Finding Love | ✔️

twelve

/No matter what has happened. No matter what you've done. No matter what you will do. I will always love you. I swear it./

~ Defiance by C.J. Redwine

♡

I wake up on a bed to the sound of clinking glass. My whole body feels sore. Dammit.

"Hey," I hear a gentle voice say. Leopald!

"Leopald!" I say, in echo of my thoughts. What I hoped would come out as an enthusiastic cheer ends up sounding like an ugly croak.

"You got beaten up pretty bad," he say. "You look like a bag of shit."

"Thanks." I say sarcastically.

"You kind of were dog shit, considering I had to pick up after you..."

"Ha ha. Very funny."

"Here." He tosses me an icepack and I gratefully place it on my forehead. "I hope you're feeling alright," he says."There's some painkillers by your side. Water too."

"Thanks. To be honest, I think this is the one time being around glass has made me feel worse..."

"How do you mean?"

"I'm staring at a thousand reflections of my swollen face."

"You're setting yourself up for some good jokes."

"Hit me." I say. On second thoughts, that was really stupid to say.

"You make this too easy, Lilac. Too easy." He chuckles and sits down beside me. He investigates my body, touching my hand lightly. It's bandaged up.

"Ouch," I whisper. My whole body screams. My head is hot and my bum's feeling like pins and needles.

"Oh, before I forget..." He searches his back pocket for something, which turns out to be a piece of paper. He hands me a note, which reads:

Dear Lilac,

Seems like she took care of the 'nearly dead' part for me, huh. Well, I'm sorry about that. On the bright side, I don't think you'll be delivering anything any time soon...but I need you to tell me what she told you as soon as you can (Leopald can pass it on to me). Get better soon.

Jason.

I sigh. My whole body hurts. I just want to drift back into a deep sleep, a world of oblivion, where pain is nothing.

"I want to sleep."

"Jason said to tell him what she told you."

"Well," I try my hardest to remember. "All I can recall is that she's pissed off because he's been keeping more than she asked for."

"That's it?"

"She said he's been playing with fire, or something like that. I honestly don't remember much."

"Thanks." He says. He's got this look of worry on his face, but then he shakes it off. "Get some rest, Lilac. I'll be working here for a few hours, painting some stuff, so if you wake up and need anything I'm right here."

I nod. Then I sleep.

***

Four weeks down the line, I'm back to delivering 'stuff'. But this time it's different: I only work in the night. And, I only deliver to her. Rather, her men. I haven't seen her ever since the incident. I'm more than grateful for that; because when she looks into your eyes, it is as if she has stabbed your soul.

I hate her.

But so does the rest of the crew. We've bonded quite a bit. They were curious to know what happened to me, and how she looks like, because most of them actually have never seen this woman. She's a mystery, they say. But she's powerful.