WitchBite

Crashing Down

 The question hung thick in the air as the guilt-ridden body language of Victoria, my Victoria, squirmed nervously. My own sense of panic was palpable. Each second ticking by; where the most talkative person I know, failed to speak adding on to the tension that felt like it would snap across my shoulders.

Her voice was stuttered, words falling short from exiting her throat, where she thumbed at my phone nervously between her fingers. It was as if I was looking at a completely different person. A cornered animal, wriggling for a way out. How much further until flight turned to fight?

It was as the second minute passed in this horrible, awful, static silence that the dominoes finally fell. Each distinctive click, like an angry thunder, as they fell one by one in my mind.

"It was you..." My voice croaking somewhat at the admission. Like if I chose to ignore it; it wouldn't be true. Like by admitting it, I was guilty of speaking it into existence. My heart immediately heckling with spines as the now shattered pieces seemed to grow retributive spikes.

"Avery please--"

"It was you, all along. Wasn't it?" I reaffirmed, stronger than before, my hands clenching into fists around the soft cotton towel at my mid-rift. "Of course it was you. You're the only one who'd know where I was almost, if not all, the time. It all makes sense: why my phone was never in the place I'd left it. Why I always felt like I was being watched whenever I was on a date with Aramis. How Flint, of all fucking people, knew about the Piece Of Four and how he managed to find us in the forest. It was you..."

"I can explain, I--"

"Explain what, Victoria!? Please. I am dying to know. Please, explain why you almost got me killed. Explain, why you've repeatedly tried to antagonise Aramis in the hopes that he too would die. Explain why you involved the Wolf Pack, potentially starting a blood feud in a land that's been without war for a hundred fucking years. Explain to me, Victoria, why you just had to look at the one moment in my life that was mine. The one moment that didn't involve you, and you had to rob that of me, didn't you? Everything I've ever done, or had, was with you, or because of you, or you were better at it so you might as well have it. But this. And you couldn't handle that could you? You saw someone else steal just a fraction of my attention from Victoria the mighty, and it was completely insufferable." My words were spiked with venomous spittle. Each one threatened to undo the fragility of my own psyche as I unloaded repressed anger. Each sentence a tug at the zipper that was barely holding back an entire world of insecurities that threatened to spill over, and Victoria was squaring up to be the target.

"I didn't mean to--"

"Stop. Stop right there, don't you dare say 'you didn't mean to'. Don't you dare say that I was collateral damage, in whatever bullshit reasoning you have. I can't take that V... I really, really, can't... My heart can't take it. It can't take realising that I was always secondary to your wants. Please, V... Please." Every word I'd said thus far was brimming with agony. It dripped like caustic acid, bubbling at the bones in my chest and eating away at the meat beneath. It brought forth a contradicting weight there: so hollow, yet so heavy.

"Look. I fucked up. I know I have, I'm really, really sorry. Hurting you, seeing you like this, is killing me, believe me." She paused, drawing a breath as she tossed my phone back on to the bed. Her teeth gnawed on her bottom lip nervously, as if she was deciding what to say further, while all I could do was stare vacantly in her direction; silently begging her to give me a reason to not be distraught. "Vampires killed my father, Avery, okay? Ripped him apart at the sockets, and I saw the whole thing. That's why I can't let any of them get away with you. I won't let them take away someone I love again. Not again. Please... You understand, don't you? I'm really sorry, You've no idea how sorry I am. I am so, so, very sorry to hurt you like this Avery. But I have to. And hey, now that you know, you can help right? No Flint, no werewolves, no one else. Just you and me. We can get rid of them, and then we can find someone else for you. A million times better than Aramis, I promise, and I'll stay far away from it you have my word." She explained, daring to step ever so slightly forward. Like her words bolstered her somehow. Like her words spoke a misunderstood justice, and yet all it did was spike a sight of confused anger with in me.

"Get. Out." I spat, defiantly staring at her. My knuckles now white as they gripped on to the towel, twisting viciously within my palms.

"Avery, please. If anyone is to understand me, it's you Avery. Please, you have to." Victoria pleaded, but her words seemed to just boil my blood further.

"You've let your anger, your spite, and something that not only happened decades ago, but had nothing to do with Aramis, and it has lashed out at everyone around you. Not caring who's caught in the cross fire as long as you get to vent your anger and your rage, then all would be right in the world right? Who cares if people get burned on the way, as long as your satiated then that's fine is it? As long as you have some way to funnel that misplaced rage and anger, what's it matter if everyone else hurts too? Their pain doesn't matter when compared to yours, right? And you know what? I would've been right there with you. I would have carried you to the sun and back if that's what you asked of me, all because that's what I do. I am there for you. In my, fucking, ignorance I thought myself immune to your fire. Fuck me right? Naive old Avery, doesn't know he's stuck his hand in the furnace again, ah well: what he don't know won't kill him right?"

"Avery, I--"

"GET OUT, VICTORIA!" I screamed. Ordered. I paid the slightest of mind to the sudden rawness of my throat. The floorboards seemed to groan and crack beneath my presence. My attention barely registering that the various knick-knacks and items that lay strewn atop desks and shelves, had begun to shake. Violently rattling their parts in an agitated display of anger, and Victoria seemed taken aback, almost frightened. Jumping with a slight, uncharacteristic, yelp when a glass jar had vibrated itself over the edge and smashed loudly on the floor, spilling its contents outwards. A hand to her chest as she made her way cautiously towards the door.

She stopped mid-stride, gently taking a step towards my form that seemed impossibly tense.

"What are you going to do?" I could feel her eyes somewhat filed with hurt, but an internal defiance repressed it as best as possible.

"Just... go..." My head turned from her, my shoulders slumping, crumbling beneath the weight of what had transpired. The following seconds passed by in an intense haze. Brimming with a tense emotion that threatened to violently regurgitate and fill the immediate area with blood and fire. I felt a gentle heat from the presence of her hand as it hovered carefully just above the still damp skin of my bare shoulder; calculating on whether she should place it there, or would doing so find it removed. I don't think I could've answered any which way with any certainty. The next thing I allowed myself to notice was the gentle click as the door closed, taking with it my strength and my heart as I fell to my knees.

My chest gave way to bitter and broken sobs. Heaving, painfully desperate in its attempt to stop me drowning in the salt ridden tears that dug their trenches down my cheeks, dropping ceaselessly to the floor. I wondered if I would become Alice. I wondered if my tears were enough to fill the room and wash away all the things that caused me upset.

I found myself clawing pathetically at the floor in an attempt to pull myself up, to my bed, anywhere but the ground. Like I could savour some invisible dignity by doing so, or prove to myself that I would be okay if I accomplished it. But I found naught but the soft fabric of the carpet, carding itself under my fingernails in a sensation that would usually make me cringe, but now left me wishing for the feeling.

I'd never felt anything like this before, and I'm not sure why it hurt the way it did. Maybe it was because I was the highest, and happiest I'd ever been in my life just hours ago. All was right in the world only for it to come crashing down. Torn from me by the one I thought loved me most. Or maybe it was because it was just that individual that had been with me, loved me, almost my entire life. One of the few people I'd allowed myself to trust, and I was betrayed.

All I knew was that it felt like something had been cruelly ripped away, and I was inconsolable.

A/N: Sorry this chapter was so short, babes. I don't really have a reason other than I didn't want it i to seem like I was jamming too much into it just to make it longer, ya know? I felt this was a good place to end it, so I did.

Let me know what ya think! ^,..,^