from the potency in her own voice. She lowered her face, black strands of hair falling over it as her head hung low with the heaviness of her brain. She was so torn between guilt, anger, confusion, and a somewhat adoration for the girl standing in front of her.

August heard the words coming out of her mouth, but she stared at her with concerned eyes nonetheless. "Willow, I was the one who got myself in this mess. I am the reason I am here right now. You are the one protecting me." Her innate role as a comforter began to shine through as she stepped forward and reached out to lay a gentle hand on the woman's leather-covered shoulder.

But the woman moved as fast as a cheetah, her hand grabbing the girl's raised wrist with a slapping noise as her disturbed eyes burned into August's which were widened with fright at how the woman moved so fast.

"Do not call me a protector. I am the shadow in your future, and I am also the possibility that you may not even have one. I and everything I stand for is just going to get you killed. Do you not understand that after this dispute with the gangs in Ithaca are over, you and I will have no more affiliation? I'm a fucking gang leader. I murder people, August. You fucking watched me stab somebody and you're here, saying it's okay and that you don't care? Are you really that naive and stupid?"

Willow spoke through her teeth as she puffed her chest out, making sure her face was intimidatingly close to August's. "Are you that lonely of a person that you're nearly spreading your legs for the first person you see, even if it's a deranged murderer who abducted you and could kill you? Or is slutty the word I should be using?" Every word that passed through her mouth felt like a release to her heated temper but another pang of guilt in her chest.