ECSTASY | CRIME PRINCE SERIES | BOOK 0.5 FIRST EDITION

|𝟐𝟖.| 𝐌𝐢 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚

"Blood does not define family, she is mine."
-Unknown
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࿈Ash࿈

I pace back and forth around the balcony, frustratedly running a hand through my hair while occasionally taking a smoke. It's four am now and I'm being annoyed at myself, everyone else and her. Why did she hide this? Is this the first call, it seemed frequent in fact the phone didn't seem like hers, no wallpaper, no contacts, no emails.

She sleeps so peacefully, her eyes barely moving as her breaths stay steady. She huffs and as a result a strand of hair flys from her face because gradually going back down. I laugh under my breath as she murmurs something before turning around to face my side of the bed. My empty side of the bed.

It's crazy, how she can sleep when I escape sleep. Aria's different, she's uses sleep to escape her problems because she believes in her unconscious state nothing can harm her except herself but knows that she cannot escape the world when awake, what they expect of her, what they want, they desire, they need.

Imagine if everyone knew who she really was. Imagine if I knew how dangerous she really was...

Aria stirs reaching out for me and frowns when she hold on to nothing. After a while of shuffling she opens her eyes, sitting upright against the headboard as she watches me from the balcony. She gets up from the bed, putting on my hoodie over her pajamas. She walks over to me yawning, before taking in the breeze of fresh air before placing a kiss on my bare back and murmurs something along the lings of 'you're cold' .

My muscles immediately relax, damn you Aria I'm trying to be mad at you. She leans on the glass railings along with a glass of wine in her hand. I blink unable to comprehend how she got the glass of wine without me noticing?

"Why in the world are you awake, Gray?" That nickname, I haven't heard it in five long years. That name she gave me when she realized my name. I was utterly disgusted at the nickname wondering how someone could be so corny and yet I'd yearned to hear it from her lips for what seemed like forever. And finally..."Gray."

"I hate that name." she laughs secretly telling me that I don't and I roll my eyes knowing very well she's telling my shit, "The sky's awake, so I'm awake." she laughs again, and the sound replays itself over and over again in my mind, eternally embedding it into my memory.

"I knew making you watch frozen all those years ago would pay off." she nudges me, taking a sip of her wine before setting it down, and face my side and she leans onto my shoulder, "Something happened and you won't tell me, I've learned the hard way not to force you into telling me shit in the end I was better off not knowing but that doesn't mean that I don't deserve the truth. Remember that..."

This seemed pretty ironic coming from her, but I said nothing. Instead asking something that lingered in my mind for far too long,"When did you start drinking? And why?"

She seemed to tense at the question but answered none the less. "Three years ago, I was in a bar and staring at a bottle of wine. I really tried not to reach for it, to turn away and never look back but it was December 5th, so you know I said fuck it and chugged the shit down. The feeling made me forget everything and I wanted more, I needed more. Killing was a different high I didn't want to sucum to, so I got drunk instead."

"I know I trained you. But the style is you use is different, you kill with elegance it's almost theatrical to watch. Your mother taught you, didn't she?" I ask, she nods. A sudden rush of pride filling her as she fiddled with a necklace around her neck. One that I've noticed she always wore.