AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A couple of hours later, Ella was still sprawled before me. I leaned back, watching her, and caught her gaze drifting over the ink that laced my flesh.
"Tell me about these," she breathed, fingertips inching towards the black lines swirling on my arm, skirting the edges of the Cinder Crew's legacy.
"Each one's got a story, a scar, or a soul behind it," I muttered, eyes darkening at memories best left buried. "Marks of brotherhood, marks of the lost."
"Brotherhood?"
"Men I've fought beside, some six feet under now." My jaw clenched, locking away the faces that ghosted behind my lids every fucking night. "Blood bonds thicker than the filth we waded through."
She traced a dragon, its scales a dance of shadows and fire, an epitaph for a brother who had been snuffed out too soon. "He loved myths, believed in honor among thieves. Shit got him killed."
Her touch withdrew, a fleeting warmth against the cold history etched into my skin. Eyes wide, she lingered on a brand low on my forearm, the Cinder Crew's emblem seared into my flesh.
"What about this one?" She pointed, but didn't touch, sensing sacred ground.
"Off-limits," I growled, the words a barricade around the part of me that belonged to Priscilla, to a promise carved in pain and sealed in blood. Fucking Priscilla.
"So... the longer we keep doing this, the more I feel—" she started, but I cut her off, my hand firm on her jaw, angling her face up to mine.
"Enough," I rasped. "That world ain't for you. This is what we got, right here, right now."
"I... I'm just trying to understand what is happening here."
"I'm training you for Gustov. Nothing more, nothing less." Even as the words were forced from my lips, I wanted to reel them back in. The look that crossed her face almost shattered me.
"Okay. Do... do you want to be with me? Or is this because you are loyal to Cinder Crew?"
"Maybe both." I didn't flinch from the truth of it. This life, it was all about duality.
"Let me go then. Be my savior, Chris." A challenge thrown down between us.
"Can't do that." I stiffened.
"Because of her?"
"Because of everything." I gestured around the room, encompassing the darkness, the sins, the blood. I got up and paced the room.
"Because you're a coward." Her eyes followed me, piercing through the bullshit.
"Fuck." I all but spat the word out. It wasn't a confession or an excuse. Just a fact.
"Fuck indeed." She echoed, a mirror of my own turmoil.
"Time to take you back to your own room."
"But..."
"Just stop, Ella. This is who I am. This is all you're ever going to get."
Twelve: Ella
Cold seeped through the stone floor, a creeping chill that wrapped around my bare feet and crawled up my spine. Chris had put me in here and left to go get us something to eat. Supposedly.
"Shit's about to get real for you, princess," Annie's voice was preceded by the click of the door.
Izzy stepped in behind her. "Hope you're ready for your make-over."
Annie cracked her knuckles, the sound ricocheting off the walls. Her footsteps were slow, deliberate. "You're nothing but a plaything, Ella. A pretty, broken doll. Did you really think you could change him? No, sweet girl, Chris is and forever will be ours."
