crave | 16+

XXXI

JOSIE

I GRAB MY KEYS and close my apartment door behind me. With white noise buzzing in my head, I walk toward the elevator and step outside of my apartment complex, getting a whiff of the fresh air. The bone-chilling cold soothes my aching body. I put a pair of headphones in my ears, and look at my car, before I decide against it, and walk along the sidewalk.

I keep walking through the city that never sleeps, the noise of the life around me peeking through my headphones, but I don't fully mind. It allows me to remember that I'm here, alive, breathing. I don't know where I'm going, I just walk, looking around as I do. It's a little past midnight, when I decide central park is the place to be.

I enter the park, and rush past a few homeless people, dropping the bills I have in my wallet before I finally find a place that seems abandoned enough. Despite the chilling weather, I crouch down on the grass, and flatten my palms out on the cold grass, leaning back on my arms, crossing my feet.

I close my eyes, and let the music infiltrate my mind instead of the white noise. The chaos in my head. I embrace the darkness behind my eyelids. Elijah's face pops into my head, and I sigh, seeing the dimple on his cheek, his soft skin. My fingers itch, but I don't do anything. I sit and listen. I sit. I live.

Someone settles beside me, and a sense of calmness spreads within me, knowing exactly who it is. I don't open my eyes, till the song ends. When I open them, I don't see his eyes. I can't. It'll force me to think of everything that happened between us ten months ago, something I haven't been doing. Something I've avoided for God knows how long.

I pull the headphones out of my ears, and place them back in my pocket. A long breath leaves my lips. I push my weight off my palms, and bring my legs into my body, hugging my shins and resting my face on my knees. My eyes fall shut again. "Did you follow me?" I ask in a small whisper, not sure he hears me. But I know he does. Tranquil rings in my ears as I wait to hear his voice again. His soft-spoken voice.

"I couldn't let you walk around in the city alone. Don't you know monsters come out at night?" he asks me, answering my question with another question. A pang of guilt settles in the pit of my stomach, as I hear the implication in his tone – implication, to him being the monster. I tilt my head, so I see his legs but not his face.

"The dark doesn't scare me," I utter, not knowing why. Maybe I need to convince him that despite the things he's been doing, I don't hate him for it.

Elijah lets a joyless chuckle escape his lips. "You're too trusting, darling."

I narrow my eyes. He and I both know I could lay my heart in his palm and he wouldn't crush it. The realization hits me like a truck; I trust Elijah with my life. Elijah may imply that he'd hurt me, but I know deep down, that he'd rather kill himself than ever hurt me. I trust him blindly, and that alone scares me more than the apparent monster sitting next to me.

"You would hurt me?" My voice is so small. I sound exhausted. I am exhausted. So tired. Tired of having to pretend that half my heart hasn't been missing for ten months, tired of pretending I don't understand why he did what he did. Tired of pretending I won't follow him on his path, no matter the darkness we're met with.

"I'd never hurt you," Elijah replies almost instantly. My blood runs cold, I finally seem to link the despair and hollowness I've been feeling this past year to an emotion I thought I'd never feel: love. I finally lift my head from my knees, and meet his dark eyes. The gloom keeps me from making out his entire face, but I see the outline of his sharp jaw, as he meets my eyes too.

We don't say anything for a while, we just look at each other. I search his eyes for the man I knew before he sold his soul, but there is no trace of him behind Elijah's cold eyes. He allows me to go on the hunt for the man I once knew, patiently.

"Don't look, if you're afraid of what you might find," he murmurs and my heart rate picks up.

I remove my arm from one of my shins, and place my palm on his cold cheek. He isn't even wearing a jacket. His eyes flutter shut briefly as I stroke my thumb back and forth on his skin. "You don't scare me, Elijah."

I feel some of the tension leave his body, but he simply shakes his head against my palm. "I've killed, I've maimed, I've tortured. I should scare you."

It's my turn to shake my head – "You're not the only one with harbored darkness. We all possess a monster within us. My darkness isn't necessarily lighter than yours," I consult. He opens his eyes again, and moves closer, so close until we're sharing a breath.

"You don't belong with me. You belong with someone who reflects the light. You shouldn't let my darkness swallow you whole."

I let out a shaky breath, inching closer to him. "My darkness, my light, all of it belongs to you either way. You walk with my heart in your palm, without knowing it," I whisper against his lips.

He shakes his head once more. "Don't say that. You belong in the light, not in the dark with me."

"I belong with you," I say, harsher than intended. "I lov–"

Elijah swallows the rest of my words with his mouth. He plants a soft peck on my lips, and I relax against the familiar feeling. He doesn't deepen the kiss, and for some reason I appreciate him for it. We stay like that, until our bodies defy us and beg for oxygen. Slowly, he pulls back, but keeps his hands on the sides of my face.

"I should let you go. Let you live the life you enjoy, a life that isn't clouded by the dark, by blood," he whispers, close to my face.

I open my eyes, and stare into his.

"Then why haven't you?" I ask, my words coming out in a whisper. His eyes search mine in the dark that surrounds us, as if he's looking for a flicker of doubt in me. But there isn't any doubt in my body. I know what I want.

"Because I don't trust another man on this earth, who says he'd kill for you and go through with his word."

My mind flashes to his brother, shooting a man for hitting me across the face, but I say nothing. I just watch him, watching me. My body yearns for something that's inches away, yet so far. The moon and the sun, always missing each other. The three words that could change all of this, possibly us too, lie on the tip of my tongue. But I swallow them. Elijah shakes his head. His breath hitches.

"I need to be honest with you," he whispers, and I nod my head, listening. I'm too afraid to utter any words back to him, knowing the words that really want to leave my mouth. "I've always worked with criminals, with the mob. I've known Cain since I was a boy. We were friends. Christ Enterprises is just a cover up for Christ Rings. An illegal car race, I run with my brothers– Malik. I've never known the light, never known to be good. I've always done everything the wrong way, the illegal way," he murmurs. I tilt my head, his hands still cupping my face. "I like it. I like the fucking darkness, the thrill of being caught. I love it all."

"I'm not going to leave you, just because of what you told me," I admit, for the first time, out loud. I shock myself, as I hear the words.

He shakes his head, getting mad. His body tenses. "You don't understand it, Josie. I sold my life to the New York Familia. The agreement may have been a year, but there is no leaving the mob." He removes one hand, and puts it over his chest. "I enter breathing, and exit lifeless. This is my life now. I no longer work with the mob. I am the mob. Am I understood?" he explains to me, something I've known for ten months.

I nod my head, giving him a small smile. "I accept who you are, Elijah. When are you going to stop denying yourself what's so rightfully yours?" I say, using his own words against him. He replies with one of his small grins, allowing his dimple to show.

I get up from the grass, and walk between his legs, before I settle between them, the back of my head lying against his hard chest. I look up at the night sky seeing a few stars decorating, but not even near the ones I would see out in the countryside. A yawn slips out, but I shake the tiredness off, this moment too pure to let sleep ruin it.

"The stars are barely visible here, in New York," I murmur, tiredness laced in my voice. I blink a couple of dozen times, fighting my body to stay awake.

"I'll show you the stars one day, darling," Elijah murmurs, before planting a kiss on the crown of my head. It's the last thing I remember before my eyelids flutter close against the man I love, with all my heart. 

. . . 
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