✔️ SLANDEROUS INTENTIONS | +18

Chapter 12

Enjoy 🤗🤗🤗

HELENA

The cosmos has taught me another lesson tonight:

Like hatred and love, pain comes in different shades. And I feel as if I am embraced by the darkest hue of anguish. I have never experienced such despair as I have lived through tonight.

I have tasted the danger of loneliness. No shoulder to rest my head on. No embrace to make me feel accepted. No place to escape from the prying eyes of danger. The ultimate victim for a predator, seeing me as an elusive treasure.

I feel as subtle as the world in the expanding galaxy — minor, like a mere dot. Yet, I cannot fit in. Like a surplus rejected by the world, threatened to be eroded from its surface. Like an excess in a system, ready to be decoded.

There is no place where I am worthy of love. There is no place where I am deserving of respect. But there is a place where I will be safe. The tyrant wants me alive, unlike the dangers on my tail I attract daily. The tyrant's rules seem more appealing than the social norms I must follow in this urban community. Therefore, I choose the tyrant over my freedom.

Chicago's broad shoulders couldn't quite accommodate me. It seems they're not as broad as they were described. Like a tiny ship on a blade, I sailed back and forth before coming to the conclusion that my shelter lies under a tyrant's reign.

Now, I am waiting for the tyrant to come to me with those giant strides. I want to let myself fall into those strong arms I desperately have tried to escape. I want him to lock his arms around me, just as he locked me in this dark cell. I want him to pick me up and carry me to his haven. My mind is toxic, but so is life, so there is no right to blame for seeking the shelter of my saboteur.

And I will only follow the tyrant. I don't trust the Hulk, whose name is Roman, and his mate, Marco. They saved me, and I am grateful for their aid. But the violence I have witnessed traumatized me. My heart pumps fear through my veins as anxiety courses through my entire body.

My savage saviors notice my fear as well. Like a sharp odor of fright that I spray into the room, they smell it from every pore of my body. I must be the picture of weakness.

"Well done," Marco scolds Roman with applause, before pointing at me. "Look at her; she looks like she is going to pass out any minute now!"

"Meh, she is fine," he claims, waving Marco off and taking a step towards me, making me whimper in alarm and press myself against the wall. Sensing my fear, he stops advancing towards me.

A frown forms between his thick brows. "Why are you scared of me? You should admire me for getting rid of this... thing for you." He asks for my admiration as I look at him wide-eyed.

"H-He is dead?" I gasp, as my selfish side doesn't want to be involved in a murder. "Oh," he says, as if he understands me better. "That's what you are scared of? That he is dead? Oh no, girl, I spared you my favorite part; I am going to do it later. He is still alive... see." He kicks the man lying on the floor, making him writhe and groan in pain. His brutal kick makes me jump in my spot.

"Just stop; you don't help. Just don't do anything anymore," Marco groans in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he has an impending headache.

"What about breathing?" he grins at Marco, who sighs in annoyance and counts back from ten.

"Ignore the headache, and focus on source." As I see him approach me, I immediately get out of bed, grab the apple, and throw it at him. This time, the cosmos sides with me, and I target his head.