CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR | Alec Ruins It All

ALEC NEEDED TO be stopped. I needed to confront him. After Logan had left, Savannah had brushed past me without a second glance. I slowly dragged a palm across my face and crawled to get the cane that I had so effortlessly thrown into one of the dark corners of this room. It freaking hurt. What the-

Before my pain could end me, I took hold of the cane and used it to get up. 10 days and then I'm going to run in the fields. "Savannah!" I screamed but she was not in the mood of listening. "Please, I am not going to hurt you," I whispered, slowing down and letting her go. She's running away because I'd hurt her, right?

She turned around and then rapidly approached me. I froze in my spot, clutching the cane to myself as some sort of physical support. Her movements were frenzied as she came to stand right in front of me.

"I keep my shit locked up, Sebastion, and when it gets unlocked....I become lost. Lost. Whatever I do, it's a reaction. A cause of uprising. These men control me but I don't want to be controlled," she spat ruthlessly and then leaned forward, the fire flaming her irises with boiling fury. A hiss escaped her and then came second round of her harsh words.

"They call me slut, whore and bitch when I throw truths at their cruel faces." She clenched her fists. "He slapped Natalie one time. One time and I locked his ass. Your precious John wasn't a culprit but Logan leaked a girl's nudes. How is that fucking fair to her? They deserved to get their asses beat and no one can tell me I did wrong."

I gulped, nodding along with her. "I never-"

Then she breathed in deep. "I let all of them go. If something happens to me, just...just please take care of Holly and Cora."

She said please.

Towering over her slouched frame, I bent myself a little and then gently placed my both palms on each side of her face. They were barely touching her skin but I knew she could feel the warmth. My fingers were itching to touch her, let my fingers explore the forbidden place that her skin was. Bending my fingers slightly, I let the pad of my thumb linger over her skin.

"Nothing will happen to you, Savannah. You did absolutely nothing wrong," I let my words be her lantern. Her head was tilted a little but the gaze never wavered from mine. As if all her hopes and expectations were latched to me.

"How are you so-so... fucking good?" She still had emotions like disappointment and hurt flickering through her sharp eyes. I felt her hands sneaking past every norm to grab onto my hoodie.

I could remove my hands from her face but I didn't want to let go of her. I didn't want to lose her expressions or even this bittersweet moment shared between us. I wanted to hold onto it until one of us were to be forced out of this situation.

I needed this Savannah to be out there.

"I am not good, Savannah. I only embrace or accept how things are," I answered honestly. "You see through a spectrum of shades of grey but you choose to ignore the white parts of your life because you've forced yourself to get used to the dark parts. Just this once, accept. Please."

Her hard gaze melted. "I don't want to feel like this," she finally confessed. "It's killing me."

Still keeping my hands on each side of her face, I pressed a lingering chaste kiss on her forehead.

"You don't have to feel like this."

I'm coming Alec.

I stared at the message that I had typed for Alec.

Sebastion
meet me at the central park, there's something
ive got to put a stop to
9:45 A.M.

Alec
alright
9:46 A. M.

When I received the little ding from my phone, I knew he'd be leaving school soon so I had to make some excuse to leave Savannah and go to him to sort out his 'revenge plan' with Natalie. She was cynical and cold hearted but no one deserved to get their hearts broken.

Her clammy fingers were shaking as she struggled with the lighter. "Let me," I offered but she shook her head a little too roughly.

"I can manage."

I nodded, heart sinking at the realization that she had reduced herself to a limited set of emotions. She won't ever show love. Despite opening up a little, she'd never be carefree and full of empathy like her girls. Forrest had ruined her successfully, I thought miserably.

"Savannah, I have to go and-" I breathed in a little because I had to extract a lie from deep within my darkest corners. "My family, you know. They'd tear down the Sherrif's place because I haven't been picking up their calls."

Her shoulders rolled upwards in indifference.

"I can walk, I swear. You don't need to walk me."

With the exchange of these words, I bid her a goodbye with a small smile and earned a simple lift of her lips to indicate gratitude. SHE SMILED. HOLY SHIT. SHE SMILED AT ME.

My feet were sloshing against the pebbled pavements as I saw his towering form leaning against the fenced walls of the park located in the middle of the town. "Alec," I acknowledged him as I came to stand next to him. There was a half lit cigarette in his mouth.

"I know you're playing Natalie to feed your sick little revenge fantasies. I won't let you."

His lips pursed into a flat line before resting his arm on the brick post built in the fenced walls. A throaty snicker escaped past his lips as he lowered the cigarette to the height of his midriff.

"Do you want a gold medal for that?" He mocked me. "Don't you remember when I told you that I wanted that bitch groveling on her feet for me. Touch and pull her fragile little heartstrings just so I could forget about his blood and watch her tears fall. This is only the beginning, Sebastion."

