Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

02. An Illusion

CHAPTER 2: An Illusion

I thought about leaving. All I had to do was take one look at London city. The visual concoctions of physically seeing the city from its bigger diameters was what I found distracting, enchanting and completely alluring. Adapting to it was near impossible for someone who was extremely close to forgetting just how beautiful it really is.

"Not tired?" I hear behind me.

I glance over my shoulder, "No. It's harder to sleep at night." I murmur to her, facing her completely now as Samsara stands still in a velvet casual blouse and black jeans, along with black heels that looked to be a three inch, I scent the atmosphere. She was breathing rapidly, trying to calm herself down.

"Aaron means well you know. He may act possessive now, but the man has truly missed you, Olive. Soon enough, once you get to know him better, I know you'll fall in love all over again." She murmurs to me, leaning against the railing of along the glass doors, or rather windows, they were so open.

I look over to her, "Who is he, really? I don't understand his protective tendencies towards me, when I don't believe I spent much time with him, a couple months at some Academy I don't recall attending. I just wanted to know why he's as possessive as he is if we haven't known each other for long." I murmur, side-glancing her.

She sighs in defeat, "It's a male's mind, Olive. I wouldn't know the first thing about what goes on there. I was hoping you'd maybe remember me, but at the London UAU Academy, we passed by each other multiple times, you didn't recognise me." She says to me, trailing her brownish blue eyes to mine and I study her. I don't recall seeing her at the school, but then again, I wasn't looking.

"How did I know you?" I ask her, slowly.

"We were the first to meet. Best friends. You were in the same building as me for our dormitories. Opposite me, actually. Even though I was training in the scientific and doctorate field while you were interested in tactical and computer engineering, we got along well. When Aaron and Reynolds moved into the picture, after you two sorted your differences, we were quite the group and I fell in love with Reynolds. You and Aaron were the riot couple of the group." She murmurs, smiling gently as she stares into the city with distant memory in her eyes.

I furrow my eyebrows, "What do you mean by that?" I wonder.

She smiles wider, "The second he got over the fact you could beat him at rifle shooting, even though he'd been at the academy for a good seven years and all of a sudden, you challenged his entire world. His revenge against Pierce seemed minuscule compared to wanting to protect you." She says to me, sounding girlish in the fanatic romance story that had me furrowing my eyebrows.

"I was still isolated, beaten and tortured to the point where any Candidate would rather die, and the worst part is, there are moments I can remember where I wish I could and other times in which I remember, but wish I erased. Samsara, protection is a finicky little bastard that gives little girls hope in the darkness of the night, only to strangle them dead in the future. What protection?" I ask her, fisting my hands at my sides as she snaps up straight in front of me and flinches.

I purse my lips as I release my fingers, "You're afraid of me. So, why are you here? To speak of the past or attempt to reconcile what you think is left of my damaged, tampered form?" I ask her.

She stares at me, "You're not damaged."

"Take a good fucking look at me. Aaron hasn't, he's more concerned with claiming I am his merely because he is jealous of Candidate One, that is blindsiding him from everything else, where you have nothing to be jealous of. I do. You were here, you know the definition of protection, while I-" I cut myself off when I sense Movement from outside the doorway and I still.