Mayhem

Chapter 14

I was beaten half to death by an angry guy resembling every other gang member that worked for Ace for the last three hours. It took me passing out for them to finally give it a rest, throwing some water in my face and dragging me out of the blood-soaked white room. They had dumped me in a cell and slammed the door behind them. 

Alex sat against the wall across the room, his head in his hands. Without looking up, I stumble to the opposite corner of the room, sliding down the cold bricks to sit on the grimy stone floor. He looks up, and blatantly stares at me in silence for a few minutes. I was the one to break the silence. "Why the fuck did you do it, Alex?" I spit across the cell to him. His expression was unreadable, although that possibly could have been because his face was swollen with bruises and cuts.

He lets out a struggled laugh. "Because they were holding a gun to my head," he replies coolly as if it didn't matter. I shake my head in disgust at him. I should never have listened to him, never have let him stay in that motel with me. I sure as hell never should have agreed to go along with his stupid little plan when I knew something wasn't quite right. 

"Yeah funny that, and even though I had experienced multiple guns and other torture devices, I still managed to save your ass and keep your whereabouts unknown." He just stared back with dull eyes.

"How could I have been so fucking stupid?" I mutter, more to myself than him. I hear him shuffle from across the room and looked up to see him hobbling over towards me. I push myself off the floor and had to support myself against the wall just to stay standing. "Fuck off back to your corner, Asshole," I warn slowly, raising my fists.

He stopped short and let out a sigh. "Ivy-" He begins but I cut him off. "You don't get to just act all innocent and like you have done nothing to hurt me. You knew full-well that Raphael couldn't be trusted," I sneer, pressing my self back into the wall as I feel tears throb behind my eyelids. They were partly because I was seriously fucking angry that I had let him into my life again, only to fuck me over once again, but also because my whole body was burning due to the fact that I had been beaten up only moments beforehand.

"Ivy," he starts again, coming slower. I thrust my hand out to stop him. "No, no I'm so so stupid. I should have learn my lesson all those years ago when you ran away to save yourself. I fucking trusted you! Even after everything you did!  Does that mean nothing to you at all? Do I seriously mean so little to you that you would snitch on me to the one guy that not only wants us both dead, but has done things to me that make me literally resent my life?" I sob. The tears were spilling now, one after the other until all I could see of Alex was a blurred, watery figured. 

"Ivy," he says, louder now, grabbing my chin roughly in his grip. "You are not stupid. You are the most stubborn person I have ever met, and a hell of a psychotic bitch, but nowhere close to stupid. I know what you want, which is why I told Elijah where you were going. You want The Kings, and this is the only way you are ever going to get it," he states firmly, forcing me to look at him. 

I push him back, causing him to loose his grip on my chin. "What the fuck are you even talking about?" I mutter slowly. How did he think getting me kidnapped and tortured was supposed to help that plan?

"We still have the upper hand here," he begins. How we had the upper hand, I didn't know. "Ace thinks you are vulnerable, especially after your little spaz at me earlier. He doesn't know that you trust me," he states, raising an eyebrow. I scoff and slide back down the wall. "I don't trust you," I reply coldly, looking down at my bruised knuckles in the dim light.

"Ivy, I would never do anything to hurt you." I laughed, for a good minute before I was able to compose myself. "Yeah, okay Bro, funny joke," I splutter, crossing my arms over my chest.

His face pulls into a frown and he crouches down in front of me, wincing as he does so. It was both satisfying and terrifying to see the damage I had caused him. Satisfying because he fucking deserved it, but terrifying because I was half sure that if Elijah hadn't pulled me back, I just might have killed him.

Elijah. Why did he stop me? Why did he show the emotions that I had been longing to see since I realized he was working with Ace? For a second there it looked like he actually cared about me. 

"I'm not joking. You grew on me over our little... Sojourn," he mutters, kicking my shoe. I roll my eyes at him. "So what? Living with me for half a year didn't quite do it for you but going on a long-weekend torture obviate did?" I spit at him slowly, raising an eyebrow. 

"What can I say? Pain, PTSD and the newfound ability to kill people suits you extremely well," he replies with a light laugh. 

"Not when the pain and PTSD is caused by your selfishness," I mumble under my breath. 

We continued to bicker for a while. I was nowhere near ready to forgive him, or to trust him, or to even be nice to him, so I kicked his ass back to his corner and ordered him not to speak to me for the rest of the night. 

I couldn't help but be surprised when the cell door swung open. It must have been early in the morning, although neither I nor Alex were asleep. Elijah entered in slowly, glaring down at Alex who just huffed and looked at the wall, and then to me. 

He made his way up to me very slowly as if I was a small animal which he was trying not to scare. He stood in front of me for a second, looking torn, before taking a seat against the wall behind me. He looked out of place, dressed in a perfectly crisp black suit, with an expensive-looking watch and shoes so shiny that you could see them glimmering in the dim lighting of the grubby cell.

"Are you alight?" He mumbles slowly. I don't respond, my eyebrows pulling into a frown as I stare up at him, seriously confused. Why does he care? He doesn't, that's crazy. He probably just wants something.

He leans forward a little bit, reaching forward to my hands that rested on my knees. He gently grabs my left one, but I flinch away at his cold touch. What the hell is he playing at? "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." He stops himself and looks down at his feet. 

An awkward silence falls into the cell. I could feel Alex staring at us but I couldn't bring myself to even look at him right now. Elijah opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and then opens it again before lettings out an exasperated sigh. "Fuck, what the hell happened to you, Eve?" He lets out, glancing up at me with an odd look in his eyes. "Me? What happened to me? What are you talking about? Nothing happened to me!" I state, annoyed.  

Why was he acting like I was still his childhood best friend that he cared about? As much as it was nice not to be at each others throats, I knew there was an ulterior motive behind his compassion.

"You almost killed him," Elijah states quietly, gesturing to Alex who now lay with his eye shut on the floor, probably pretending to sleep. I shrug. "I was fucked off," I mumble. Why am I even defending myself to this asshole?

"I know what you're like when you're fucked off, Eve, and that? That was different." I hated the fact that he was calling me Eve. He lost that right the day he ran away and became besties with Ace. 

"You don't know me. You don't know me when I am angry, when I'm sad, happy, nothing. All because you fucking left me. I gave you a second chance, you chose Ace instead. That's not my problem, and I don't give a shit, but don't act like you know a single thing about me when you don't know anything at all," I state coldly to him. 

He nods slightly and frowns down at me. "I'm sorry." His voice was so quite I wasn't even sure I heard the words. He pushed himself to his feet, gave me a sad smile and then walked out of the room without another word, the cell door shutting behind him.

As empowering as it felt to get that off my chest, and to see some actual human emotion coming from Elijah, something was bothering me about our interaction. 

I just couldn't put my finger on it.

. . .

Don't forget to like and comment :)

XOXO