AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey.” Serena, Junior’s wife, looked over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
I stared down at my blood-soaked shoes, still seeing the guy’s lifeless body and the knife in my hand, the one that took the life. “Training.” Surviving. Staying alive. Part of me wondered, was it him or me? I would always choose me.
Junior came up next to me once she turned around and drove a knife directly into my side, maybe two inches in. Warm blood drizzled down my skin while a burning pain hit so hard I almost lost composure. “Welcome to the Family, blood in…” He jerked the bloody knife away from my skin. “…no out. You’ve just been made.”
He walked over to his wife like the world was normal, while mine had just gone dark. My vision blurred. I was stained. I’d taken from this world.
Me or them.
I’d told them I wanted to be a part of them.
I didn’t understand how heavy a wish it was.
Or how dead I would already feel.
Be careful what you wish for.
Real. So real.
“Gonna go change.” I muttered and walked around the corner, where Bella nearly rammed into me. She righted herself, using my shoulders, then looked down.
We were quiet.
We were probably going to fight like we always did.
Instead, she grabbed my hand and said, “Come on.”
She pulled me into her room and sat me gently on the bed, then slowly took off my shoes and put them in the trash while I held my side, it throbbed in pain; it was purposeful, that scar. I wasn’t stupid. It was close enough to my back to remind me of people coming after me, and close enough to my stomach to remind me that some people stab you right in front of your face. It was the new way of becoming a made man, a constant reminder.
I was numb at that point.
Her eyes scanned over my jeans before she sighed and went into her attached bathroom and turned on the bath. The water could have been cold, hot, the bath could have been broken, I didn’t even care. I just existed in that moment with blood streaming, with my nerves on end, knowing it was probably the end of something and the beginning of something even more terrifying, but I couldn’t move.
Still numb, I stayed there, hands shaking.
Minutes, maybe even years later, she was pulling me to my feet and stripping me down. I still only remembered going into that bathtub and sitting. At one point, I think she tried helping wash me.
And then I remembered grabbing her, yelling at her, feeling ashamed she was seeing me that way and asking her to leave, or demanding it. In my dreams I felt her mouth on mine, my hands on her body, but I told myself it was my imagination, I told myself I would never, and yet at times the shameful part of me wondered if I did. Did I steal more than one life that night? Did I take a kiss? Did I steal her mouth again and again in order to suck some life from her that I desperately needed and did the last shred of goodness I had just disintegrate between our tongues?
Our relationship, or what was a small shroud of friendship, disappeared after that night and I still had no clue what I’d done so horribly other than being traumatized that I’d killed.
We were true enemies after that.
And now we were going to be in the same dorm room. Great. She was probably going to get back at me for it, at some point, it would only make sense.
She’d been tainted by me.
She’d tried to help.
But the only thing I’d been able to do with my voice was yell at her, but I’d needed someone to blame.
And it’s always easier to blame those you secretly respect than yourself.
CHAPTER SIX
“Don’t ever try to fight a losing battle, no matter how many times you convince yourself it’s going to work, it won’t, and in the end if love is involved, good luck.” —King Campisi
Bella
