𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐬

~Orphan~

"And this one?" she asked, tracing another one of his tattoos. 

She straddled his lap, wearing nothing but his shirt and her underwear. His bare, muscular torso like an art exhibit as her hands traced the dark ink, some of them covering jagged scars. 

His tanzanite eyes glinted as he watched her movements, his hands struggling not to grab her throat and slam his lips to hers. Her green eyes sparked with admiration as she listened intently to each one of the stories behind the tattoos. 

And the tattoo she was currently tracing was one of a pair of devil's wings, held together by a vine of thorns with unbloomed rosebuds. It was inked at the center of his collar bones. 

"That was the day I was officially out of the foster system," he spoke with a small smile, tracing the crease of her beck. 

Ariella knew that he was orphaned and that was something she supposed she had in common with him. 

"How long were you in the system?" she asked, gazing at the inky details. 

"As long as I can remember. Lily and Leo were there with me since day 1," 

"Have you always been in Maine?" she asked again. 

He shook his head saying, "No, we moved around. A few years in Florida, then some in California. Then when I got out, I went straight here."

"Where was your favorite place?" she asked, a small smile making its way to his face. 

"Maine," he replied, his eyes unwavering and soul-touching. 

Her gaze held the same stillness, her lips twitching upwards. Her emerald eyes gazing up at his, the world around them blurring and fading out because the universe seemed infinitely unimportant. They were each other's importance. 

She would've hated Maine with all her being if it wasn't for two special people she met there. 

"Why new york?" she whispered with an inhale, interrupting their passion-filled silence. 

"Someone contacted me a month before I turned 18. He targeted kids like me with no future to work for him. I said yes because I had no clue what I was going to do after I turned 18. By the time I moved, I didn't know that he hired me as his person to do his dirty work and do his extra dirty work. But by then, it was too late," he responded. 

"I did the work, for the most part, not knowing that I was digging myself deeper into his business. After a few months, I figured out what he was really doing. He owned a branch of human trafficking,"

She stayed silent, listening intently but knew he was invalidating his own past and making it seem like it wasn't as bad as it was. But it was bad. His past was just as bad as hers. 

He was an orphan who was sucked into a life of crime because he didn't have another choice. He was a targeted boy who had experienced too much for his age. He bounced from foster home to foster home with no real place of belonging. He didn't know what family was except for Leo and Lily. Some of those foster homes probably abused and neglected him in more ways than one and she knew that one of those times had to be when she first met him at that park. 

He didn't have a mother to wipe away the tears or tell him how loved he is. He didn't have a father to protect and teach him about loving another or even tell him about life. 

But she wasn't going to push him. It was a miracle he was even opening up at all and she was grateful but wouldn't force him to speak. 

But she wished she could take all the pain away and carry it herself if it meant he'd scowl less. His life hardened him and made him almost emotionless. She wished she had saved him as he had saved her.