Tainted by You | ✔️

chapter 23

SCOTT'S POV

I stand over Mike as he's curled up under the kitchen table, his head in his shaking hands. My knuckles are red and sore. I stand tall, my chest puffed as the power surges me, making me feel invincible. 

The power fades as I see tears fall out of his eyes. But I'm not about to coddle him. 

The way he felt under my fists was exhilarating, but my eyes began watering when I'd hear him yell or cry out after my blows. He only got one kick at me, right in the stomach. But the anxiety in my mind is more overpowering than the pain from the kick. 

The blind rage fades, and I've realized what I've done, that there's no going back. There's no way to un-punch, to un-hurt, to make him forgive me. 

I've fucked up big time. 

My shoulders slump as I truly understand that beating Mike up won't bring my mother back to life, it won't allow her to come back to me. Hurting Mike wasn't the way to find my mother's embrace again. In reality, there is no way to get her back to me, to hear her voice again, to see her smile once more. Mike's sobs stop, and I'm too terrified to move or to breathe, waiting for him to pop up and throw a punch.

But he doesn't. Instead, he speaks. 

"I'm sorry about your mother." He simply says. Does he expect me to be content by hearing those five words? I stay silent, feeling the anger resurface. "I'm sorry we took her from you. I'm sorry we ruined your life, Scott." 

I freeze. He's apologizing.

"I've always grown up surrounded by violence. I have never known anything but. It was all I've ever known. As a teenager I always knew this was it for me. I was never anything but violent."

"Do you think this is going to make me forgive you for murdering my mother, kidnapping me, forcing me into this gang and having the worst month of my life?" I say. But then I realize, this isn't the worst month of my life.

I'd met Mitch. 

Mike shakes his head. 

"Scott, you have no where else to go and you know it. What were you expecting to do once you came to beat me up? Do you expect everything to go back to normal? That I'd let you stay here, after you've broken my trust in you? That isn't the case, Scott. You've proved to me you can fight, sure, you put up a hell of a fight," He winces as he holds his jaw, cut and bloodied. I did that to him. "But you came to me not knowing the whole story."

"I don't know the whole story? What's that supposed to mean?" I yell. "I know that my mother was killed by this gang, I know you are always the one to pull the trigger on your targets, I know that my mother is dead. Dead is dead. Dead means you can't get them back. I fully understand that now, believe me."

"Mitch must've not told you." He mutters. 

My head throbs. Mitch is still hiding something from me? I don't know if I want to hear it. I've decided. I want to hear it from Mitch. 

"I don't want to hear it from you." I say, walking away. "I'm going to Mitch." 

"Fine," He mutters. I'm still walking away. "Mitch was the one to-" I can't hear the rest of what he's saying as I climb down the ladder to the basement, to see Mitch crying.

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~Cassie :)