Page 21 of Whispers of Fire

She looks surprised at my answer.

“You swear a lot,” she writes.

“You have no idea, sweetheart.” I grin at her, enjoying the contrast of our worlds.

“Now don’t try to change the subject. Who did this to you?”

She sighs, biting her lips, a sad veil passing on her face.

“Mr Collins, he’s the one who hit my hands. And the time you came in my room, it was my parents, they had punished me that night.” She puts the notebook on the table, facing me. My blood pumps harder and I suddenly feel like torturing the three of them in the club basement. That would be a fucking great thing to do to people who hurt innocent girls like my Rose.

My Rose?

My?

Putting this thought aside, I reflect on how I’m gonna get back at them. Just what any concerned citizen would do to another one.

Yeah, right.

“They should have never done that to you. It’s fuckin’ wrong.”

“I wanted to thank you for,” she writes, then raises her hand between us.

“Yeah, hum, no problem,” I grunt, swallowing hard.

It wasn’t a big deal driving ten hours at night to come check on you.

Fuck, yeah, it was a fuckin’ big deal.

“You’re okay with me hurting your parents? After all, if they like to give you punishments, it’s only fair they get some in return too.”

Her eyes widens as if she heard something astonishing. When you hurt people for a living, you tend to forget what’s socially acceptable to say out loud, my bad.

Shaking her head many times, she writes, “Promise me you won’t hurt them.” Her blue eyes beg me with intensity.

“Can’t promise you that, sweetheart. Evil folks get what they deserve when they touch angels like you.” She shivers at the word angel and I can see a glimpse of fire in her widening pupils.

“Please,” she says, moving her full lips, making me read them.

Damn, I’m used to people pleading for me to not unalive them but this, fuck, she takes it to another level.

“You can’t let them get away with it,” I state, shaking my head. If it was someone else, I would have already killed them but seeing her protect them, it’s… I just can’t do it. I fucking hope she’ll get her revenge one day, but I won’t be the one acting on it if she doesn’t want me to.

Her eyes wander around the room, and I watch her, mesmerized by the sight of her in my place.

I fuckin’ hate how much I like her being here. I shouldn’t but I fuckin’ do.

It feels right. So much so that I could grab her and carry her to my bedroom as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Too bad it will never be a reality. I made a promise to myself to keep people away and I will keep it.

That’s the only thing that kept me alive.

I watch her quietly, my gaze lingering on her as she writes in the notebook. There's something 'bout her that's got me all twisted up inside, something that I can't quite put into words. Maybe it's the way she carries herself, or the strength I see in her gaze, even though she ain't saying a damn thing.

There's a flicker of something in her eyes, a vulnerability and a fire mixed together. It's strange, in a good way, communicating through written words instead of spoken ones. There's a certain intimacy to it that I kinda like.

“I like your place, you have so many books,” she wrote, handin’ me the notebook, showing the bookshelves on her right where she instinctively turned to when she entered.

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