A Taste of Darkness

Chapter 26: Sienna

Scarlett

I was convinced that the tension in the air around us would end up growing its own hands and wrapping them around my neck forcefully, squeezing until every single ounce of my oxygen supply cut off. And if that didn't happen, the walls around us would end up swallowing me whole.

Why did this always happen whenever I was close to him?

"This might hurt," Julio utters as he pours a drop of rubbing alcohol onto the cloth and begins dabbing it onto my wound to prevent any infection growing. Although I felt pain when my open wound came into contact with the alcohol I was drinking earlier, now I failed to feel any. It was almost as if Julio's touch was balancing it out, like the ecstasy from the feel of his touch made all other pain disappear.

Hold on. . . did I just say that I get ecstasy from his touch? I must be drunk, that's all.

The tensing of Julio's muscles was clearly visible each time he allowed the alcohol-dressed cloth touch my skin, almost as if he was flinching, as if he was the one experiencing the pain that came with the feel of alcohol coating a wound instead of me.

After a time that was much shorter than it should have been, he finishes brushing the rubbing alcohol across my wound and sets the cloth back down on the counter with a sense of desperation, as if it was something he was afraid of.

Well this is out of character for him.

My eyebrows begin to knit themselves together in confusion.

He grabs a bandage out of the first aid kit and begins wrapping it around my palm to cover the wound, his fingers touching my hand so gently that they feel like feathers brushing lightly across my skin, sending tingling chills down the length of my spine.

"Go easy on your hand for the next week or so, you are not to do any training until it is fully healed," he commands, looking deeply into my eyes. Although he was finished taking care of my injury, his hand was still wrapped around mine.

He only takes it away when he sees me look down at the position of our hands, as if it took witnessing it himself for him to realise what he was doing.

He was acting like I had some sort of life-threatening injury that could kill me if I put any pressure whatsoever on it. It took me back to that time where he told me to fight him the day after he had been shot, the bullet wound he suffered being an injury that could actually be life-threatening, however he still continued to practise an activity that could put serious risk on his health; and here he was now telling me that I was not allowed to do any training merely because of a minuscule cut on my hand.

Though I decided to keep that fact to myself, it was for the best judging by the fact that if I did announce it, we would most likely end up having an argument, and I didn't want to unnecessarily prolong our conversation. Especially when the thoughts flooding my mind grew more rabid with each second that passed me in his presence.

"I won't," I tell him, agreeing to his order. A surprised look takes over his face when I do, perhaps he was expecting me to fight what he told me to do like I always did. I wanted to, but I couldn't in a time like this, not when I have this strange feeling when I feel his skin on mine, when I look at him.

Just as soon as that realisation comes to mind, I charge out the door at a speed that one would run from a serial killer- an escape that was a lot more dramatic than I wanted it to look.

However, if you wanted to, logically one could argue that I actually was running from a serial killer, he was a mafia boss after all.

But weirdly enough, I couldn't see him in that way, no matter how much I tried.