Alpha Malik (Published)✔️

Chapter Sixteen

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Word Count: 1870

~Aria

Malik caught my arms as I stumbled backward.

The weight of the world cinched tight around me, swallowing every sense of understanding about the situation. Why would he take me here.

"What's wrong?" I hear Malik question, although I hardly understand through the assault of thoughts hitting me right now. The urge to turn and run as far away from the house I spent my entire life in, is immense, but Malik's presence behind stops me. "Aria...You can tell me? What's wrong?"

My parents were in there. The exact parents who completely betrayed my trust. They used my lack of independence as an excuse; as a way to cut me out of their privileged lives. I may be doing this to save their lives, but I never want to see their faces again. If I did, I might do something I'll regret...

"We need to go," I mumble, feeling sober suddenly. Who knows how long it will take until one of them sees us out here.

I brush past Malik, wishing my head wasn't spinning so much. My only thought is that I need to get out of here, and if I have to run down the snow compacted streets to do so, then so be. However the car poses the better option.

My hands slip on the frost slick handles, and after a few moments of struggling, Malik comes up behind me.

Clearly he is confused, yet he doesn't say anything. He opens the door for me, as I dive into the car, settling into the seat with my foot tapping anxiously on the floor. Malik is nonchalant, despite how bothered he looks. I kept my eyes cast at my knees, my fingers crossed. Through my peripheral vision, I can see him staring at me.

"Aria, talk to me," he says gently.

The car nosed back onto the road, and I held back a sigh of relief. Had they caught me...I wouldn't have another excuse to get away. They would demand contact with me, to know everything happening in my life, only to set me up with my mothers friend's son from Garden Club. Or maybe not. Maybe they would use the wealth and fame I would gain if I won the competition.

I wonder how they would feel if I they found out they might just have a fugitive daughter soon.

"I just..." words fail me for a moment. "I can't see my family right now."

Malik's eyebrows furrow, as I turn my attention back to him. He looks deeply concerned by what he has just witnessed, and I honestly don't blame him.

"Would you like to tell me why. I had the plan to surprise both you and your family with the visit," he tells me, and I hear the regret dripping from his voice. If I was any other girl, I would have been so excited right now. I'm completely flattered by his gesture, and what it would have come from it, had I had a normal relationship with my parents.

"That's fine. You don't have to tell me why, I just want to know if you're okay," Malik says, changing tact.

It worked. I felt myself beginning to relax again.