"You're going to play every single one of them?" I spat, nauseatedly. Something was tearing at my insides when I heard him ridiculing Natalie or him even finding out that Savannah existed.

A chuckle. "I'd play all of them in different ways."

"John loved Holly. He wouldn't-"

"He's fucking dead and now whatever happens, they would deserve it wholeheartedly. Do you want to know about my effortless plan of having pretty little Natalie wrapped around my finger. Perfected my wordplay and she was mine before the night. I magicalled a fantasy before her eyes and she let herself loose." He was shaking his head, his eyes glowing with mirth.

Those sharp ends were poking into my heart, clamping it tight under their hold as I watched his mouth spew venom against the girls.

"Don't say that," I gritted my teeth. Now I know why he knew I had pledged loyalty to the Underworld. His source was Natalie. Everyday she was feeding this sleeping dragon, knowing he could lash out and end her life and he was doing just that.

"They're murderers," he whispered lowly. "I never found the body. The old man didn't bother."

No, they aren't. They fight for a cause and torment for order.

"Put an end to this right now because they are NOT murderers," I pressed as I clenched and unclenched my fists to release stress. Something dropped in his eyes when he pondered over my words.

"After knowing what they did to Logan, you still have the audacity to say they're innocent. You're fucking all of them, aren't you? They let you have a taste of them so you don't speak anything they don't want you to."

There was a brutal hatred in his cold eyes for them. Not on my watch. No way. I never fought for myself but his words were like arrows laced with poison.

So I snapped. The thing inside me that was clawing my heart out unleashed on me with a ballistic rage and I let my arms violently push him. My aggression level had never been that high but his words were helluva disrespectful and the girls were innocent. He disbalanced and the cigarette fell to the floor.

"Don't you dare disrespect them. They're all innocent Goddammit, she's innocent. Savannah is fucking innocent!" I raged on. My cane fell too and I would have been on the ground too if it weren't for his fuming frame lunging at me. His hands wrapped around my throat and I was picked off the ground.

He slammed my body against the brick walls and tightened his hold on my throat. I closed my eyes on impact. Ow.

"Savannah, you said." It was a low hiss. "Gavin mentioned earlier about some Savannah fucking James. She's the one running this entire business, isn't she? The one leeching off of Natalie's money and ordering killings of innocent people?"

I made sure to transfer all the hatred inside of me to Alec with my heated glare. "Dense much?" I ridiculed him now.

His hand loosened and I sank down against the wall. My lower left leg was aching now. Giving me one of his harshest glares that he could muster, he half ran and half walked away from me. No. Frustration doubled in me when I concluded he was going to get his buddies to ambush or ransack the penthouse.

He was going to hurt Savannah.

Holly.

Cora.

Natalie.

"ALEC!" I yelled, lengthening my leg enough to just touch the cane. "DON'T."

He flipped me off, his phone now in his hands as he ran to get cover from his guys. I couldn't let Savannah get exposed to Connor. I couldn't let her get hurt. Not again. She was alone in the penthouse. The girls were at school.

"AARGH," I groaned out loud when I accidentally put too much pressure on my limb. I wish I had told him that they didn't kill John, that he was still alive.

I needed to get to John. He must be in the Red Zone.

LEARN TO SEE the white in your grey spectrum, I thought as I moved to fill my champagne glass with the old bottle of red wine. The day old psychology paper was put on the coffee table before me. Media Violence and Children.

The blood red liquid slapped around the inner body of the glass as I basked myself in the memories of a certain brunette guy. Resting my head on the back of the modular couch, I pondered over his words.

Such was his words that it became difficult to identify him as an individual seventeen year old. The cobalt blue in his ocean eyes were remarkable too. God, his eyes.

Rubbing my eyes, I was about to pass out when a loud crash rang throughout the house. My senses were alarmed because no one was here right now. Gulping down the entire content of the glass, I placed it back on the glass table. My fingers grazed against the papers, pushing them away gently to hold onto the pen with a sharp nib. My senses were tingling, awfully itching me to do something.

Something was wrong.

A heavy thud was sounded somewhere from the deepest parts of the penthouse. I knew immediately that somebody had broken into the house. There was this awful negative energy hovering around. The sound of something heavy falling to the floor was coming from upstairs.

A door slam and then several pairs of feet walking in sync.

What in the-

To catch the intruders off guard, I proceeded to walk towards the electrical panel that was put under the stairs. My fingers pulled down the main circuit breakers and the power got cut. A blanket of darkness fell flat over us. I slowed down my breathing to sense better. Snaking myself against the wall, I slowly trotted upstairs with my pen out front.

The staircase opened into the long corridor of doors. Cold, dark and silent darkness sprung from everywhere. My feet lightly stepped forward.

