Locked and Loaded (Fairy Twisted Tale II) (Previously: Beware Of The Beast)

chapter twelve - Something's There

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"I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I'm with you."

- Rolf Croft

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As Danielle made her way to her father, William laid back in his chair and sighed.

One of his most loyal men, Horlo, who was also one of his very few friends walked into the office room. He was the one who had brought Danielle to the house together with William himself. William had trust-issues so it said much that he confided him into some of his mind-swirls.

Horlo let himself fall into one of the comfortable chocolate brown chairs opposing the big, mahogany desk of the powerful man. He had learned from Théière and Lueur that William had opened up lately and saw it for himself only a couple of days earlier. If he hadn't known there was another side to this cruel, cold man, he wouldn't have believed that this was the same person.

He would have thought this was an imposter.

But he knew better.

And he believed it was the work of a certain new person in William's life. Someone he hadn't known before, to be more specific.

"Well, Will, I must say everything is going great. I knew you had it in you!" Horlo praised the green-eyed man.

William looked down in defeat, not wanting his friend to see how broken he truly was.

"I let her go," he mumbled.

"Yes, yes, splen-" Horlo interrupted his own sentence when the four words his boss had said finally had sunk in, "You what? How could you do that? I thought you-"

"I had to," William defended himself, venom lacing each and every word he had said.

He didn't want to be looked at as weak. Weak meant you couldn't control the situation. And even though this thing he felt couldn't be controlled by him, he didn't want his friend to know that was exactly the case.

He was a strong man. Merciless. A beast. Cruel to the core. That was was he had to be.

After all, that was what everyone said about him. He was called The Beast for a reason.

But he wasn't that kind of man anymore, he thought.

In reality, the poor man stood on the verge of breaking down, which he had only experienced when he went upstairs. To talk to Amanda about how sorry he was for not being able to keep her alive.

"Yes, but... Why?" Horlo asked.

"Because I love her," was his answer.

William didn't realize he had said those words before they had effortlessly rolled off of his tongue.

Neither could he believe that he meant them until he had truly said it out loud.

The brown-eyed male's mood lifted at the sudden change of conversation. He clearly remembered the promise William had made to his little sister since he was there when she made him swear to follow her last wish. The man also knew his friend mentally beating himself up for not fulfilling it.

But it was because the green-eyed man had never let anyone close enough to his heart enough to win it due to his fear of having to lose that person again. Even if William wouldn't admit it, it was as clear as daylight to him.

You had to be blind and deaf not to notice it, he thought.

'Maybe there is hope after all,' Horlo thought, 'Maybe that girl is the one who can break down these walls he had build up all these years. And perhaps, she could even teach him to forgive him for blaming himself for the death of his sister.'

The male with raven hair thought something else though. And unfortunately, his thoughts were quite on the negative side.

'Sure,' he thought in despair, 'Amanda wanted me to have true love but it isn't true if the other person doesn't feel the same. For who could ever love a beast like me?'

"But if you love her like you say you do, why did you let her go then?" Horlo questioned.

That was one of the things he had yet to figure out. Hence, why he had voiced his thought out loud.

"Because she needs to be happy. If you had seen her, you would have agreed with me, Horlo. She was slipping into a pit of negative thoughts," William replied.

"Like you did after her death?"

"Don't," the green-eyed male snapped, "Don't involve her in this."

"She is the reason why all of this happened, Will," Horlo said to try to explain his point of view, "If you hadn't build up your walls that high, this wouldn't have happened. You would have found lo-"

"Shut up."

"-ve a long time bef-"

"Shut up!" William shouted, "You don't know that! You can't know that! And so what if I have build those walls!? I don't care you are my friend but you can't talk to me like I am some heartless creature! I do feel that fear pulsing through my veins whenever I am held under gunshot! I do feel love whenever I look at her when she's smiling or laughing! Heck, even when she just breaths I love her!"

Horlo's lips tugged up at the ends and soon he was straight up smiling, "That, my friend, was the reaction I wouldn't have gotten if you hadn't met that girl. She has done something only Amanda could do when she was still here. She made you open up and shout out your thoughts."

"It's too late now," William said and tugged at the roots of his raven hair, heartbreak slowly started to consume him, "She's already gone."

"Don't worry, Will," Horlo said in an attempt to lift the sad male's mood a bit, "If it's meant to be, she'll come back."

But it did nothing to brighten his mood. Instead it did the opposite thing of what it should have done.

"I don't think true love exists anymore...," William admitted, "Even though I want it to."

"If you don't believe in it, it doesn't exist. It's like that Fairy thing -I think her name was Tinkie- from Neverland. If you don't believe, the magic won't work. Love is magic, man. If you just believe in love, it has a chance of coming true eventually."

"Right now I wish I could believe in a future with her," Will muttered sadly and once again hung back in his chair.