Spiraled ⚪⭐⚪⭐ (A Brollins Novel)✔

EPISODE TWELVE

Unknown Location.

Johnathan waits with fingers tapping on his jeans, lazily kicking stones away from his path as he paces. His gaze flits to the path down the narrow street for the fifth time of the night but all that meets him is silence. Not even a car passes by and with the moon a mile away, glow hardly brightens the spot where he stands in front of an abandoned manor. The stars are missing tonight, leaving the sky a pitch dark sheet, so dark it's as if the world may end tonight. The moon and the stars looks to be mourning what has happened and what will happen. Jonathan fears it too but he has long past the age when he used to fear anything and everything. Besides, he has nothing to fear. His father is already dead, what more could he want? He can't think of anything else.

He jerks around when he hears footsteps, a smile forming on his face as she appears in sight, looking back over her shoulder as if she's expecting someone to materialize behind her any moment. But no one comes here; that's why he'd specifically chosen this place. The previous meeting place had become suspicious even to his gang members and with the fear she'll be punished if discovered, he'd searched hard and long until he found the abandoned manor in a deserted area people hardly visit. She has no reason to fear. "Renee," he rushes to catch her before she can stumble over a large block she doesn't see it's in her way, draping an arm around her waist and holding her tight.

She giggles, a sweet sound which takes him back to the day they met. Back then, her giggle wasn't for him but things are different now. Her head falls onto his chest, her hand gripping his green shirt in a death grip as she laughs into his shoulder. "Let me fall once sometime," she breathes against his neck, "so I'll know how it feels to fall and get back up on my own."

"Never," he vows to her, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "You've fallen enough times as it is. I won't let you fall when I'm here."

Her eyes twinkle up at him, "Where you then, when I fell in love with you? You shouldn't have let me fall but you did. So selfish," she pecks him quickly on the cheek and untangles herself from him. She carefully walks over to sit on one of the crumbled walls of the manor, jumping over the wall with practiced ease. It's a demonstration for him; he knows this fact quite well but no matter what she tells him, no matter how much she whines about how she can take care of herself, he'll never cease to protect her.

Jonathan jumps over to sit beside her on the wall, an arm draped around her shoulders as the other reaches down to retrieve a plastic bag from the ground. "I brought food for you," he shoves the plastic bag into her hands before she can open her mouth to protest.

She stares at the plastic bag in her hands before looking up at him with a smile that says more than words can. "You didn't have to."

"It's just sandwich and coke. Nothing expensive. Thought you might be hungry. Eat up."

"Hmm, lots of cheese, just the way I like it. Thank you." Renee says with a smile and bites into the sandwich, moaning at the taste of it in her mouth. Jon chuckles and watches as she eats greedily. He brushes away a small bit of bread sticking to the side of her mouth. He knows she's lying whenever she says she isn't hungry. She always is, but that's going to change. Things has to. "The boys cooked tonight if you care to know and I ate a bit of everything that was served thanks to Paige," she assures him, noticing his pained expression. "Alberto likes her so she's able to use her charms to get us something from time to time."

Jonathan scoffs, "But it wasn't enough, was it? It never is. Those boys eat like pigs." She nods her head in agreement with a light laugh, finishing off the last bit of her sandwich. "Here, let me." He swiftly opens the bottle of coke and hands it back to her, tossing the plastic bag among the rubble lying at his left.