Sympathy For The Devil (On Hold)

xii) Saviour/ I'll Try(Faith and Trust)

-Artemis’ P.O.V.-

Slowly the air snakes in and fills my lungs, steadying my heart beat at the same time. I had sprinted back to the cabin, again, so now I’m twice as exhausted as I was before. It doesn’t matter though. Nothing does. Not anymore.

Snowflakes flutter down around me, creating a winter wonderland among the trees. My boots crunch the hardened snow beneath me as I trudge up the familiar stone steps.

“I wish I could love you.”

My words reverberate within my head, digging themselves into the deepest folds of my mind. Relentlessly torturing me.

I feel so cold, so exposed like an open wound, so… vulnerable.

And this is why we keep our walls up Artie. We can’t have this happening every time some handsome man is comforting to us.

I know, I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you.

Now look at you. This is exactly what we were trying to avoid. Every single damn thing we were trying to avoid.

Yea, yea, you were right I was wrong, we get it, now just leave me alone.

I push open the cabin door, as it must’ve been left open in our haste, and to my disappointment there is no rush of warm air, no sudden burst of warmth to wrap around me and comfort me. I grab the ends of my coat and wrap it tighter around me and kick the door close, but I don’t lock it. What does it matter anymore?

Uh, the police could come, thought of that?

“I told you to leave me alone,” I hiss as I drop my bag on the cold leather couch and sink down into the seat, letting myself try and recover from the run. Which turns out to be a bad idea because my recovering mind is a thinking mind.

You told him everything, you fool. Everything I told you not to do.

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I noticed!?! I’m the one who said them, I’m the one who made the mistake of exposed myself. I made the mistake,” I say, my voice growing louder and colder with each word. Feeling so desolate in this empty cabin, I reach in my bag for one of the things that give me the illusion of comfort: white powder.

Well, now we have to deal with it and pick up the mess, because I can without a doubt tell you that, that boy there ain’t gonna come back and help us. Now we have to deal with this monumental situation.

“Ya think?” I mumble as I fumble with the little plastic baggy, but I’m shivering so much that the bag slips from hands and onto the ground. Ugh, I guess I don’t need it.

You know, it’s not a good thing that these things surfaced. You might have to get rid of them before they compromise anything else.

Then it hits me. She’s not talking about my emotions, no, because I have none (I think). 

No, she’s talking about the fact that I just told Adam who I am, my identity, my chosen profession. That he’s a loose end. That I thought I could trust him enough to tell him, but I can’t, and to my surprise that hurts. Hurts?

I shake my head, shaking the feeling away as well as I push myself off the couch and drag my feet to the base of the stairs. When I pass Adam’s room, I catch a whiff of Adam’s faint cologne, and I start to choke up a knot tightening in my stomach, twisting it it the most inhuman nature.

But I finally realize something I had failed to earlier…

I had already let him steal away into my most valued and protected possession without me noticing.