Another's Demise

Change

Alara

I could feel his gaze on mine, a burning sort of look that was imprinted on my skin.

I ignored him, as he watched me load my suitcase into the car, its sleek black doors shining in the disappearing sun. I was planning to move before nightfall, but no matter how deftly my fingers moved I couldn't pack fast enough.

"Are you not going to talk to me, darling?"

I paused, a scowl primed on my lips, "You lost the right to call me that," I all but snarled at him.

Anger was a fresh wound, and grief festered it until it became uncontrollable.

"If I do remember," he leaned forward, breath hot against the shell of my ear, as he whispered lowly, "There was a time when you begged me never to call you anything else."

I steeled my thundering heart, and turned, he was inches away, dark hair spun around his eyes, the exact evergreen of the trees that would survive even the coldest winters, "I don't remember, ever begging for anything Grayson."

A wicked grin welded itself onto his features, as he leant back against the car, arms, crossed as he assessed me, eyes dragging over me, pulling each loose tether and hoping that I would come undone enough to let him back in.

He severely underestimated how morose my feelings were, clattering in my mind to the distinct symphony of misery.

"It's going to take a lot more than pretty words for me to forgive you."

He considered my words a moment, a moment that lasted too long, the sort of winding silence you fell into, "So there is a chance," it was barely audible, words that should have borne the strong timbre of his voice.

But there was wavering there, something that caught my breath in my throat, that sliver of something, something that was willing me to let it all go, to fall back into the comfort of his arms, ready and waiting.

My husband.

I tore the thought away turning from him as he completed his sentence, "There's a chance I can earn your forgiveness."

Cold and cruel where the memories that had etched themselves into my memory. I held the metal of the car boot, a heavy breath crumbling from me as I screwed my eyes shut hoping to smother that image of a gun, that spatter of blood. That torrent, of nausea that trapped me.

I slammed the boot shut, and said nothing at all, the angry red lines of where the metal had dug into my skin, now concealed by the curling of my fist.

Who I was before would have whispered, 'There's always a chance."

But that part of me was in wakeless slumber, as good as dead.

"Darling, will you never look at me again?"

I halted at the door of the car, so close driving away leaving it all behind.

"Looking at you, and all I see is blood," it was an honest answer, a cruel one, but a necessary one.

"And will that ever change?" he murmured; his voice almost lost in the blustering wind.

"There's always a chance," was my despondent reply, the same words I wasn't going to say but with an entirely different meaning.

There was a chance, I had admitted, but only a chance that I would not always see blood on his hands, see the spattering of blood that though not being a drop of my own, had wrenched my heart from me.

It was no longer a chance of something real, it was a chance of something ingrained in me, the sliver of a chance to remove that bursting anger that coated every action.

He nodded, that sort of short incline of the head that meant he didn't want to agree.

"Where are you going?"

The laugh that left me was bitter, "Why would I tell you, Cameron?" his full name stung as I had intended, the hollowing of his eyes, as he stared at what had once been his forever and always.

But things change.

Things always change.

And that was the only thing I was sure of.

Isobel called me later that evening, "He's still here Lara, he's still here, and moping like a sick Romeo," her voice crackled over the line, "He's literally at your window."

"No, he isn't," I affirmed, knowing who Cameron was, he wasn't the type to mope, or careen, staring longingly at a window, that he knew I wasn't at.

"Ok so he's not at your window, but he's still here,"

"And Vincent? What-" I wasn't sure what I wanted to ask, the hotel room I had booked out, deliberately one I knew that my biological father had no sway over, a small thing, a inn run but a sweet couple, hallway across the city but not too far away from my sister.

"How's he taking it? Not well," she let out a breath, "He's mad, I know he is. Never shows it but has locked himself in that damn office."

There was a muffled shouts in the background.

"Oh, it looks like Aunt Cas is home,"

"Mum?" I cursed lowly, I had told her that I was leaving the house, and not to make a fuss about it but I knew after almost losing me and losing Damon, that she wanted to keep me close.

She would blame Vincent for pushing me away.

"What are they saying?"

"She's going off on him, telling him how irresponsible he is."

My eyes closed as I listened to the murmur over the phone, the sheets were pressed against my fingers that had unconsciously clawed at the fabric.

"Damn they've gone quiet now," Somehow that was even worse. A dragging silence I could feel down the phone line.

"Is?"

"Yeah."

I breathed lowly, cursing myself for what I was about to ask,

"Put Cameron on the phone."