Phoenix || Malia Tate

23

Malia had thought she knew what it felt to be betrayed. She felt it when she was eight when her parents told her she was adopted, and again at seventeen when her birth father asked her to kill Kate Argent.

But neither of those situations even remotely compare to the gut-wrenching hurt she feels now.

"Get out," she hisses lowly at him.

She doesn't want to hear his reasons or his excuses or anything he has to say. She doesn't want to see his face, let alone hear his voice. Just breathing the same air as him suddenly makes her sick to her stomach.

Her friends watch in confused curiosity as the boy they presumed to be Phoenix takes a step forward and reaches out to her, and as she pushes him away. "Get out!" She suddenly screams. "GET OUT!"

"Malia, please," he begs. But Malia's not having any of it. She stalks forward and grips his shoulders. Her strength overpowers his as she forcibly turns him around, and pushes him out the door.

With one final shove, she pushes him out of the front doors of the animal clinic and into the parking lot. He manages to catch himself before he completely falls over. "Malia –"

She grabs a handful of gravel from the parking lot floor and throws it at him. "You lied to me!" She cries out. "I told you everything and you fucking lied to me!" Her voice scratches slightly as she says it, and the sound of it, the sound of that fucking hitch in her throat, breaks his heart.

"I didn't! I didn't lie to you," Phoenix tells her desperately.

"I went to you every day. I told my pack about you!" Malia scrunches her face, as if that'll stop the tears, and throws another handful of gravel at him. He barely manages to dodge the stones. He's sure to have a few little bruises later on.

Good, she thinks. Let him bruise.

"You told me werewolves killed your parents," Malia continues. "You told me you didn't want anything from me."

"And I didn't! I still don't," he says. He holds out his hands to try to calm her down enough to listen to him, but also to protect himself in case she decides to throw more gravel at him. "It's my sister! Werewolves did kill my parents, I didn't lie about that. But Ellie - she's hell-bent on ending them. She's the hunter, not me. I have nothing to do with it, I swear."

"You expect me to believe that?" The anger is slowly fading into heartbreak. Thick tears fill her eyes as she stands there in front of him, completely betrayed and utterly hurt. "That you knew nothing about what Ellie would do? What she has been doing? You expect me to believe that I didn't play a part in this?"

Phoenix's expression falls. "None of that is true," he says softly. "Malia, everything I said to you, everything we had, was - is real." He takes a step closer, but Malia stops him by taking a step back. The hurt is evident on his face. She doesn't care. "She doesn't tell me anything. I can read between the lines, but obviously not enough to know what she was planning," he says. "I've tried to stop her, but she won't listen to reason. She says she's trying to protect the world, trying to protect me."

Malia snorts out a laugh then as if that is the most pathetic thing she's ever heard. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Scott is in there, half dead, because of your sister and you expect me to believe you and I have nothing to do with it?"

"Malia, I swear I didn't know anything about the Station. I would've told you if I had."

"Bullshit!" She screams so suddenly and so loudly that Phoenix actually jumps back. She is all emotions now, overwhelmed and out of control, and unable to think straight.

By now, Phoenix can't move. The entire situation has him paralyzed, frozen to the point where he can barely talk now. She is so angry at him and he is so angry at himself. Tears break free from forest green eyes and she almost has to force herself to look away. "Baby," he whispers desperately to her.

Malia closes her eyes. She has to actually take a moment to digest it all, to try and figure it all out. What does she do? What can she do? What should she do?

In the end, she just waves her hand, and though she's crying as she does, she decides it's just not worth the headache. "Everything you say is bullshit right now. Get the hell out of here before I kill you." Her tone is low and serious and he knows it's a warning to be taken serious, knows she's fully capable of carrying out the threat.

He watches with a shattering heart as she turns around and walks back into the animal clinic, but not before shouting over her shoulder, "And stay away from my den!"