The True Alpha // jjk

26: Partings

A/N: rewritten due to changes in writing style

Hani's brother left shortly after the girl's tears dried; he needed to check up on Lily and Hani wished to be alone for a while. As the door closed behind her, all of Hani's fears slumped down on her back, weighting far more than the girl hoped they would. Heavily, her body sank on the mattress, similarly to how she felt her heart drowning on her own troublesome mind; and like her eyes who glossy and numb gazed over the worries in her head, so did the white ceiling above her head stared down at her. Sighing Hani closed her eyes, attempting to drive away the images that clouded her sight. Certainly, she thought, Ulric would be coming after her father; there was no way they were walking away unpunished and free from their decision. And then, once he was done with her father, he'd track down all those that were unfortunately associated with him, either they had or not had a saying in the cancellation of the deal. So, Alec, Lily and the pack were on his blacklist too. He'd crush everyone under his feet that stood in his way of obtaining her – he always got what he wanted. The girl's mind went back to the multiple gruesome and vile stories that often Ulric told during his dinners with her father; hoping, or so she believed, to inflate his ego, to portray a frightening image of himself, so as to make sure he always had the upper hand. There was a point, a state of naivety, where Hani was certain that all those stories, he told were untrue. Surely, he wouldn't go as far as killing children over a small theft of bread? However, Hani slowly started to believe in everything he said. She had seen him before threatening a small girl in the pack, with an eerie glow in his eyes, holding tightly onto her arm because she had, by mistake, bumped into him in the middle of playing hide and seek. Quickly, Hani learned that when it came to establishing his power, Ulric made no distinction in age, gender, status, nothing. All was under him and he was above all. Everyone was cattle to him and he was their shepherd that decided if they were led to slaughter or foolishness.

The girl felt like crying again, yet her body was exhausted. A bundle of emotions, intertwined and wrapped around each other – nervousness, anxiousness, dread, fear, worry, horror (more than one can enumerate) - ran madly up and down her veins. There was a prominent sour taste in her tongue, a sign that she was aware of the incoming pain that approached her; a familiar sense of loss that long ago she had erased from her mouth. Hani wasn't ready, neither would she ever be ready to lose more people; her mother's death still clung to the back of her mind, tattooed into her very being. The pain followed her like an unwanted shadow that she was desperate to get rid of. Hani wanted to make this all stop before it escalated to a point where she had no longer a voice. She wanted to stand up and face him, tell him '"no", scream at the top of her lungs how much she despised him. If only it was as easy, if only Hani was naïve and dumb and believed that courage was all she needed, in order to shift the Universe into her own course.

Ulric wasn't going to give up and showing up and facing him, would only throw Hani directly into his web. And Hani wasn't strong, neither was she brave. She was her. Mild, tempered, balanced. It was hard for her to admit but she wasn't ready, she didn't have it in her – the will. In fact, all of that will and courage would falter in a glance, in a brief exchange of eyes between her and him. Cold sweats would cascade down her body as soon as he strode inside a room. For as much as Hani wished to protect everyone around her, she doubted she ever could... What would she even do, if she ever got the chance of confronting him? What words could she say to drive him away? What actions to take? He'd ignore them all, he'd man handle her into his own arms and he'd swallow her in, stealing her from her own self.

Hani felt defeated. She thought of Alec and Lily, of the family that they were starting together. Such a magical step that they were taking together, the plans and the hopes that they had for the future were so bright and, yet, Hani feared that she would paint those days in a darker color. How was her existence, when in his hands, reason for slaughter? Why was it that because of her, so many were dangling between life and death? Why her? What could Hani ever offer Ulric that was so great and special, that he couldn't obtain from any other and so powerful, that he was willing to kill whoever stood in his way?