There was a loud cough and then the sounds of violent hissing. The sounds were coming from Holly's bedroom! Retracting my jaw to express anger, I put down my pen and jabbed my elbow into the door to push it open with force.

The tiny little phosphorus covered butterflies were on her ceiling, illuminating her otherwise dark room into a welcoming glow of cutesy decorations. No one was the room. But the voices...

To make sure everything was covered, I decided to check her closet. My hand fisted around the flat handle and I slid it open. Her over-the-top, bright and feathery dresses met my gaze. Figured.

I was about to slide the closet's door close when I found it stuck. It was not budging from its position. My eyes widened at this predicament as I applied more pressure but it was of no use. Gritting my teeth, I tried harder but something was blocking its function. Lowering my gaze, I almost threw up into my mouth when I saw size 11 male boots peeking from among her long gowns.

The boots led to the muddy jeans of some sort. Snatching the dresses to one side, I became skackjawed at the sight of a 6'0 tall man in all black, his eyes boiling with inevitable rage. Before I could make use of my stupid pen, his hands forcefully wrap around my neck.

"The name's Alec," he introduced himself while trying to kill me, his thumb pressing harder into the side of my neck. I was going to die. My crimes finally caught up to me. I let my hands fall to my side, not wanting to fight anymore.

"Fight, damnit. Grovel!" He hissed vehemently, his intense gaze burning into me. Pain, anguish and rage filled up his dark eyes as he pressed harder. "Beg for your life the same way John did. I want to see you struggle."

I remained stiff.

"Who would've known that this entire man slaughtering Underworld was ran by you? Pathetic, weak orphan who cannot even defend her self."

His abrasive self loosened his hold on my neck before impulsively throwing me against Holly's vanity table. Her favorite fruity cologne crashed to the ground as I fell next to the table, all winded up.

The door rattled before hitting the walls next to it. There stood Holly in her white shirt and plaid pants, her blonde waves pulled in a high ponytail. Her hands dropped her bag as she screamed for the girls.

"CONNOR! GET HER!" Alec ordered. Out of nowhere, the door to her bathroom opened up and a balding blonde stepped out. His eyes glinted with pure pleasure as he covered the short distance between the door and the bathroom, his hands fisting around Holly's locks.

"Leave me alone," she screeched, her hands gripping the door tightly. Connor smirked at the sight of a struggling fifteen year old, his sinful intentions finally getting identified to me. No. His dirty hands were ripping at her white shirt. Fuck no. Placing a palm over the wall, I forced myself to stand upright. Not Holly.

Alec growled impatiently. "Connor, no. It's murder for a murder."

He couldn't see his best friend violating his brother's ex-girlfriend, I supposed.

"She's the one who lied to that bitch about John cheating on her. I say she deserves it more then the dead one," he hissed at a trembling Holly, her shirt buttons undone. Tears were running down her face and they were doing an excellent job to rile up my anger. My left eye twitched as I briskly walked to the one who dared to touch my Holly.

"Keep your dirty little hands off of her," I seethed, clawing at his chest to keep him away from her. I could feel Alec sizing me up, his puzzled expressions traveling in the forms of nonexistent waves.

"Her body is not yours to touch," my tongue was rampant. Tugging at his shirt, I harshly pulled him away and slammed him into his best friend's frozen form. "Keep her out of it," I griped, getting annoyed. Turning my back on them, I touched her shoulders in a soft manner.

"Holly," I tried to be gentle, thinking of Sebastion and how warm he could be to other people. Her eyes met mine and she pressed her face into my chest, shoulders racking with tears. I guess she didn't expect this side of mine.

"I-I didn't mean to kill him. I love him. I still do." Tilting her head slightly, she faced Alec. "I'm so sorry, Alec."

I turned around with her to eye Alec and his goons.

"If only you had shown this much emotion when John was being murdered in cold blood. You could have stopped her, Holly."

Alec's voice cracked in the end, raw pain enmeshed with his deep and resonating voice. His hand was in the air, lips twisting in an upside frown as he furrowed his brows at Holly. Holly broke down completely, her heart breaking over his gut wrenching words.

"Leave," I ordered. "You have no business to be here."

Connor whipped out a metallic handgun and shoved it into Alec's chest. "Come on, make your move and shoot the bitch. This town loves to hide its crimes. Let it hide this one too."

His Adam's apple bulged as he took the gun from Connor's hand, becoming a slave to his demons. The pain turned into vengeance as he noticed her some more.

"For John," he mumbled under his breathe as he extended the gun out front and then pulled the trigger.

I close my eyes to meet with death. Finally.

A. N:

The End (jk 😂)

So Alec murders Savannah and she accepts it. Embraces it even. Only one chapter left and then phase one is over. Phase two of this book is even more challenging to write, a bit more dark and obviously it will reveal some of Sebastion's secrets too.

Until then,
Love.
-f.q.🥀